Peter James Houghton

I remember growing up playing in ruins of abandoned Victorian cotton mills on the banks of the canal, and grimy tiled shopping precinct stairwells, and running my hands along the pebble-dashed walls of council estates, and the smell of burning plastic from vandalised fire damaged warehouses on the edge of town.

In my paintings I attempt to capture what remains of what I feel contains the dying soul of these northern towns and cities. It emanates through the old buildings and walls that still remain quietly standing defiantly on the precipice of regeneration. I hope by painting these places now I’m giving them a kind of dignified end-of-life before their fate turns them to rubble and then inevitably to luxury apartments or fulfilment centres.