Peter James Houghton
Painter of the vestiges of the Northern Powerhouse
Artworks
"My work tends to deal with issues like class, social decline, hiraeth and hauntology in northern towns and cities told through the remains and remnants of liminal and neglected areas".
Artworks
Urban Landscapes
It is not people as such that interest me as much as their human footprint and its effect on the landscape. I find it infinitely more satisfying to paint a scene or story as told by a building's scars.
Underpasses
The daunting scratched walls and tiles and layers of graffiti in subways offer a glimpse into generations of lives that have walked through them. I like this ruthlessly marked asymmetry over the original sleek modernist architecture.
Bins
An ongoing project of mine to attempt to capture public bins in all their decayed glory. I find them to have their own very particular quiet fortitude.
Salford Paintings
Salford continues to inspire my work with its ever-changing skyline. But it is the residual working class soul lurking beneath the new layer of affluence in this city that intrigues me most.
The British Seaside
The seaside in the off-season can be a haunting place tinged with memories of lost loved ones and punctuated by rusted remnants of a bygone golden age.