BBC Radio London – London Uncovered, The artists combining art and sound on the London Underground

A new exhibition called ‘Underground (and Surface)’, by Jock McFadyen and Jem Finer, has opened at the Guildhall Art Gallery in the City of London. It features huge paintings of London cityscapes and Tube stations, as well as layered recordings of the Undergound’s creaks, groans, and grinding of rails.

Much of McFadyen’s work is expansive, but his underground paintings, many of which were done in the 1990s, provide a counterpoint. Jem Finer, of the Pogues, has attempted transform these paintings into a living, breathing organism with field recordings of the Northern and Central Lines. His recordings are both mechanical and melodic, and punctuated by a range of common, but hard-to-place, urban noises – the creaks, groans, and pips that accompany commuters.

(Image credit: Jock McFadyen via Guildhall Art Gallery)

Show less