Diana Neale b. 1949
Frame: H. 32.5 cm. x W. 3 1 cm. x D. 2 cm.
In this incandescent urban nocturne, Diana Neale not only captures the apocalyptic grandeur of Turner's great fire paintings but also continues the legacy of Fred Uhlman's cityscapes. The blazing orange sky recalls Turner's Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons (1835), where he captured what The Times called flames of "a livid hue of a most unearthly description", but here condensed into a perfect square that burns with the concentrated heat of Manhattan at midnight. Like Turner, who rushed to witness London's conflagrations and translate their "surpassingly grand" drama into paint, Neale understands that cities are essentially fires waiting to happen: all that energy, all those lives compressed into vertical towers beneath volcanic skies.