Artists Inspired by London: Alex Rennie

London keeps changing and keeps pulling him back

Alex Rennie is a painter who continues to be inspired by London. We speak to him about the evolution of London and how he keeps finding new ways to paint the London skyline.

How did London become such an inspiration to you how did you come to make it your muse?

I grew up in the East End (West Ham fan) and moved to Harrow aged 10. Since then I've lived all over the capital from Chiswick to Lewisham; Deptford to Wandsworth. Like so many, I'm a reluctant exile in Woking but I travel in daily to work at Wimbledon Art Studios.

In the early part of my career, I was greatly inspired by classical painters such as Claude, Turner and Canaletto and their ability to capture light. Every time I travelled in to buy my art materials from artist supply shop Cornelissen (pre-internet) I would spend hours pacing around the National Gallery.

I think I wanted to emulate the atmosphere and the grandeur the Old masters had depicted and the bridges along the Thames, and the magnificent skyline seemed the best place to start.

Over the years, my various commutes have taken me through the heart of the capital and (maybe unusually) I would love the feeling of being swept along by the crowds, like a water droplet in a tidal flow. I've never really said this before but I'd also feel some sort of energy as I walk around the city, imagining all the footsteps that have trodden underneath mine for hundreds of years.

Finally, the jumble of classical, brutal and contemporary architecture is utterly compelling and while the beautiful St. Paul's is almost always the touchstone in my compositions, I'm glad Sir Christopher Wren's plan for a grid street layout after the Great Fire never came to pass.

Beneath the paywall

• What keeps him coming back to London

• His favourite and least favourite change to London over the years

• His London hidden gems