DANCING WITH HOLOGRAMS AND THE GHOSTS OF EAST LONDON

Watching holograms of the band ABBA perform their hits between some electrical substations and London’s largest gravel pit has to be one of the strangest slices of what’s happening in East London right now.

The ABBA Voyage holograms themselves were developed by Steven Spielberg’s special-FX company Industrial Light & Magic, and now live in a custom built temporary venue on the disused site of the 2012 London Olympic Games. Other than the music venue though… there’s kind of nothing else here on Pudding Mill Lane… other than the remnants of East London’s own industrial past.

Ever since I saw the swirling glowing LED signs of the ABBA Arena shining out between the nearby buildings, and through the infrastructure of the railways, concrete yards, and electrical grid that otherwise find a home here, I knew I wanted to paint it.

I wanted to wait until I was ready to make a large painting of it though, because I think the weirdness of it all really comes from just how alien this venue is, landed like a UFO onto this post-industrial landscape. This is actually my 100th oil painting since I decided to start learning to paint a couple of years ago, and I’m so pleased I could make a giant (by my standards) painting to capture more of the surrounding landscape, and the contrasts of this place.

I’m no hater though! Seeing the crowds of happy, fancy-dressed, party-ready ABBA fans flocking to this otherwise empty part of East London is always really fun I think! Whenever you see a lost looking group of over-60’s wearing cowboy hats, and feather boas walking by the local magistrates court… you just know they’re looking for the DLR train that will drop them right onto the doorstep of the arena itself.

The ABBA Voyage arena is just a temporary structure though, and once the crowds flock a bit less, it will be taken down and shipped off to land in another car park, in another city, somewhere off in another country. So, until the bulldozers arrive once again, we can dance and sing with these holograms making a home on top of the bones of what once came before.