Cheltenham Promenade 

Curator: Welcome. Before us is David Davies’ oil painting, Cheltenham Promenade. Editor: I’m immediately drawn to the thick, almost buttery application of the paint. You can practically feel the texture. The urban scene is softened by a hazy, almost dreamlike atmosphere. Curator: Exactly! Davies here is using impressionistic techniques to capture a very specific moment in the urban experience. Consider what a promenade signified, not just as a place for leisurely strolling but also for public display, reinforcing social hierarchies. The carriages, soon to be cars, play a significant role in who can partake and how. Editor: And note the dominance of green. It speaks to a sense of place that predates industrial manufacture and the more toxic cycles of consumption. There’s almost a tension there, isn't there? A struggle between the natural world and the human intervention. I’m really drawn to the way Davies balances the built environment, and natural materials within a growing urban scene. It hints to the modes of transportation like horse and cart or early cars to emphasize that materiality. Curator: That interplay is crucial! These promenades were sites where bourgeois identities were performed and reinforced through both the material of dress and, later, the vehicles they were afforded. This intersection of social mobility, class, and access can be seen throughout these sorts of works produced during this timeframe. Editor: I wonder about the actual lived experience, too. Were Davies' paints mass-produced, or carefully crafted using time intensive means. Was this labor viewed as skillful work, craftwork, or simple a profession? The cost and labour definitely affected who might afford something like this painting or, of course, the depicted vehicle. Curator: The production and material analysis opens doors to examining Davies' positionality as the creator in the social landscape that birthed the image itself. We can appreciate its aesthetics while keeping in mind the narratives and systems at play. Editor: Yes! Thinking about this painting in terms of its process really shifts how we see even its more purely aesthetic qualities, I think. It’s changed my reading of this moment on the promenade altogether. Curator: Indeed, considering Davies' place in culture helps make the visible invisible!