a few splodges of paint

Art It’s a unique experience seeing a painting of your own home on the wall of an art gallery. Not just my home but hundreds of others, all together, a history of domestic architecture all neatly laid out within the glance of an eye. It's within Ben Johnson’s exciting new vista, Liverpool Cityscape 2008 which was commissioned for our Capital of Culture year and is part of a mini-retrospective of his work at the Walker Art Gallery. Looking at the landscape straight on, our flats are at top right hand corner of the image (not including the sky), just behind the Anglican Cathedral, a speck in the distance. Funny to see the place I've spent the best part of fifteen years rendered in a few splodges of paint.

Johnson’s painting took up to a year, the last part of the endeavour under the watchful eye of gallery visitors. I didn’t visit then – I hate seeing works in progress, the better to soak up the artist’s entire vision and I’m glad I did – the finished product is mind-jangling. Even knowing that these days the artist uses computer models and assistants doesn’t draw away from the sheer amount of visual information in the picture and need to try and find all of the familiar Liverpool landmarks. The point of view Johnson’s selected is above the Mersey looking down on the town; we're briefly guardian angels of our own town, perhaps wondering where all of the people have gone (the only humanity in the painting is the artist’s brush work).

What struck me at least is that for all the pre-publicity about photo-realism, these aren’t documentary images. For a start, Johnson has painted in architecture such as the Museum of Liverpool and Liverpool One as they will be once they’re completed which makes this the look of the city in the near future, perhaps 2010. If there are any changes to these edifices then the image’s reality will become less certain; elsewhere in the exhibition, Walter Richard’s chaotic Modern Liverpool painted in 1907 bravely includes the Anglican Cathedral (not to be finished for another seventy years) with its original two tower configuration eventually simplified for reasons of cost and logistics.

But like all good artists Johnson is also keen emphasising some elements ahead of others for thematic purposes by selecting a particular topographical perspective. In his commission of Jerusalem, we’re looking down on the city from a far higher angle which allows him to include all of the three major holy sites and give them equal weight, the Dome of the Rock, the western-or-wailing wall and the Church of the Holy Sepulcre, having been tasked to produce an image that offers common ground between the three major Abrahamic faiths. We look at Hong Kong from lower down so as to emphasise the verticals of the city, sky-scrapers piercing the sky to the point that with the exception of piece of motorway ground level has gone, engulfed by greenery.

Liverpool is the most complex of the lot. Johnson seems to have decided to highlight those buildings that are part of the ‘gap toothed’ Liverpool skyline – the two cathedrals, St. John’s Beacon and the three graces, plus some of the new additions. From what I can see in order to do that he’s increased the curvature of the Earth so that the Anglican and Metropolitan loom over the city (which they do in reality, but not to this extent) and actually appear far further apart making Hope Street rather longer than it actually is. He also makes some details, such as the suburbs rather abstract and anonymous – I’d be interested to know if anyone living Toxteth way can pick out their home as well as I can. Of course, my sky line view of the city is from the opposite direction so is naturally going to be skewed, but if Ben Johnson’s to be congratulated its for creating a modern landscape that force us to question not just its content, but his technique as well.