Two Trams, Lisbon
A watercolour on 300 gsm cold-pressed paper, painted in 2024, measuring 20 by 15 inches. The subject is a steep Lisbon street where two trams pass one another, their routes threading between facades clad in the azulejo tilework that has defined the city's visual character for centuries.
Lisbon's trams, particularly the narrow-gauge Carris lines that still climb the older hillside bairros, have long attracted painters drawn to the compression of the scene: the tight canyon of the street, the geometry of the tiled walls, and the yellow carriages negotiating gradients that most cities would have abandoned to cable or funicular. The moment of two trams crossing on such a slope concentrates all of that into a single, transient encounter.
Cold-pressed paper at 300 gsm offers enough tooth to hold layered washes without buckling, and at this scale the format gives the composition room to convey both the verticality of the street and the architectural detail of the facades. Watercolour is well suited to the subject: the medium's transparency allows light to read through the washes in a way that captures the particular quality of Atlantic light on glazed tile.