Schaffhauserstrasse
Oil on canvas · 80 × 120 cm · 2021
After meeting a friend in Zürich one afternoon, I was walking back toward the station when I passed Kafi Freud on Schaffhauserstrasse. People were sitting outside in a bright wedge of sun, coffee cups on the little tables, and the whole scene had a warm, easy glow to it. I took a photo from across the street and painted it later.
I ended up cropping the faces out of the frame. To me that makes the picture more interesting — you still get the leaning-in, the gestures, the shape of a good conversation, without needing to know whose it is. I might turn it into a series one day: faceless people, chatting over coffee.