1990s North Oxford: fatigued by private school, Vespers and Paxman walking his Labrador, intelligentsia brats vogued ‘ghetto’. Ever one to gain kudos and finding myself on a family holiday in San Francisco, I set my sights on Groove Merchant records Lower Haight: the target Cut Chemist’s Live at Future Primitive Sound Session. The meticulously planned route from Union Square Hotel came adrift. My sister and I found ourselves in the Hayes Valley projects. With street sensibilities founded upon listening to Task Force whilst punting in Mesopotamia. Aut viam inveniam aut faciam we hopscotched past burnt out cars, shorties and smashed bulbs[1].

‘Tech entrepreneurs are starting to peer out from their hoodies and explore the art world, and dealers and museum boards couldn't be more thrilled’                                                                                    Ellen Gamerman, Wall Street Journal[2]

Propensity of ‘Blodgety’ booms[3], pre-IPO loading[4] and swift tech obscelensence withstanding, proximity to Silicon Valley has served San Francisco well. Over the past decade troubled areas such as Hayes Valley and Mission have been revived. Hipsters, artists and boutiques now prevail. The ‘siliconaires’ collecting and providing patronage to the city’s aesthetic. Their pixilated preferences seduced by works with a digital twist[5].

The painter Alex Fowler (NEAC) first visited Mission in 2007 for a friend's wedding. Struck by the harmonic colours he vowed to return. The 2013 Christmas exhibition ‘Hill Town Paintings’ part dedicated to his subsequent 2010 exposure and 2011 re-framing in London. As a New English Art Club scholarship winner and elected member Alex’s work follows the dogma of slow and intricate pictorial statements. The legacy of Heatherley School of Fine Art (1845) resonating through proportion and colour combination. His delicate compositions a chivalric rebellion against the Royal Academy’s 21^stC. ‘abandonment of figurative painting’[6].

The work ‘Mission Street’ (2011) based upon a furiously paced sketch in situ. Subsequently reworked and enlarged in London. The vantage so languid it would appear the artist fell into his beer glass and painted from there. Acutely aware of extreme contrasts in colour temperature, the endless blue sky tempered by piquants of neon graffiti and mathematical palms. Paintings such as ‘Church Street’ and ‘La Taqueria’ continued the hazy combination of street colours and blue ether. The artist held in captivity by the warm evening light and evolving shadow patterns on Mission and 24^th.