Singular take on the cityscape

Richard DavidsonClapham Art Gallery, 19 September-7 OctoberSue Allen

Scratch the surface of any lawyer and you will always find that he or she harbours a hidden ambition - a book, opening a restaurant in Provence, buying a smallholding or becoming an artist.

For many, their hidden passions remain nothing more than an idle day-dream sustaining them through drafting documents and partners' meetings, but, occasionally, one actually gets on and does it.

In 1995, when he was just 48, Richard Davidson decided to put high-pressure legal life at City firm Baker & McKenzie behind him and join the Wimbledon School of Art.

Next week, he holds his debut one-person show at the Clapham Art Gallery, backed by his old firm.

When he left Baker & McKenzie, Mr Davidson had just completed nearly five years on the firm's management executive committee with particular responsibility for the firm's eastern European offices.

At that point he says: 'I was faced with the choice of going back to the cutting edge of practice, where it would have taken time to get to the forefront of deals and where there were not many people aged over 50 on the other side of the table, or rethink my future.'I wanted to go when people wanted me to stay rather than stay until they wanted me to go,' he adds.

Davidson joined Baker & McKenzie in 1968 as an articled clerk, becoming a partner in 1975.

He says he enjoyed City legal life 'nearly all the time'.

'I had wanted to paint for a long time, but the pressure and hours in a commercial firm means that you can't have a hobby like painting and do it properly.

I wanted to do it more than just as a hobby in any case,' he says.

Meeting him in his partitioned-off studio area of a huge warehouse in Clapham, it is surprisingly easy to imagine Mr Davidson as a lawyer.

He has a calm, measured air about him and despite the odd blobs of paint, everything in his creative space is tidy.

Mr Davidson's oil on canvas paintings are what he describes as 'traditional realism'.

The photo-realistic paintings portray everyday items of City life - black shoes, suits, briefcases - in unusual settings.

There is a pop art quality to the paintings and a real sense of humour which is best appreciated when the paintings are viewed together.

'Corporate escalator II' shows a series of empty pairs of shoes being carried upwards, or downwards, by an escalator.

'City shoes V' and 'City shoes VI' show rows of perfectly polished shoes lined up sideways in rows.

He says he hopes people will think about what the objects mean to them - for example, what a series of briefcases means to them, and the associations they bring to people's minds - while at the same time being visually appealing.

Mr Davidson says the paintings bring into play issues such as loss of identity, uniformity - and clothes as uniform.

'They are expressions of individuality within the anonymous world of the commercial office and urban commuting.' And that is something most solicitors are more than qualified to represent.

The paintings will be on display from 19 September to 7 October at Clapham Art Gallery, 61 Venn St, London SW4, Tuesday to Saturday 1-9pm and Sunday 1-5pm.

For information, tel: 020 7720 0955.