Michael Harding’s Brick Lane Selection is more than a curated range of oil paintsit is a chromatic memoir. Commemorating forty years of artistry and innovation, the Brick Lane Collection brings together colours that are deeply rooted in the cultural and visual fabric of a bygone East London. This particular release, the second in the commemorative series, draws inspiration from the artist’s time spent in the vibrant East End during the transformative 1990s. Brick Lane itself, with its blend of grit and brilliance, history and reinvention, becomes the palette from which these colours draw their spirit.
Part I of the Brick Lane Collection focuses on the warmest voices in the setspecifically, the yellows and oranges. These hues reflect the glow of late afternoon sun on worn brick, the flicker of neon signs over curry houses, and the saturated graffiti tones that once colored shuttered storefronts and back-alley walls. Each colour in this selection carries not only pigment and oil but an emotional register; they serve as visual echoes of a time and place shaped by cultural collision and creative explosion.
Michael Harding remains faithful to his legacy of craftsmanship, refusing to dilute pigment purity with fillers or chemical shortcuts. What results is a spectrum of paints that allows the artist to explore the medium’s true range, where transparency, opacity, tinting strength, and chromatic personality come through unfiltered. These colours are designed not just to fill space on a canvas, but to speak with depth, to resonate with clarity, and to offer serious practitioners of oil painting a toolkit of expressive tools as compelling as they are versatile.
In this initial foray, we dive into the three warm-toned standouts of the collection: Yellow Benzimidazolone, New Gamboge, and Orange Benzimidazolone. Each one represents a journey in pigment innovation and artistic potential, and together they form a vivid trilogy that sets the stage for deeper explorations in the parts to come.
Yellow Benzimidazolone and New Gamboge: Bright Notes and Golden Undertones
At the forefront of this warm symphony is Yellow Benzimidazolone, a vibrant and refined yellow built on the PY154 pigment. Though modern in origin, this pigment bridges the gap between contemporary chemistry and timeless chromatic elegance. Originally synthesized in post-war Germany, Benzimidazolone pigments are now celebrated for their stability and radiance. In the context of oil paint, PY154 offers something truly unique: a yellow that is both warm and slightly cool depending on its handling, making it extraordinarily adaptable.
Out of the tube, Yellow Benzimidazolone glows with a mellow golden softness, evoking sun-drenched linen or ripe grain fields. As it is extended or diluted, it reveals an unexpected coolness akin to Lemon Yellow, which adds versatility for artists who employ glazing, underpainting, or layered optical mixing techniques. Its medium-to-high tinting strength allows it to hold its own in complex mixes without overpowering other hues, making it a candidate for those looking to refine their primary palette with a more transparent option.
When mixed with Ultramarine Pink, the result bypasses the expected dull or neutral tones that usually emerge from yellow-violet combinations. Instead, the union yields a series of glowing peach and apricot tones warm and ethereal, like a sunset filtered through haze. This chromatic dance pushes the bounds of traditional mixing logic and offers exciting new terrain for painters exploring light, atmosphere, and subtle transitions.
Adjacent to Yellow Benzimidazolone on the palette is New Gamboge, a pigment that carries a name rich with history and romanticism. While the original Gamboge was a resin-based pigment with dubious permanence, its modern incarnation via PY150Nickel Azo Yellow resurrects the hue in a more stable and artistically useful form. This version of New Gamboge does away with the tacky texture historically associated with azo pigments, offering instead a buttery consistency and elegant transparency.
In its undiluted state, New Gamboge appears earth-toned, almost Raw Sienna-like, with a warm ochre gravitas. However, once worked with medium or spread thinly, it transforms into a glowing, amber-like yellow that seems to catch light and amplify ita metamorphosis akin to watching sunlight filter through a jar of honey. This duality makes it ideal for use in both underpainting and final glazing, adding warmth and vibrancy without overtaking a composition.
Pairing New Gamboge with Aqua Green, a vivid blend of Phthalo Blue and Phthalo Green pigments, reveals its full expressive range. Together, these colours generate a rich spectrum of greens that oscillate between vibrant olives and forest shadows. This interaction is especially valuable for painters working in naturalistic or landscape styles, where the interplay of golden light and green vegetation is central to mood and narrative.
Orange Benzimidazolone: A Versatile Blaze of Modern Warmth
Completing the triad of warm colours is Orange Benzimidazolone, which brings a bold, semi-opaque statement to the Brick Lane Selection. Based on PO36.1, this pigment is known for its high chroma and lightfastness, making it an ideal candidate for artists seeking an alternative to cadmium-based oranges. Its tone bridges the space between orange and red, pulsating with vermilion fire and offering a spectrum of uses far beyond the limitations of traditional orange hues.
Unlike cadmium orange, which can sometimes feel too blunt or dense for subtle layering, Orange Benzimidazolone has a more responsive body. It maintains the intensity of cadmium but with a flexibility that makes it equally suitable for bold impastos or transparent veils. This allows painters to use it both as a dominant note and as a subtle modifier within complex colour schemes.
In mixture, it proves equally surprising. When partnered with Blue Verditera soft, powdered blend of PW6 (Titanium White), PB28 (Cobalt Blue), and PB36 (Cobalt Turquoise)the result is a suite of earthy, architecturally inspired tones. The high opacity of Blue Verditer acts as a counterbalance to the radiant warmth of Orange Benzimidazolone, producing mixtures that evolve into terra cotta, burnt rose, muted aubergine, and dusty violet. These are not just colours, but atmospheres: the moody elegance of aged brick, the violet shadows of a rainy alley, or the quiet beauty of oxidized copper.
This complex character makes Orange Benzimidazolone an essential pigment for artists working in portraiture, architecture, or still life. It has the potential to infuse compositions with emotional charge whether that means fiery passion or the rich quietude of memory. It is a hue that tells stories.
Each of these three pigmentsYellow Benzimidazolone, New Gamboge, and Orange Benzimidazolone shares a common trait: they adapt, they blend, and they push boundaries without losing their identity. In the hands of a thoughtful artist, they become not just colours on a palette, but articulate voices in a visual dialogue.
A Painter's Gateway: Expression Through Warmth
The Brick Lane Selection by Michael Harding is an invitation to engage deeply with colour. These warm tones are not merely attractive they are tools for sensation and meaning. Whether capturing the russet charm of East London rooftops or the golden hush of twilight on an urban street, these pigments allow painters to convey emotion with precision and authenticity.
The refusal to use fillers or artificial drying agents ensures that each pigment behaves as it should, allowing the artist to experience the full expressive range of each colour without compromise. This honest, grounded approach to formulation preserves the material poetry inherent in oil painting, a medium built on patience, layering, and discovery.
As we explore these hues and their myriad interactions, a new lexicon of colour begins to unfold. Yellow Benzimidazolone offers levity and transparency; New Gamboge channels transformation and inner light; Orange Benzimidazolone brings force and balance. Their interrelations hint at a spectrum that is far from static it breathes, shifts, and surprises.
Chromatic Conversations: The Power and Poetry of Pinks
In the evolving saga of the Michael Harding Brick Lane Collection, Part II leads us into a vivid orchestration of pinks and violetsan arena often romanticized, but here, treated with a richer palette of nuance and artistic intent. These hues are frequently tethered to associations of flowers, softness, and tenderness. Yet, in the hands of discerning artists and under the keen curation of Michael Harding, they transcend sentimentality to explore dualities: the tender and the intense, the ephemeral and the enduring, the elegant and the rebellious.
At the forefront of this chromatic chapter is Quinacridone Coral, crafted from PR209. Far from a conventional pink, this pigment carries a yellow-biased radiance that injects warmth and intensity into any composition. It’s this yellow undertone that separates it from its cooler cousin, Quinacridone Magenta. Its transparency and crystalline glow make it particularly alluring for artists working in multiple mediums, transitioning effortlessly from watercolour to oil without compromising integrity or chromatic harmony. This pigment doesn’t just participate in the painting it dominates with grace, offering high tinting strength and a ruby-like depth.
When introduced to Blue Verditer, Quinacridone Coral embarks on a chromatic metamorphosis. The resulting blends form a lush spectrum of purples, meandering from wine-rich to shadowy mauve, reminiscent of dusky twilight or fading evening light on ancient stone walls. These tones are hauntingly beautiful, subtle in their translucency and powerfully evocative in layered glazes. Ideal for atmospheric veiling and textural exploration, these colors evoke emotions that can’t quite be named, yet feel instantly understood.
Another bold participant in this ensemble is Opera Rose, a dramatic presence created with PR122 and a fluorescent dye. This pigment arrives on the canvas not quietly, but with an explosion of vibrancy pulsing with almost surreal saturation. In oil form, such intensity is rare, as fluorescent dyes tend to be more common in acrylic or water-based systems. That Michael Harding has chosen to include it here speaks volumes of its expressive potential. While known for its fugitive nature, the oil binder may offer an extended life to this dazzling pink. It is a hue designed not for permanence, but for impact moment of brilliance that captivates before it gently fades.
The energy of Opera Rose reaches its most unexpected crescendo when mingled with Aqua Green. This pairing generates a surreal chromatic dialogue, creating violets that feel charged with electricity, almost digital in their vividness. Despite Opera Rose’s modest tinting strength, its theatricality makes it an unmatched centerpiece in experimental and avant-garde compositions. It may not overpower, but when allowed its own stage, it commands attention with mesmerizing charm.
From Dust to Flame: Violets Reimagined in Modern Oil
While pinks offer warmth and immediacy, violets dwell in a space of mystery and emotional ambiguity. They are shades that whisper rather than declare, offering a kind of introspection that invites viewers to lean in, to question, to feel. This segment of the Brick Lane Collection does not shy away from the complexities these pigments can offer.
Ultramarine Pink stands as a spectral presence within this group. Made from a modified version of the classic Ultramarine pigment (PR259), it trades in loud brilliance for soft atmosphere. Its muted transparency and gentle tinting power lend it a fragile yet powerful elegance. Bearing a quiet resemblance to Manganese Violet, Ultramarine Pink takes subtlety even further, offering a dusty rose profile perfect for understated transitions and modulations. It's not a pigment that demands attention, but one that rewards close observation and thoughtful application.
When introduced to Aqua Green, Ultramarine Pink reveals an almost mystical capacity for transformation. The resulting tones evoke stormy seascapes, deep teal shadows, and the colors that live in memory more than in nature. These aren’t hues of visual noise, they're melodies of mood. For painters immersed in impressionist landscape, emotional portraiture, or atmospheric storytelling, this pigment offers an indispensable tool for exploring nuance.
Quinacridone Purple (PV55) brings a deeper note to this violet symphony. Rich, opulent, and almost regal in appearance, this pigment carries an aubergine tonality that feels luxurious and contemplative. It is a rare guest in the oil medium, making its presence in this collection all the more valuable. With its strong transparency and intense chroma, Quinacridone Purple straddles the border between red and violet, providing a flexible and potent tool for artists who require both depth and versatility in their palette.
Paired with New Gamboge, Quinacridone Purple performs a radiant duet. The golden, honeyed warmth of New Gamboge tempers the cool gravity of the purple, resulting in bronzed browns and gilded siennas. These tones summon visions of ancient architecture, fallen leaves, and sunlit terracotta. The combinations resonate with visual depth, grounding compositions in an almost historical palette. They suggest the kind of aged beauty one finds in Renaissance frescoes or well-worn manuscripts rich in story, texture, and emotion.
This interplay between pigments illustrates the genius behind Michael Harding’s selections. These are not arbitrary pairings but carefully considered chromatic conversations that expand the expressive vocabulary of the modern oil painter.
A Painter’s Sonata: Emotion, Experiment, and the Intimate Spectrum
What makes the Brick Lane Collection so compelling is not simply the aesthetic beauty of its pigments, but the emotional terrain they navigate. These are colors that connect to human experience, softness and intensity, clarity and ambiguity, nostalgia and innovation. They do more than decorate a canvas; they shape its voice, its tempo, its resonance.
As artists, we often speak of pigments as tools, but within this collection, they rise to the level of collaborators. Quinacridone Coral is not just a warm pinkit’s a chromatic heartbeat, a visual vibration that speaks to energy and sensuality. Opera Rose is not merely a vibrant pigmentit’s a fleeting euphoria, a sensory jolt that lifts a composition into otherworldly realms. Ultramarine Pink and Quinacridone Purple aren’t just interesting colors; they are mood-shapers, tonality-benders, pigments that unlock emotional registers hard to access through form alone.
Even within the world of violets and pinks often dismissed as decorative or overly femininethis collection challenges expectation. These hues are reframed as complex, evocative, and structurally essential. Whether paired with the cool tension of Aqua Green or the warmth of New Gamboge, each pigment reveals new possibilities and emotional registers. This is the hallmark of Michael Harding’s visionone that honors the history of pigments while boldly stepping into the demands of contemporary practice.
Immersive Tones of Blue and Green: A Journey Through Earth and Water
In the third chapter of our exploration of the Brick Lane Collection, we shift our gaze to the atmospheric realm of blues and greens shades that echo the serenity of oceans, the depth of forests, and the clarity of alpine skies. These hues serve as quiet pillars within a painter’s palette, not only for their aesthetic appeal but also for their ability to balance compositions, temper warm tones, and inject a nuanced sense of emotional weight. This segment of the collection brings forth tones that are cool yet expressive, stable yet full of dynamic possibility.
Michael Harding’s approach to the chromatic roles of blue and green remains faithful to their historical significance while pushing their expressive boundaries with contemporary formulation. These are not merely colors; they are voices in a dialogue between air and earth, ice and vegetation, calm and vitality. The harmony that emerges through these pigments is not accidentalit is the result of meticulous selection, artistic sensibility, and a deep respect for both legacy and innovation.
Among these tones, Blue Verditer stands as a sophisticated reimagining of a classic pigment. Traditionally composed of copper carbonate, the historical version carried a sense of delicacy, modest in transparency and muted in strength. Harding revitalizes this legacy by formulating his Blue Verditer from a fusion of Titanium White, Cobalt Blue, and Cerulean Blue. The result is an opaque, formidable hue that carries significant visual weight, ideal for creating luminous sky tones or cool spatial depth in still life and portraiture. Though reminiscent of Kings Blue Deep, this modern Verditer reveals a slightly greener undertone, expanding its versatility and lending itself beautifully to intricate color mixing.
This slight tilt toward green allows Blue Verditer to perform gracefully when combined with New Gamboge. The union of these two pigments produces a rich spectrum of cool blue-greens, olives, and botanical transition shades that resemble the dappling light of a forest canopy or the soft shimmer of riverbed stones. The opaque strength of Blue Verditer is modulated by the transparent glow of New Gamboge, which lets light dance across the surface in subtle shifts. It’s in these chromatic interplays that the spirit of natural light, shadow, and texture is most faithfully captured.
The interplay between opacity and transparency is central to understanding the power of these tones. Rather than dominating the canvas with aggression, the greens and blues in this collection allow the painter to orchestrate an elegant symphony of visual tension. Every brushstroke speaks to the coexistence of air and matter, making these hues indispensable tools for rendering both the seen and the felt.
The Tension of Intensity: Aqua Green and the Challenge of Control
A pigment that refuses to be ignored, Aqua Green enters the collection as an embodiment of saturation and modern vibrancy. A composite of Phthalo Green (PG7) and Phthalo Blue (PB15:3), Aqua Green carries an intensity that is both a blessing and a test of a painter’s control. Its transparency, combined with an extraordinary tinting strength, makes it capable of overtaking mixes with even the smallest addition. But therein lies its unique allureit is a pigment that demands restraint and mastery, one that teaches the painter to wield power with purpose.
Alone, Aqua Green evokes imagery as diverse as Caribbean lagoons, ancient glaciers, and industrial patinas. Its brilliance is electrifying, instantly commanding the eye and suggesting scenes filled with vitality and crispness. Yet its greatest potential lies not in its solo performance, but in the nuanced harmonies it creates when paired with contrasting pigments.
One such contrast is found in its interaction with Orange Benzimidazolone. This vibrant orange, warm and earthy in its own right, draws Aqua Green down from its high-frequency register into a space more grounded, more organically aligned. Together, these pigments produce an array of weathered greens, burnt moss tones, and muted teals reminiscent of overgrown ruins or tree trunks soaked in twilight. These mixtures feel naturally aged, almost geological in their presence, and they are especially useful for painters seeking alternatives to traditional browns and blacks when rendering shadows, foliage, or the quiet corners of the natural world.
There’s a visual poetry in how these colors evolve together. Rather than clashing, they undergo a kind of chemical mediation, each yielding to the other until balance is struck. These results are not accidental but the fruit of a pigment’s personality being shaped through dialogue. Aqua Green teaches patience and strategy, turning what could be overwhelming intensity into subtle sophistication.
This balance is echoed once more in its reunion with Ultramarine Pink, a pigment that by name alone suggests it belongs to another color family. However, this violet-toned hue brings a lyrical softness when merged with Aqua Green, giving rise to rare and haunting color shifts misty violets, pale teals, and subdued blue-greys that feel like morning fog lifting from the shoreline. These tones have the power to suspend time within a painting, to suggest movement without direction, and emotion without narrative.
Beyond Color: The Philosophy of Balance in the Brick Lane Palette
At its core, the Brick Lane Collection is about more than color it is about expression, restraint, and artistic evolution. The blue and green spectrum in this segment reveals a tonal spectrum that captures both the macro and micro of the visual world. Whether it’s the sprawling hues of a turquoise sea, the subtle shift of light across mossy bark, or the spectral interplay of shadow across a figure’s jawline, these pigments deliver a level of dimensionality that transcends surface appeal.
This palette does not merely offer color as a decorative element, but rather as a conceptual framework through which to understand contrast, tension, and harmony. The colors speak not only in terms of hue and saturation, but in emotive registers offering silence where needed, and intensity when called upon. This nuanced capacity allows artists to choreograph an emotional landscape that mirrors human complexity. What might seem at first glance like a simple gradation from viridian to cobalt soon reveals itself to be an intricate conversation between feeling and form, between atmospheric suggestion and grounded realism.
What sets this segment apart is how it invites the artist into a process of exploration. These are not just colors to be used, they are tools for dialogue. Each pigment offers a unique challenge and reward. Some require delicate handling, others offer immediate strength, but all contribute to a balanced ecosystem within the palette. By placing these hues in the hands of the painter, Harding extends an invitation to rethink traditional uses of green and blue, to embrace their emotional undercurrents, and to expand the very language of painting.
There is something quietly revolutionary in how the Brick Lane palette moves. Rather than adhere to the hierarchy of primary and secondary colors, it places emphasis on transition, on the subtlety of in-between spaces where colors merge and identities blur. Here, seafoam might become a whisper of glacier, and indigo might flirt with forest dusk. Such transitions evoke not just visual delight but philosophical reflection: how identity, mood, and meaning shift in different light, in different contexts. This fluidity makes the palette a living system, not a static selection, offering continual rediscovery to the artist who engages with it over time.
Even the textural qualities of the pigments themselves become part of the dialogue. A granulating turquoise might suggest sedimentary erosion or oceanic depth; a smooth sap green may emulate the sheen of new growth in spring. These are sensory encounters color becomes almost tactile, capable of conveying temperature, weight, and time. The painter is not only selecting shades, but orchestrating sensations, moving the viewer through layered spaces of thought and memory.
As we prepare to close this exploration with the upcoming and final chapter, the role of balance becomes even more pronounced. The inclusion of Neutral Tint in the concluding segment will offer grounding a chromatic mediator that ties together the exuberance of reds, the serenity of blues, and the earthiness of greens. It becomes a hinge, a pivot point around which the entire palette can turn. Neutral Tint, in this context, is not about neutrality in the conventional sense, but about synthesis. It absorbs and reflects, harmonizing without overpowering.
It is through this lens that the Brick Lane Collection will reach its full expression, revealing a modern painter’s toolkit that is both grounded in tradition and brimming with new possibilities. In the end, the collection is a philosophical proposition as much as an artistic resource: that balance is not about equal weight, but about dynamic equilibrium, about the ability of diverse parts to speak to each other in unexpected and resonant ways. Through this, the painter is empowered not only to see differently, but to think differently to embrace the poetry of restraint and the precision of intuition.
Neutral Tint: The Quiet Force at the Heart of Expression
Among the many pigments that shape an artist’s palette, few possess the understated versatility and quiet transformative power of Neutral Tint. Often overlooked in favor of more vibrant or historically famous hues, Neutral Tint emerges in this final part of the Brick Lane Collection as a cornerstone of chromatic nuance. Composed of Lamp Black (PBk6), Quinacridone Violet (PV19), and Phthalo Blue (PB15:3), this pigment does not simply provide contrast or depth it becomes the fulcrum upon which entire compositions can balance.
What distinguishes Neutral Tint from other dark mixtures is its ability to maintain harmony while adding weight. With a medium tinting strength and a slightly bluish undertone, it avoids the heaviness that can accompany deep blacks and grays. It doesn’t deaden; it refines. This makes it particularly valuable in contemporary oil painting, where subtle tonal gradations and atmospheric transitions are essential to storytelling.
When mixed with colors already resting on the edge of darkness, such as Quinacridone Purple, the result is not just a deepening but a transformation. These two pigments together create dusky violets that evoke velvet drapery, smoke-laden twilight, or the ephemeral beauty of bruised petals. This synergy is not accidentalit reflects a purposeful orchestration of hues designed to push painters beyond obvious choices and toward more sophisticated color narratives.
Neutral Tint also engages with unexpected counterparts like New Gamboge, a warm, golden yellow. The outcome is almost alchemical. What begins as radiant and bright is mellowed into something mossy, aged, and complex. These muted, almost historical tones suggest the texture of antique fabric, weathered manuscripts, or forgotten architecture touched by centuries of time. This ability to evoke memory and atmosphere from a limited palette speaks volumes about the depth Michael Harding brings to pigment design.
In an era where many pigments are built for punch and immediacy, Neutral Tint reminds us of the power of restraint. Its ability to cool down vibrant shades without stripping them of identity, and to unify a painting without homogenizing it, makes it a vital tool for any painter seeking harmony. As a result, it functions not just as a pigment, but as a narrative threads connective tissue between disparate emotions and elements on the canvas.
The Brick Lane Selection: A Dialogue Between Past and Present
As a whole, the Brick Lane Selection is far more than a curated assortment of beautiful oil paints. It is a living conversation between tradition and innovation, encapsulated in pigment. Each color in the collection feels like a carefully chosen word in a poet’s vocabulary distinct in character, yet made to harmonize with others in endlessly expressive ways.
From the vibrant intensity of Opera Rose to the raw, grounded weight of Orange Benzimidazolone, the range invites painters to consider the expressive power of each tone. Every pigment reflects not only its chemical makeup but also an emotional register. Aqua Green shimmers with crystalline clarity, like sunlight on a frozen stream, while Neutral Tint anchors compositions with its meditative quietude.
The philosophy behind the Brick Lane Selection is rooted in more than chemistry. It’s about storytelling, about evoking the atmospheres, histories, and tactile sensations of a place like Brick Lane itselfa cultural crossroads in East London known for its ever-changing textures and kaleidoscopic influences. This collection mirrors that ethos. It reflects a spectrum that is not merely visual but experiential.
At its core, the Brick Lane palette is designed for painters who operate at the intersection of classical technique and modern expression. These colors aren’t just for replicating life, they're for interpreting it. The painter becomes a translator, turning memory into color, sensation into form, and silence into tone.
This delicate balancing act is made possible by the intentionality behind each pigment. Transparency and opacity are carefully measured, allowing for dynamic layering and glaze work. Some colors scream while others whisper. Yet when used together, they form a chromatic chorus an orchestrated whole greater than the sum of its parts.
What also sets the Brick Lane palette apart is its refusal to simplify the painting process. These paints invite patience. They reward experimentation. Each mixture opens the door to new possibilities rather than predefined outcomes. Painters are encouraged to listen, to respond, and to allow the material to lead. In doing so, the creative act becomes more than mechanical it becomes poetic.
The Emotional Spectrum: Painting with Memory, Atmosphere, and Presence
Painting has always been a form of emotional translation. It’s the artist’s way of making the invisible visible, of turning a fleeting impression into something tangible. The Brick Lane Collection leans into this idea with a full embrace, offering not just pigments, but emotional states. Every color has a voice, a presence, a story. Together, they form a palette that transcends time, geography, and style.
Consider what happens when an artist uses Aqua Green in juxtaposition with Orange Benzimidazolone. The icy edge of the green counterbalances the dry warmth of the orange, suggesting both tension and cohesion in a single stroke. Layer this over a Neutral Tint underpainting, and you evoke depth that is more psychological than visual shadows that carry feeling rather than just form.
In this way, painting with the Brick Lane Selection becomes a process of emotional layering. You aren’t just building values and tones; you’re constructing moments. Moments that breathe, that pause, that remember. The mossy softness achieved by blending Neutral Tint with New Gamboge can recall damp woodlands after rain, or the feeling of a leather-bound book aged by time and touch. These aren’t just visual impressions; they are sensory echoes.
Moreover, the Brick Lane Selection encourages artists to embrace imperfection and irregularity. The paints don’t behave uniformly and that is their strength. There is texture, resistance, and unpredictability, especially when working wet-into-wet or layering glazes. Instead of forcing conformity, the collection honors the idiosyncrasies of the medium. This unpredictability fosters artistic discovery. Each painting session becomes a conversation, not a command.
This is also where the role of Neutral Tint becomes essential. In a spectrum filled with coloristic highs, it acts as a kind of visual silence. It’s the breath between phrases, the stillness that allows the rest to resonate. Like the twilight that makes stars visible, Neutral Tint makes surrounding hues sing. Its presence is felt even when it’s not obvious cooling, shaping, and supporting other colors in their journey.
Michael Harding’s approach to this collection reveals a deep respect for artists as both craftsmen and poets. He doesn’t simply provide paint; he offers possibilities. The Brick Lane Collection is a manifestation of that ethosan invitation to explore, to risk, and to create with both intellect and intuition. It gives form to emotion and turns technique into expression.
For oil painters looking to push their practice into new territories, those straddling realism and abstraction, modernity and tradition the Brick Lane Selection offers a profound toolkit. These are paints that don’t just color a canvas. They speak, they remember, and they evolve. They are as much about place and feeling as they are about pigment and binder.
In its entirety, this collection stands as a tribute to the painter’s journey: one of reflection, experimentation, and expression. It honors the past, celebrates the present, and opens up the future of oil painting with grace and confidence. The Brick Lane Collection is not just a paletteit is a philosophy rendered in color.
