The Camera

Art by Iris Bowdler.

Behind an unassuming garden fence, there stand four keyhole arches painted in a sun-bleached ochre. Flashing yellow through a short trellis, they peer out onto a row of terraced houses and, walking up the street, I catch their gaze. I have arrived at John Tordoff’s home and studio. 

After moving to Cambridge in 2009, John has become a well-established figure in the local cultural scene. A painter and artist who works mainly with collage and acrylic, he is an active member of the Cambridge Drawing Society. His art has been displayed in the Grafton Centre, the Cambridge branch of the University of the Third Age, and, most recently, the Locker Café. Alongside painting, he is a prolific gardener and, in 1996, his home garden (he was then living in Hackney) won the BBC Gardeners’ World competition. 

After offering me a cup of tea – which I accept, taking a ginger nut for safe measure – John walks me around his home. We begin our tour at the end: looking at some recent paintings that John has (almost) completed and hung on the living room wall. He will let these hang here for a few weeks, under the surveillance of quotidian life, and decide if they need some finishing touches or if they’re safe to go out into the world.

One of the paintings, taking inspiration from Manet, places the viewer in a café overlooking a conversation between a customer and a person working behind the bar. Just in front of the viewer are the remnants of a meal that, though not labelled, is clearly from Pret a Manger – the streets of Paris are both close and far. In the studio at the top of his house, Manet’s influence continues. John shows me his interpretation of Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe: replacing the image of the once scandalous naked woman, picnicking with two men, is a young man lying prone and bare, facing two fully-clothed women. The dark woods of Manet’s original are replaced by the light surroundings of a public park. In both of these paintings, we are invited as voyeurs into a world that is at once public and intimate – John’s smile, typically warm, turns mischievous as he tells me about both of these works.

“I prefer to work quickly,” explains John as we sit in his studio, “and I’m interested in lines and grids.” Using fragments from newspapers and magazines as a base, the subjects of John’s multimedia pieces range from the buildings and landscapes of Cambridge, to portraits of friends, to comments on contemporary politics. In one uncharacteristically forthright painting, made following the invasion of Ukraine, Putin stands in front of a wall that is emblazoned with the words ‘Thou art weighed in the balance’. Moving between political seriousness and voyeuristic humour, John’s work as an artist seeks to bear witness to a world full of both light and dark.

Sun shines into the high-ceilinged studio as John reflects on the realities of earning a living as an artist: “I’m fortunate that I don’t have to keep body and soul together with my art”. Having worked as an actor for over 50 years – with appearances in Coronation Street and Doctor Who – John’s career in painting only really began to burgeon after his move away from Hackney to Umbria in 2004. Despite its relative novelty, John traces his love of art – and his talent in it – back to his father, who taught him about drawing and the use of perspective. How has he nurtured his talent since then? “I try to paint every day. Even on the darkest days, it’s important to get up and paint.”

Walking downstairs, John shows me a set of maquettes that he made out of aluminium sheets a few years ago. Inspired by Cubism, Picasso’s work in particular, the figures depict kings and acrobats. Next to a miniature replica of the Venus de Milo, one of these maquettes is painted in bright blocks of colour and balances on a decoupaged plinth: lines and grids combine in dynamic harmony. His mantelpiece – like the rest of his home – dances with a lifelong fascination with art, form, and play.

John Tordoff’s paintings are currently on display at the Locker Café. In July, he will be participating in Cambridge Open Studios 2024.

By Troy Fielder.