'Memories From the Present': 'A Sheffield Kenopsia', 2021

The view is looking southwest along Charter Row here in Sheffield (Google Maps Street view - https://bit.ly/3DOeWcN ), on Easter Monday, 13th April, 2020 during the first lockdown. Shot during the 'golden hour' just as the sun had set what can be seen is one of the quietest moments Sheffield and everywhere else has seen. There was no-one walking around, no lights on in any of the buildings and zero traffic apart from the odd lone vehicle in the far distance.

𝑘𝑒𝑛𝑜𝑝𝑠𝑖𝑎
n. the eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that’s usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet—a school hallway in the evening, an unlit office on a weekend, vacant fairgrounds—an emotional afterimage that makes it seem not just empty but hyper-empty, with a total population in the negative, who are so conspicuously absent they glow like neon signs.

The painting references a still from a video I put together during the first lockdown that can be seen at the following two links.
1min 42sec YouTube video clip | 'Charter Row, Sheffield. 1st Lockdown. 13th April 2020' | www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRCqQpCe37Q

From this much longer 26min YouTube video -
'A View Of Sheffield During The First Lockdown. March To June, 2020.'
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF7vLpfLjQw