FOR Arts Sake, the Bond Street, Ealing, gallery, is welcoming back painter-printmaker John Duffin back for his second major solo exhibition there.

In City Noir – Vanishing Points, his  oil paintings and etchings draw inspiration from the dramatic tones and moods of Film Noir, to throw 21st century urban landscapes into bold relief.

On show will be new works featuring London landmarks including Borough Market, King’s Cross St Pancras, Bar Italia, Foyles bookshop, Park Royal Underground and the Hoover building at Perivale.

The latter is a particular favourite. He says: “It has long lingered at the edges of my Art Deco perception of the city and I’ve finally been pushed into making work about it by [For Arts Sake director] Brian Davis.

“I see it as a lost ocean liner landlocked in the suburbs, a beautiful piece of the 20th Century shivering in the London dusk.”

Of Borough Market, he says: “Another site that has been in my life for decades. I wanted to show how close it is to the river and the city, a bolt-hole just far enough away from the corporate world to still feel like a place of freedom and imagination, near to The Globe, where Shakespeare and his renegades once performed for Londoners.”

With echoes of Edward Hopper and L S Lowry in his work, Duffin is a storyteller of life and the human condition in the modern metropolitan city.

He is fascinated by cinematography, film stills, edits and camera angles and recalls a love for black and white films on his parent’s television set and the growing appeal of Film Noir.

“It seemed to take all of the elements of image-making and stretch them further,” he said. “Camera angles were wider, lighting was starker, and soft and hard focus were extreme. It was also contemporary and showed an exaggerated version of the actual world outside.”

A member of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers since 1991, his works are held in many public and private collections including those of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the Museum of London and the University of the Arts.

The exhibition, from November 2-26, 6-9pm, is free to enter with all works available to buy. The artist will be present on the first evening.