Popham paints her largest original landscape for Traces of Humanity

Monica Popham is one of the local artists who took part in the Traces of Humanity exhibition and did so “as it was a great opportunity to meet other artists and show my work in different cities.”

Ms Popham is a landscape artist based in London whose work investigates the interplay of light and architecture across Mediterranean spaces.

Known for her tiles series which sell out each edition, she had to deviate from this as “the requirements were to create large paintings.”

“So, it was also an amazing opportunity to paint my largest original painting yet,” she told the Chronicle.

The two paintings were created exclusively for the show and took three to four months to finish.

“They are paintings of Gibraltar’s architecture and light. I was playing around with my usual, very cropped, compositions but on a much larger scale,” she said.

In 2024, she won the Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year, which led to a commission for the London Science Museum, where her piece now forms part of the permanent collection. The work captured the renewable energy landscape of Orkney through her distinctive use of light and form.

Her paintings are also held in the Soho House Collection at their new Barcelona premises and in the Government of Gibraltar’s Art Collection, reflecting her many successes in Gibraltar-based art competitions.

Ms Popham is currently also exhibiting in Philadelphia, USA, at the Shape of Things, Lion & Lamb Gallery. She has just returned from there after visiting for the opening night of a group show with the gallery.

“It is my first time showing in America so it’s a really, really exciting milestone to reach and hoping it will lead to some more opportunities,” she added.
Forming the exhibition are two medium-sized works and nine tiles.

Rooted in architecture and sunlight, her paintings explore how Gibraltar’s Mediterranean light and shadows interact with architecture, capturing the changing relationship between nature and human-made spaces.