Bianca MacCall paints the UK without filters. A childhood spent in a small Warwickshire village, surrounded by fields, flags, and fixed opinions, left a lasting tension—resentment mixed with recognition. Distance brought perspective. What once felt stifling now offers material. City streets, commuter trains, empty offices, pub corners, roadside absurdities—each becomes part of a wider record. The work moves between satire and tenderness, documenting both the ugliness and the quiet humor embedded in daily life. Influenced by documentary film and the strange poetry of the everyday, Bianca MacCall crops scenes with a cinematic eye, holding still the moments most people pass without notice. Within fatigue, boredom, silliness, and repetition, meaning begins to surface.

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How has your upbringing or cultural heritage shaped the themes and techniques you explore in your art today?  

On my ninth birthday we moved house, to a tiny village in Warwickshire. I hated it there. I  was bored. I was surrounded by farms with vote leave billboards. Now it is St. George’s  flags tied to the streetlamps. People would casually say the most bigoted opinions. Their  unwillingness to change was so frustrating. A generation of people who would never move. I was desperate to leave as soon as I could. When I was younger, I would have rejected  any idea of finding inspiration there at all. Now that I'm older, and maybe the teenage rage  has lessened, I am interested in documenting the entire range of the UK. I can even find  inspiration in the countryside. City life, suburbs, North to South. The good with the bad. I  have very conflicting feelings towards the UK. Especially now, with the visible popularity of  Reform, the hate seems to be rising further to the surface. With my art, I am just  documenting what's here, in its entirety. Sometimes that means showing the ‘ugly’ side of  the UK. But often I am drawn to the more absurd, light-hearted moments of daily life. I like  the silliness and joy that you can find here.  

Can you take us through the evolution of an artwork, from that first spark of inspiration to the finished piece? 

I constantly take photos and videos of anything I find interesting, unusual, or funny. I am  always documenting. I am deeply influenced by documentaries and mumblecore films. My  favourite show is How To With John Wilson. He has such a good eye for finding the  weirdness in the everyday. I find him very inspiring, I suppose he's a bit like an American  Martin Parr. This documentation becomes my inspiration for my artwork. When I'm starting on a new painting I'll scroll through my phone, sometimes going back years, looking for the right picture to grab my attention. I'll crop a photo, freeze a video, zoom in on the  interesting thing. Then I'll spend some time deciding on scale. Some things work better  small, others large. A tiny part of the original photo could become the focus of a large  canvas. It's considered but also instinctive.

My husband would say I spend a lot of time  procrastinating before any actual painting starts. It's probably true. But after my second  cup of coffee and maybe a workout, I'm ready to solidly paint for the rest of the day. I need  podcasts or music in the background at all times. Politics first thing (Pod saves the UK,  Politics Joe), then a mix of comedy (Middlebrow, So True, How Did This Get Made,  CumTown, Good Hang with Amy Poehler) to balance out the depression from the news.  My go-to for deadlines is Red Bull, playing songs on repeat and staying up late. I prime  panels, sketch and under-paint in the evenings, when artificial light isn't an issue. To paint, I much prefer natural daylight, the colours aren't being interfered with. Then it's just  slogging away till the painting is complete. If I'm reaching the middle stage of one painting, I'll start another. Usually, I'll have a few on the go at the same time, working on one while  the others dry. 

Has there ever been a time when the creative process felt more like a burden than a joy?  How did you navigate that? 

Often. It usually comes during the middle stage of a painting. It’s good for me to have a  few paintings on the go at the same time. I switch between them a lot when I get bored or  start to hate what I am working on. It’s rare for me to work continually on one piece alone  from start to finish. Spending some time away can really help, it always helps to go back  with fresh eyes. Sometimes that time away might have to be weeks or months to be able  to get back into the flow of it. If a painting really isn't working, I've learnt it best to stop  earlier than later. I have painted over many finished pieces that just didn’t turn out the way  I wanted them to. Now I'm getting better at spotting early when a painting just isn't meant  to be. Even though sometimes that might feel like ‘giving up’, the worst is to waste time,  not enjoying the painting, and be left with something that should've just been abandoned.  Not all paintings work, and if it feels like a burden that might be why. Painting is something  that I love to do, and even though it is my job, I don’t want it to feel like work that I hate ‘clocking in for’. It is so much better to move on and start on something that I can see  working than fight with something that just won’t.

Do academic institutions still play a vital role in shaping artists today, or has self-taught creativity disrupted this tradition? 

I wouldn't say they are vital. Personally, I was too young when deciding on a uni course. I  knew I wanted to go to art school, but even after doing a foundation course, at 18 I was  still uncertain. I ended up choosing Illustration. At the time I thought it would help me get a  job after graduation, but by third year I didn't even want to draw anymore and was thinking  of becoming a waitress. I think it only works if you are sure about a course, have inspiring  tutors, are learning new techniques, and use equipment you otherwise wouldn't have  access to. One of the few parts I enjoyed at uni was the printmaking studio. Even though  that didn’t become my medium of choice, I still love to create prints. I made the invites for  my wedding from linocuts. Being able to get access to new techniques and equipment and having the scope to experiment is useful. But depending on your profession, you could get  the same, or maybe better, education from short courses, books, talks and exhibitions. Art  is much more accessible now than it used to be. You can learn the techniques from the old masters on YouTube if you are dedicated enough to it. I don’t think that academic  institutions are ‘vital’ in shaping artists anymore. 

How important is it for viewers to understand the intended message of your work? Does ambiguity add value, or do you seek clarity in your expression? 

I enjoy elements of mystery and absurdity in art, like David Lynch. I'm not trying to reach  his level of surrealism, but my paintings are deliberately mysterious and cropped in a  cinematic way. My style is somewhere between photorealism and painterly brushstrokes.  Sometimes the narrative is more obvious. ‘Work, commute, repeat' is a theme that I often  come back to. Figures are clearly tired. They are dressed in dishevelled work clothes. The  view outside the train carriage dark, the light coming from the artificial glow of the bulbs,  reflecting the commuter back to themselves in the window. They can be very straight  forward. A basic commentary on life, on the patterns that make up the majority of people’s  lives, but viewers can take away different meanings. I don't intentionally lead. There is  always a familiar element, or a feeling or nostalgia, but sometimes in a dream-like way. A  reflection, a shadow, a glimpse of something, the image is less clear.

These moments that  are shown in my work are relatable in their mundanity but the mere fact of them having  been captured causes something else to rise below the surface of the painting. Often, we  move through those moments without noticing them at all. Every commute is the same as  the others. Could you remember the differences between any of them? Perhaps if the train is cancelled, or your phone dies before you make it through the barrier, but otherwise? By  creating these works, I invite the viewer to pause and remain in a place and time that is not usually given any attention. This attention creates the ambiguity in an otherwise clear  scene. What each viewer thinks of, or remembers, or wishes for, when they are invited to  dwell in the day-to-day can only be known to them. 

Do you feel a personal connection to your subject matter is essential? How has this connection shaped your work? 

There's definitely a personal connection. My practice is based on making closer  inspections of daily life. My art asks you to pay more attention, slow down, and find joy in  the everyday. Many paintings are something that I have seen. Sometimes this is a dog in  the window of a van that drives past me or a cat in the pub I go to with my friends. The  shadow of person in the window of an office I walk past on my commute. Moments in my  own life that I found funny or interesting or weird but always something that captured my  attention. Many of the scenes that I paint don’t have people in them, especially earlier in  my career, scenes with an emptiness to them. Public spaces without the public. I like  encouraging the viewer to pause in the moment of emptiness that I had noticed. A view or  time that maybe would have been passed by entirely if I hadn’t stopped to capture it.

This  has started to change with figures, people or animals, showing up more often. Sometimes  this may be my husband reaching out to pet a cat on the street or our own cat Bagel being forced to wear a tequila bottle top hat. These, like the empty streets and offices, are a  pause in the moments of silliness and mundanity of modern life. I like the nostalgia of  recreating snapshots of memory. Recently, this has started to include things that friends  have sent me. They'll message me saying ‘I thought you’d paint this’, so my personal style  must be quite obvious (at least to the people who know me best). 

How do you reignite creativity during those inevitable periods of self-doubt or stagnation? 

Sometimes taking a break is necessary, but I usually don't stop painting for more than a  week or so. Travel is the thing that helps me most. I recently went to Japan on honeymoon with my husband.The pictures I took on that visit have become the inspiration for lots of my recent paintings. The urban setting there is so different to Bristol where I am based. One of my favourite moments from the trip that I have worked into a painting was when we were  struggling to buy a train ticket and a guard appeared from inside the machine to help us.  Japan is a bit of a way to go for new ideas every time I am feeling stagnant. It doesn’t have to be far (or nice), just any new location and I’ll usually find inspiration from looking at  something new.

Another way that I try to get out of a rut is by looking at other art than the  paintings I am stuck on. I try to get to as many exhibitions as I can, seeing good artwork  always brings me back to a positive place artistically. Following my instincts in what I paint, not what I think people will like, has helped me. I buy good books, watch good films,  consume physical media and get out of my head. Exploring and seeking out unusual  events is always helpful. Have a weird weekend, be Louis Theroux.

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Throughout this conversation, Bianca MacCall returns to attention as an act of care. Paintings linger inside commutes, reflections in train windows, cats in pubs, dogs in vans, artificial light against tired faces. The scenes are ordinary, yet the act of rendering them grants weight. Academic paths, political noise, and social shifts form the backdrop, but the focus remains steady: document what exists, in full range, without exaggeration or denial. Ambiguity enters through stillness, through the pause that allows memory to surface. In the end, the work stands as quiet insistence—slow down, look closer, find the strange and the human inside the routine.