Royal College Street scores remarkably high on the anecdotal index. In 1873, it briefly played host to Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine, whose tempestuous partnership proved prolific and just as chaotic. More than a century later, Haricot Gallery occupies the same stretch of pavement — a loden-green-fronted space betting on artists on the rise without much of the reverential frostiness that still clings to contemporary art. Elliott Pittam's I'm Fine, How Are You? feels well-suited to the address.
"Royal College Street and Camden Town have seen their fair share of colourful characters," says Haricot co-founder Harry Raikes. "Elliott's characters, who are based on people around where he lives in London, will probably have a connection."
They've certainly got the patter to match. The exhibition's title lifts one of the great reflexive non-answers of everyday conversation. The verbal equivalent of a Pavlovian shrug, I'm Fine, How Are You? is equal parts lubricant and deflection. The paintings observe much the same etiquette — the sixteen works that make up the show aren't gunning for a climax either. Stills rather than scenes, they keep the plot stubbornly off-screen.
Elliot Pittam, The End, 2026, oil and acyclic on canvas, 80 x 60 cm (left/top) ; Happy Go Lucky, 2026, oil and acrylic on canvas, 150 x 120 cm (right/bottom) © Courtesy of Haricot Gallery.
The ensemble, though, draws on Pittam's own cache of Victorian tidbits, daily odds and ends, sketched and squirrelled away for later use. Vests loiter through the exhibition. Regulars loose on the booze. Pub tables thick with pints and cards — and an occasional dagger laid there with remarkable nonchalance. Gamblers' brawls and alehouse coos. Lidos packed to the gills and beds you'd rather not get off. Pittam traffics in vaudeville shuffle, reserving his attention for the extras in the play and everything hiding in plain sight — "things that people barely notice anymore because they're so familiar."
For Pittam, the point isn't "to recreate history or make nostalgic paintings," but to trace how the remnants "continue to influence how people move through the world today." Britain, in his telling, "feels like a place where different eras exist on top of one another. You'll see Victorian architecture, old pubs, statues and traditions sitting alongside tracksuits, vape shops and people glued to their phones. I'm interested in those overlaps."
Happy Go Lucky condenses much of Pittam's irreverent streak into a pair of telephone booths washed in neon lime. In one, a woman lounges cross-legged on the floor, Monday panties riding up, tiffany-blue stockings climbing past the knee. In the neighbouring booth stands her jovial foil: a broad-bellied man, hand on the hip, receiver to his ear. Pittam gives him the full treatment — teeth bared, one gone gold and a belly pushing its way into the conversation.
Elliot Pittam, 13,514 Days, 2026, oil and acrylic on canvas, 150 x 120 cm © Courtesy of Haricot Gallery.
By contrast, 13,514 Days stages a crowded frieze, a patch of grass trampled in mint and nicotine. There is remarkably little appetite for heroes; foreground and background trade places so casually that the eye gives up looking for a protagonist and starts wandering instead. Cricketers in cable-knit creams share the turf with a matron white-knuckling a snarling poodle. High in the branches, a snoozer remains every bit as oblivious to the petty larceny as the lovebirds on their bench. Avert your gaze, and trust that the fella crouching at your feet is simply tying his shoes. Then again, maybe don't.
Pittam rarely begins with "the intention of making something sinister." He starts, instead, with what he calls "a believable social moment." At which point, all bets are off. "As the painting develops, I often realise that a small gesture or object can completely change how the scene is read. A knife on a table could simply be part of the setting, or it could suggest something else. Someone reaching into a bag might be stealing, or they might not. That uncertainty feels closer to real life than providing a clear narrative."
That elasticity is what first drew Raikes to Pittam's work. "You want to know more: who they are and what they're doing," he says. "These wonderful characters he puts in his paintings make you ask questions. You've seen that scene, that person reminds you of so-and-so. You can let your imagination run wild. Elliott gives you more than enough to play with."
Portrait of Elliot Pittam © Courtesy of the artist.
Pittam's deft staging accounts for no small part of the raffishness of it all. Chalk-scored and subsequently rubbed into the same plane, his characters are all given equal billing. Nothing is left but to drift sideways across the composition, passing from topers to blithe loafers, snagging on a tatted forearm or a chipped candlestick rather than marching dutifully toward a focal point. The arrangement amounts to a pointed contemplation of the British social repertoire — tacit courtesies, ready-made bits, and other exit ramps. Pittam brings together "moments of humour, affection, awkwardness and potential danger," preferring "scenes that sit in that space without resolving them." After all, I'm Fine, How Are You? is the one we all trot out on cue.