Street art under a railway bridge near Brixton

There is a railway line that passes through residential streets in South London and at one point leaves a low lying bridge over a pedestrian passageway — and that passage is an art gallery.

Well, it’s lined with art as part of a local 7 Bridges project to prettify the local area around Loughborough Junction.

In fact, there are 9 bridges in the area, but only one is blocked off from traffic to make it ideal for this sort of art exhibit. Actually, it was only recently blocked off from traffic, and a wide pavement now replaces the narrow street that was there before.

The bright brick on the floor does a lot to lift the atmosphere replacing as it did the dark tarmac of the road that was there in 2012.

Sitting between two halves of the Cambria Road, much of the art displays a noticeable inspiration from rock fossils, although some new additions most certainly don’t!

I am not sure if it is good art or bad art, but at least it looks like art, and avoids the failure of so much modern art that simply doesn’t look like, well, art.

Some of the pieces are collages of materials collected together, others look more crafted from raw materials. I suspect that the way the bridge leaks water from above will over time add to the aging effect of some of the fossil based art works giving them a rusted patina of their own.

You can find the mini art gallery here.

This is the first of the 7 Bridges to get a make over and the others will follow on, funding permitted.

If you turn up at the right time, your artistic musing can be accompanied by the deep growling rumble of a heavy goods train passing overhead.

Oh, and whoever designed the 7 Bridges website needs to be shot as a warning to web designers everywhere. Fonts that can’t be enlarged for those who need larger text is an exceptionally BAD idea.