Three men at a restaurant in Brick Lane

This is one of several works by Alison Pullen which were produced for the Museum of London and Royal College of Art project 'Peopling of London: Fifteen thousand years of settlement from overseas'.

Pullen's drawings concentrated on Bangladeshi businesses in Brick Lane, East London. She visited a number of restaurants including Muhib, at 73, The Shevaz, at number 13, and The Aladin Sweet Centre at number 132, where, Pullen noted, 'the proprietor made me very welcome'. The London-based artist prefers to work on location rather than in a studio. For this work she wanted to be 'as inconspicuous as possible', so she restricted herself in the materials she used.

To create the mixed-media effect, Pullen spray-mounted pages of Elle Decoration magazine onto card. She then completely or partly removed the surface of the paper using solvents and added colour using felt-tip pens. Pullen, who graduated from the Royal College of Art with a degree in Illustration, has taken years to perfect this technique.