After a couple weeks of working around train delays, heavy snowfall and illness from certain member’s of the Stars, we’ve pulled together some nice pieces. The space by our own admission isn’t the easiest to work in as it’s been one of the coldest winters we’ve ever had in the UK, the lack of heating in the space has made it a challenge but all the more impressive that the artists have gotten on with the job.
The variety of illustration work on each window pane shows diverse snapshots of a scale and playful images. Each artist has taken it upon themselves to have fun on their space and to experiment with something a little different.
To see the whole image gallery from this project, click here.
My (Geo) approach to this space was to experiment with scale and the feel of transparency when working onto the windows. I had fun at first drawing a giant bear and took ages to decide whether to fill him in with black paint. From the outside it looks imposing and plays with the aspect of inverted image. My second piece was to draw to a winter theme, I suppose this was hugely due to the adverse cold conditions in the space and at the time it’d been snowy and frosty.
By Geo Law
Left by Geo Law & Right by Sarah Abbot
Thomas Ball excelled in playing around with landscape scenery, juxtaposing it against the view outdoors where buildings obscure the skyline, he painted mountain ranges and forced through a river painting it across the space itself. Joining the river from the other side of the space, Thomas has also spent time painting a giant bird who’s malting feathers merge with the indoor river.
By Thomas Ball
By Thomas Ball
Sarah Abbot is our group’s flourish artist, in the past she’s leant her typography and symbolic painting skills to us for finishing touches. From her work on the windows we have a very botanical wintery feel placing itself against the outside backdrop. Sarah has been able to interweave and merge her style with the other artists on their windows, helping each piece loosely tie itself together with other adjacent work.
By Sarah Abbot
By Sarah Abbot
Nick Deakin and Lord Bunn collaborated together on their window piece, choosing to streamline their use of lines and create scaled up characters in pure solid black acrylic. Their characters both take up the window space as a whole but also extends onto the floor, a feature that you may only notice when you’re inside the space. Their clean and bold approach is very simple and lends well to their playful approach to illustration.
By Nick Deakin & Lord Bunn
Jane Faram has taken to the space with playful imagination and childlike nostalgia, her signature birds, ribbons and bird houses adorn the front window/ door panels and work really well alongside Sarah’s floral flourishes. Her pen work is not as simple and bold as most of the groups but the attention to line and detail is impressive. She’s drawn and painted a carousel horse on the other side of the building which is brilliant and looks out down a hill for passers by to see. Her drawing is situated in “craft corner” an area assigned for children to take part in arts and crafts, I’m not too sure if she chose this area by accident or she was being very clever, either way the horse adds touches of child like memory.
By Jane Faram
Bottom Area by Sarah Abbot & Top Area by Jane Faram
Mute’s window piece manages to spread across 3 panes with its homage to computer gaming, an area of interest which is very diverse across most ages. His piece links together many famous icons and symbols from various popular video games from Super Mario to The Legend of Zelda. Before this project, Mute was concerned about how his style would translate onto windows with the use of Posca pens, but from what we all could see, he has an eye for good layout and balance mural work even if he’s sacrificed his signature depth in detail.
By Mute
By Mute
Lucy Robert’s piece is playful and reminiscent of something from a poem or children’s story, with a picture of a hunter shooting down foxes attached to balloons, the description alone sounds baffling but it’s pleasant to see when walking around the space. Her work seamlessly sits along side Sarah’s flourish work and balances against some of the more bolder styles in the space.
By Lucy Roberts
By Lucy Roberts
Hailey Evenett has taken to her signature style of surreal faces and animals, in her piece we see a rat emerging from a cat, a slightly darker piece compared the rest of the works in the space, she’s chosen to play with colour fills in a more subtle minimal approach.
By Hailey Evenett
Louise Wheeler has also chosen to have her image spread from window to floor with her giant illustration of a head peering from the window. The white fill in the eyes gives this piece a creepy but effective feel as the drawing peers at both people outside and inside of the space.
By Louise Wheeler
By Louise Wheeler (left)
Joseph Feather was a late comer to this project but has slotted in nicely with his conceptual piece of letting your thoughts fly away. Joe has interesting ideas and his style derives mostly from the music he listens too, his line style has that urban thickness to it.
By Joseph Feather
Alix Peck (or as Polish as the group calls him) came into this project later on after falling victim to the weather and flu. It was Alix’s first time working in the space in the freezing cold temperatures which led him to reflect this in his illustration. And yes it’s constantly cold in that place.
By Alix Peck
SO WHAT NEXT?
This was initially the first part of our group project, after a little rest and pleasure over the Christmas holidays we’ll be back in the space to plan our first group exhibition in January. Be on the look out for details of this from this page.
For now, we’d like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
THE STARS IN STRIPES 