The International Marbella Set
Showing posts with label American street artist Frank Shepard Fairey works on his latest piece. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American street artist Frank Shepard Fairey works on his latest piece. Show all posts

Saturday 23 June 2012

American street artist Frank Shepard Fairey
.Photograph: Teri Pengilley

The natural territory of the street artist Shepard Fairey would seem to be as all-American as it gets. Emerging from the country's skateboarding scene he achieved global prominence with his much copied, much parodied Hope poster displaying a stylised Barack Obama in shades of blue and red.

He spent much of Friday assembling his latest street mural in a seemingly less likely locale – a suburban street in Turnpike Lane, one of north London's more economically mixed neighbourhoods.

Hoisted aloft by a rented cherry picker, the 42-year-old artist used stencils and paint to create Envision, an image of a giant, stylised eyeball design, set in the frame of a disused Victorian placard site on the wall of a local shop.

The unlikely public commission, carried out with any charge by the artist, was the almost accidental result of a wider community regeneration programme carried out by the local council, Haringey, and the green travel charity Sustrans.

In getting together to decide options for more pedestrian-friendly street layouts, locals pondered what to do with the crumbling and slightly tatty shop wall, and decided the existing frame left by the long-disappeared Victorian placard would be best filled by a mural.

James Straffon, a local who helped organise the project, went to a London art gallery specialising in graffiti artists to seek help.

He said: "The woman from the gallery asked: 'Ideally, who would you like?' I said: 'I know it would never happen, but Shepard Fairy.' She said: 'Shall I get in touch with him, then?' I stuck my neck out and said yes and sent them a diagram with the sizes, thinking nothing would happen. Literally a week later they said, he's interested and he's coming over."

Straffon says he remains unsure why such a celebrated artist would be interested in a relatively out-of-the-way location. He said: "I think what sold it was that it's an old Victorian billboard. I think they like the fact it's the old London thing."

Before Fairey arrived, Straffon and some neighbours spent a day preparing the wall, painting it in a specified shade of red for a background to the stencilled design.

The US artist and his team spent several hours in decidedly mixed weather putting the design in place. Straffon said: "He's come from west coast America to dreary, sodden London. He must be thinking: 'Great, I've got to do this.' It's quite windy, too."

Another oddity is that this is Turnpike Lane's second work by a globally-known street artist in a matter of months. Last month, a mural believed to be by Banksy, a rough UK equivalent to Fairey, appeared on the wall of the area's local Poundland shop, showing a child sweatshop worker sewing jubilee bunting.

Categories

'Cheating' Chilean miner rescued (1) 'Codependency is not about a relationship with an addict (1) 000 inhabitants (1) A Pole Addict's 12 Step Program: Step 12 (1) ADDICTED TO LOVE (1) CONTINUE ENGAGING YOUR PRIMARY MATE (1) Celebs manage a quiet divorce (1) China’s aggressive new regulations aimed at cooling off the nation’s real estate market have led to the first decline in housing prices in 16 months (1) Courtney Cox was cheating (1) Depression (1) Hollywood ex-romance: Shia LaBeouf and Carey Mulligan confirm their Split (1) INVEST IN A “PAY-AS-YOU-GO” PHONE (1) Jerry Hall former model and wife of Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger (1) Joaquin Villanova (1) Juhu-based actress has lodged a case against her husband and his two brother-in-laws from his first marriage for cheating and threatening her. (1) Successful businesses must focus on relationship building (1) That was the best sex ever (1) Tiger Woods Tiger hole number 3 (1) What is Compulsive Sexual Behavior (1) as ‘outrageous’ for a municipality of 30 (1) but she didn't give up looking for me at just one strip club. (1) control battles take place (1) denounced the salary of the Mayor (1) has revealed her ex-husband’s addiction for poker and women. (1) husband was having sex with someone else (1) it is the absence of relationship with self (1) mood swings and irritability - these symptoms are more visible in men when they break up with their girlfriends. (1) signs of a cheating wife you can't ignore (1) “It was like she was stalking me. “She definitely knew who I was and wanted to meet me and talk things over (1)

Unordered List

Disclaimer

Disclaimer: The statements and articles listed here, and any opinions, are those of the writers alone, and neither are opinions of nor reflect the views of this Blog. Aggregated content created by others is the sole responsibility of the writers and its accuracy and completeness are not endorsed or guaranteed. This goes for all those links, too: Blogs have no control over the information you access via such links, does not endorse that information, cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information provided or any analysis based thereon, and shall not be responsible for it or for the consequences of your use of that information.

Blog Archive

Pageviews from the past week

Subscribe via email

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Members

Powered by Blogger.

Translate

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Popular Posts

THE INTERNATIONAL MARBELLA SET

THE INTERNATIONAL MARBELLA SET

Popular Posts