Two hearts living in just one mind

People are far more complicated than they generally realise or would lead you to believe. From the quiet unassuming man who sits opposite you at work but is, surprisingly, the life & the soul of the party come the weekend to the closet racist who you’d have thought loves everyone when, in fact, the opposite is true.  In Japan they have the concept of honne and tatemae which are words that describe the contrast between a person’s true feelings (honne) and the behaviour one displays in public (tatemae or ‘facade’). Unless you get to know someone very well it’s rare to know both sides fully but they still remain flip sides of the same coin.

Anyway today’s pieces are trying to express that duality that is contained within us all. Whichever aspect is on top doesn’t negate the fact the flip side still exists. Personally I think the key to happiness is trying to minimise the difference between the two. But maybe that’s just me. Anyway, I just love to get ambigrams into our work if I can and I think I’ve outdone myself with getting the angel/devil ambigram involved in a piece where it actually makes some sense. As I’ve put it on there twice (but flipped one of them) it reads the same whichever way up you have the picture so with a bit of crafty framing you can flip it round whenever you want to give your room a bit of a change so basically it’s like two pictures for the price of one. Bargain or what? Anyway if enough of these sell and there is a clear preference on colour scheme I may go ahead and get a print done. I could even tailor the colours to personal preference if there was enough interest. Oh and did I mention there’s gold leaf of some kind on there too? This one’s got it all. Just drop us a line if interested…

Cheers

id-iom

PS I’ve also stuck an earworm in for the title. This pic really does have it all now.

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The Keyboard Warrior

With the referendum now complete and the UK voting to leave the EU it would seem that all and sundry are out to vent their political frustrations on facebook. I can only assume everyone else’s facebook feeds are just some variation on the same theme as mine. Even those who seemingly had no political stance just a few days ago seem to suddenly have a full battery of opinions. And he’s not scared to use them.

Here we have a piece examining the repercussions of the first Brexit flame war. In a candid letter home to his mum from the frontlines in the battle for internet supremacy one plucky keyboard warrior is sure his righteous indignation will protect him and that it’ll all be over shortly. He thinks he’ll be back with his kids before too long. If only he knew. This is only the first salvo…

Cheers

id-iom

Food for thought

Given that we work under the name ‘id-iom’ we do enjoy shoehorning an idiom into our work whenever we get the chance. For today’s piece we were commissioned to paint something live for the Streatham Food Festival and once I’d got the idea of using the idiom ‘food for thought’ (meaning anything that makes you stop and ponder) into my head I was off and running. The design largely suggested itself at that point and all that was then required was some nice weather. Given the quality of summer thus far we were delighted to actually have a sunny day to work with and judging by the number of people who’d come to enjoy the food stalls I’d imagine it was a good day for all. And the brisket burger I had was spot on to boot. Win all round.

Cheers

id-iom

T’was bright but t’was just a dream – id-iom @ City of Colours 2016

T’was bright but t’was just a dream – id-iom @ City of Colours 2016

For our first trip up to City of Colours in Birmingham we’d been allotted a nice big wall in the Rainbow Arena to chuck some paint at. Given that it was our inaugural trip and we were working alongside a heavyweight lineup we were determined to make as good as impression as possible and decided to go with ‘T’was bright but t’was just a dream’. If you’ve ever had a dream so real that upon waking you need to take a couple of minutes to work out exactly what’s going on then you’ve probably got some idea of the inspiration behind the piece. A half remembered memory of something that really never was. It sounds quite vague but makes for a good picture. We even managed to get a cheeky little Birmingham reference in there with the latin motto of Birmingham Uni ‘Per Ardua Ad Alta’ which translates as ‘through difficulties to the heights’ which is probably quite fitting considering the size of the wall.

Once we’d finished it was time to catch up with some of the other artists and check out what everyone else had managed to pull out on the day. If you’ve not been before then it’s definitely worth a visit. Let’s hope we get accepted again next time…

Cheers

id-iom

Podiatric Princess

Podiatric Princess

Women love shoes. We’re not ones to make sweeping generalisations so you can take this fact as true. It’s also true that some men have a sneaker addiction but that’s not entirely relevant right now. There are even stories of women having surgery to reshape their feet just so they can fit into that perfect pair of Jimmy Choo’s but all of that pails in comparison to this lovely lady and her deep rooted affection for shoes of all kinds. Some might call it an obsession whilst other might simply label her as insane. As true as that might be she really doesn’t care as she’s the podiatric princess and no one can tell her otherwise (well, perhaps her GP but that’s not something I’d want to get involved with…)

Cheers

id-iom

City of Colours

Testing, Testing. Here’s a quick taste of one of the small elements for our upcoming piece at City of Colours this weekend. Cutting the City of Colours stencil proved trickier than first anticipated but I got there in the end…

Cheers

id-iom
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Square vagina cubed

Never ones to turn down a design challenge we made the bold claim that just about any word could be turned into an ambigram (a word that can be read the same upside down). In what I suspect was a moment of juvenile delinquency we were duly challenged (on instagram) to use the word ‘vagina’. In a piece i’m calling ‘square vagina cubed’ I think we’ve cracked it…

Cheers

id-iom

The balloon we thought would never burst

The balloon we thought would never burst

Here at id-iom we are relentless wombles and nothing escapes the all seeing eye for identifying potentially useful junk. In the  studio we had a helium balloon of unknown origin, but we had somehow acquired it all the same. Having been a strangely comforting presence in the studio for months now it would follow you from room to room without ever seeming to deflate. It was becoming quite the talking point. Anyway, after a few small impromptu beers on Thirsty Thursday we managed to lose the balloon. The next morning we tried to piece together our last memories of the old girl and this picture is our best attempt at a visual representation of our available memory. If only it was all a little clearer…

Cheers

id-iom

The Golden Squint

The Golden Squint

It is said that if you gaze at the sunset and squint just so you can see Mount Olympus – home to the entire pantheon of Greek gods. Trying to achieve this so called ‘Golden Squint’ has led many a scholar to his doom but this lady seems to have nailed it without really trying. I wonder what she can see up there?

Cheers

id-iom

The Invitation

The Invitation

As we all know body language is a massive component of communication and, if you’ll go with the flow and believe the brief bit of internet research I’ve conducted, apparently 70% of communication is body language, 23% is voice tone and inflection, and only 7% is your spoken words! What on earth does that have to do with today’s picture I hear you ask. Well, based on what we all know instinctively about body language what is this young lady trying to say do you think? She looks interested but is it an invitation? I know the answer, of course, but sometimes you have to work these things out for yourself…

Anyway, she’s done on A4 using the magic of acrylic, paint pen, pencil and looks lovely  and is currently available for purchase. Drop us a line if interested!

Cheers

id-iom