Just the other day we showed you our first commission wall in 18 months, well, when we were done they then requested we do a second wall in order to, sort of, explain the first. It consisted of a legend so that people could see the actual drug logos and names for the abstracted logos we used on the original wall. Now I haven’t done any precise stencil work for a while, instead preferring the ‘get it in the edit’ philosophy of painting, but for this we only had one shot and it needed to be as neat as possible. I have to admit we did pretty well if I don’t say so myself. After completing this one they then asked about a possible third wall. Watch this space…
We were invited up to the suitably swanky Hill House in Norfolk to adorn their already impeccably adorned walls with some large scale outdoor id-iom artwork. Given that Hill House is often hired out for parties and events we thought we’d try and come up with something suitable and ‘In vino veritas, in aqua sanitas’ is the result.
The Latin phrase translates as ‘In wine there is truth, in water there is health’ and it is a sentiment of which id-iom and, I’d like to think, Hill House itself approves. The table tennis table in the same outdoor space was looking a little worse for wear so we decided to give that a little makeover too in order to match the newly minted mural. The place was lovely, the weather was great and the staff (when we saw them) were equally so. It was all work though as being artists-in-residence for the week left ample time to stroll the grounds with a shandy in hand examining the very many cute bunny rabbits that also shared the garden dispensing nuggets of truth…
This picture started off as a little something to do on a rainy Sunday. With the rain lashing the window, water was all I could see from my lounge. So it was to the watercolour paints i went which usually stay hidden away due to the absolute lack of skill I possess at using them. Then to compound the issue I decided to try and recreate skin tone – even though the last time I tried this I ended up with something akin to a beige black hole.
Well, with that looming over me it took me a long while later until I came up with anything. Finally it became this picture of a topless woman staring at the floor. It was Sunday after all…
A while ago I visited the ‘High Society’ exhibition at the Wellcome Trust and was very surprised to learn via a huge wall mounted infographic that the annual amount of money spent globally on the tobacco market is $625 billion as compared to $200 billion on the total illegal drug market and $825 billion on the entire pharmaceutical market (unfortunately i couldn’t find a version of the infographic image i’m talking about but have found more by the same guy, David McCandless, on his website atwww.informationisbeautiful.net.) This led me to thinking just how much the huge tobacco companies need to continue to sell us their product – and have us buy it. They have so much invested in continuing having millions of addicts that it boggles the mind. In some twisted way this led to the creation of Tobacco Bloom. So there you have it.
An A3 screen print on paper with unique hand finishing. Signed on reverse. Here is the ebay link
We did a few fake Tube adverts a while back but I’ve just found this one on the camera and realised that we forgot to share it with all the peoples on the interweb. Of course id-iom does not condone drugs in an official capacity but we do recognise that there needs to be standards for all parties involved otherwise some serious problems might arise and who would want that? Not us that’s for sure!!
All we’re asking is for people to heed the advice given on the advert. If everyone does there should be no need to get serious.
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