At the start of my second year, a trip to London ended up in a group of us going on a ‘First Thursday’ in London. in one of the galleries. I saw works from what is now my favourite artist, Snik.
The work that I had seen in the gallery and the three that I can still picture even now was a piano with a print on it called Dark Music Piano. I wasn’t interested in the front of the piano as to me it just had the appearance of ‘Tags’ associated with graffiti; however it was the reverse of the piano which had fascinated me the most. The second image down on this post is the reverse of the piano, a stencil which was of a hooded figure playing the piano, it was not the content of the piece that amazed me, but it was when I read that this piece was made up of 9 different layers. The 9 layers used had made the print almost look photographic, and I was amazed by the skill and time that it had obviously taken to create something this detailed.
The second piece that I was amazed with was a 9 colour stencil titled Yesterdays Breeze. This is where it became most obvious to me that the pieces were made from stencils due to how there were many different versions of this work, all with different colours for the hair, while the rest of the image was the same every time. I was amazed with how well the figure had been stencilled out, the amount of detail which had been portrayed in the stencils which I have found out now are all cut by hand. This level of skill is something which I aspire to one day be able to do myself.
The Third Piece of art is known as Kingfisher this is a print that has been made yet again from many layered stencils. The image itself didn’t strike me as anything special, as you see images of birds all the time, however I could stand there for a long time just appreciating the amount of effort it would have taken to produce 9 stencils which create such a detailed image such as this. The process and the detail from it had amazed me with this artist, he has used the style of ‘Graffiti’ artists but through a very controlled and time consuming process he has created an image which from a distance looks photographic and life like, where at a short distance you can enjoy seeing the many different colours and layers which have been put into making the image. Also what he prints onto, showing that you can print on paper, wood, even pianos and still have a great image afterwards is something which has inspired me to experiment more with what I create. When I look at this artists work it inspires me to create art, to want to make layered stencils and layered prints and slowly see an image come together while knowing there was a lot of effort put into the image. This style of work is something which I love, something which I would want to explore deeper in the future.
