Since getting unceremoniously hit by a car whilst cycling down Belfast’s fashionable Ormeau Road I have started to draw pictures on people on bicycles. These people aren’t passive observers or ornamental decoration but rather are direct participants in the creative transformation of their surroundings.
The cyclists, with their over sized paint brushes and pens, bring light, colour and chaos to their monochrome worlds and in these drawings it is the cyclists who have to power to affect the change that will bring the city out of the dark and into the day-glo.
When I moved to my latest studio in Belfast City center the law firm who had previously occupied the place left behind some stacks of large format brown hard backed envelopes and up until recently I have been using them to post over-sized screen prints.
The other day, during my daily procrastination, I came across the envelopes and thought ‘I should bloody screen print onto these.’ and that was that. I knew that this vintage paper would work well with layered monochrome drawings with vivid splashes of colour and so set about working on the drawing that would eventually become ‘I can ride my bike with no handlebars.’
This piece is the first in a series of very limited edition screen prints of reworked drawings onto vintage solicitors envelopes and there are just ten of each with blue and pink detailing. In the gallery below you can see a few more details of the piece as well as the back of the solicitors envelope.
You can find the Pink version here and the Blue version here.
