Wall St.
For the blog I thought it would be fun to revisit some old pieces and tell their story. For this week lets head to downtown Manhattan and perhaps the most famous or infamous street there; Wall St.
I took the photos for this illustration in 2013 and that I ended up on Wall st was accidental, I was trying to shoot pictures of the deco sky scraper now known as 70 Pine St. I was trying to get shots that included the top of the building and also street level, not an easy task in that neighbourhood.
After walking around for most of a morning I found myself at the far end of Wall St staring up. I knew I wanted someone in the foreground walking through and I what I really wanted was a suited and booted banker. Crouching down and shooting up I waited for the perfect character and I took lots of pictures as he walked by. The image above is a photomontage of six of these images.
For the final illustration I got rid of all the cars and other people in the background, I wanted to leave the figure as lonely and isolated walking through this vast canyons of buildings.
I first released the image in late 2013 as a 40x60 cm screen print on paper in an edition of 50 and as a t-shirt print.
I took the central figure and used him for a window vinyl to promote a solo show at a gallery in Margate in 2014.
I revisited the print when I travelled to Brooklyn for The Other Art Fair in 2018 and produced the print in two sizes as a screen print on birch plywood with an epoxy resin finish.
The large version is 60x90 cm and at that size it really gave the image a new life, you can really feel the buildings looming over the central character. It was great to take New York images to New York and have them well received.
This picture of the large piece by the window in its new home with the East River below is one of my favourite pictures a client has ever sent me. The piece now hangs opposite this window and is described by it's owner as 'my favourite piece ever'. Which is nice.