This wall was the first evidence anybody had of something going on, other than lots of aerial figures pulling tricks mid-air and the crowds of people gathered to watch. The whole painting on site took about 5 days in blistering heat. We watched the skin get applied to the framework of the wall-ride, the first target.
The first thing to get painted, the reason to open all of the paint boxes, unseal the emulsion, shake, rattle & roll, was this little piece which adorned the site, in depiction and semblance with the concept of lies, lies, lies.
Its hard to imagine the routes of traffic across a skatepark unless you actually skate or spend a lot of time watching skaters. Prior to the piece on the wal-ride it became clear that the arc of travel wouldn’t be as large as we had anticipated, so work could progress, although the slope didn’t permit us access because of the slope of the bottom of the wall. Somebody had some climbing rope that we tethered either side at the top, we had some noggins temporarirly screwed into the transition panels and we had a wall-ride of our own.
On the surrounding wall, I surprised myself by covering about the same area again in about half hour, with very large oversized objects (a runnin theme recently?). We ahd already decided it was to become a war machine of sorts, the wall-ride being the desk where decisions are made, and lies are broadcast. The outer, initial wall became the details of the screens being manned at the war desk.
We had about 16 scenes i think, including the JFK scenario, a perfume advert, UFO’s, Shell, G20 brutailty, Rodney King incident, see the painting for them all (including a hidden santa).
Amazing work from everybody at base camp, being led by the able seaman Martin, and his henchmen/women
For Justin & Lovely Jo
