Ikonoklast at Wreckwiem, Milton Keynes

This piece was painted at an event called ‘WRECKWIEM’ in November 1996. It was held at a superclub near Milton Keynes called The Sanctuary.

Aerial map of where it was held

The company who owned the super-club also redeveloped the old Institute in Birmingham and renamed it The Sanctuary under the operational guidance of ATHLETICO which I designed for (that’s another story)

We painted a piece entitled ‘Wires, Pliers and Jungle Fliers’ 2m x 20m long). On the wall were: CHU, PART2, SYSTEM, JUICE 126 and KID ACNE. All of whom were IKONOKLAST members for that year! It was FREEZING and we also had to erect our own hoardings.

We painted under the street light and quickly got to work as the cold was jeopardising the performance of the cans. System and Part2 painted portraits of one another, whilst Juice126 performed a junglist waterfall central to the piece. Kid Acne vibed some character work either end and I created these symetrical portals surrounding and framing the central portion.

When I digitised these from negatives in Jan 2009, it became clear (especially from the detail of my section) that my style of work that I’m creating now isn’t too far removed from this machine style back then, 12 years ago!