Emulsion and paint pens on torn section of billboard poster and wallpaper in wood frame strung with shoelaces.

50x100cm

£1,950

A painting that charts the history of the black horse.

In a city, street art and advertising operate in the same space – a constantly evolving playground of taste and values, of appropriation and attention, of layers and symbols. The city of Bristol has become synonymous with symbolic ‘direct-action’ and anonymous street-art taking place in the dead of night, with the city rising to find something new or awry in the morning. One such act seems to be the tearing down of billboard posters, revealing sections of previous advertisements underneath, adding text for purposes of political satire, but also leaving torn sections laying on the ground (reminiscent of wallpaper during redecorating).

This painting is comprised of one such section of a Lloyds Bank poster, salvaged from the streets around Bristol Temple Meads, strung into a wood frame (the shape of a billboard, bank note or cheque) with shoelaces. The black horse logo is reframed as a statue on a plinth, bearing the names of those who have used it as the symbol of their business, from the Lombard Street goldsmiths of Humphrey Stokes in 1677 to the Lloyds Banking Group of today.

In horsemanship; ‘Levade’ is a pose whereby a horse stands balanced on it’s hind legs, forelegs drawn in. Often used in portrait painting to show a leader’s mastery and often mistaken for what appears to be the subject about to charge in to battle.