The Wycombe Arts Centre Art Department was commissioned by our friends at HWBIDCo to decorate the ugly fence hoarding around a prominent town centre building, and the astounding results speak for themselves…
This hand-painted masterpiece was collaboratively produced by five artists and highlights the area’s heritage and features many of the people who passed by while it was being commissioned. You can learn more about the project below, featuring photography by Neil Marshment and Daniel Wilson, with a short film of its documentation from Carl Tilly!
About the Artists
Dan Wilson of Decreate is one of the artists in residence at Wycombe Arts Centre. He’s worked across many creative sectors over the years and currently specialises in large scale art projects.
He designed this mural after taking the brief from HWBIDCo to highlight the town’s history and inhabitants, including both inspiring achievers and everyday people on the street.
When not chatting to people as they walked past, Dan painted and drew much of the artwork, including The Horse & Carriage (The Bridger family, local butchers circa 1900), Leigh-Anne (one quarter of pop supergroup Little Mix who is from the area), The Windsor & Polypropylene Chairs, Robin & Lucienne Day, Illustrations of the Wycombe Chair Arch and street scenes, and the popular Street Portraits (where Dan chatted to passersby, took their photos and then drew them on the wall). The result? A mini-High Wycombe portrait gallery!
There may still be more to come on the last side of the hoarding on Bull Lane, so watch this space and keep your eyes peeled if you’re in town. You can also follow Decreate on instagram for more.
Hatiq is an international art superhero. Working with graphics, stencils and bold colours, he blurs boundaries between modern street art and traditional pattern, text and design.
For this mural, Teakster applied his positive style to the colour fade backgrounds, taking the mural’s subtle patterning from medieval and victorian British Damask through to stunning Islamic and Turkish inspired prints.
Jazmin is a talented local painter and photographer who challenges stereotypes. Inspired by her own dual ethnicity and upbringing, she explores ideas of identity through her artwork.
For this mural, Jaz painted two of her friends to represent strong, modern women.
Kat Gaska is a prolific creative with a keen passion for all things folk art. From hand-lettering to mandalas and canny crafting projects, Kat is always producing wonderful things.
She runs a blog with tips and advice, has taken part in the Letterheads Signwriting festival, and is now pushing her artistic pursuits into new territory with digital painting.
For this mural, Kat produced some wonderful flowing script in One-Shot Signwriting paint asking “Did you Know?’
At 86 years young, local legend Lorna has spent a lifetime documenting the area in prints, drawings and paintings.
She has artwork on the walls and in the collections of the County Museum and Wycombe Museum, where her portrait also hangs.
Although she doesn’t produce new artwork anymore, Lorna contributed to this mural by daubing some expressionist trees onto the landscape painting of Castle Hill House by Dan whilst it was in progress.
This project was produced by HWBIDCo and Decreate on behalf of Wycombe Arts Centre, Wycombe Museum and the people of the town, with full permission from Wycombe District Council! Big thanks to all involved for making it happen, the artists for lending their talents and the public for the kind words while we worked.
