Thousands of art lovers from across the globe have poured through the doors of Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art to visit Banksy’s Cut & Run exhibition over the past month.
The solo show, the first for Banksy for over a decade, reveals for the first time the stencils used to create many of the the mysterious graffiti artist’s most iconic works.
As well as bringing a tangible sense of excitement to the city streets, the exhibition has also served to inspire local graffiti artists to emblazon walls with their own Banksy-style artworks.
Now a Glasgow architect has followed suit and created his own artwork after being left awestruck by Banksy’s talents with a spraycan and stencil.
Titled ‘Mackintosh 167’, Drew Carr’s work seeks to pay both homage to Banksy and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, as well as the firefighters who bravely battled the blaze that gutted the historic Mackintosh building at the Glasgow School of Art in 2018.
READ MORE: Veiled in secrecy: how The Herald revealed Banksy in Glasgow to the world
Mr Carr told The Herald: “I went to the Banksy exhibition a couple of weeks ago and found it so inspiring. The messages behind the work. Everything was just so clever. It wasn’t just graphics and stuff. There was so much clever thinking behind it all.
“I just came out of it thinking I would love to have a go of making a stencil and seeing what I could do. I do a bit of oil painting in my spare time and I thought this would be a nice little pallet cleanser on the side. Something a bit different.
“I was trying to think of something to do. In the back of my mind I knew it was five years since the second Mackintosh Building fire. I’m a huge Mackintosh fan as well and I went to the School of Art. I love all his buildings and his whole ethos is superb.
“I kind of brought those three things together really and had this idea and kind of went for it.”
Mr Carr said the artwork, which depicts Mackintosh in a firefighters’ uniform and helmet and was done using acrylic spray paint on board, took him “a week or so” to make.
It also features ‘167’ on the top right hand side, which Mr Carr said “refers to the street number of the Art School building”.
He added: “It’s 167 Renfrew Street. I wanted to put something in the corners and I was trying to think of suitable things. I thought the ‘167’ was obscure enough that people might question what it was but also if people know where the Art School is they probably have some idea of the address.
“The front doors of the Mackintosh building had these lovely brass push plates on the doors as you pushed them to go in and they had ‘Art School’ written on the left and right as you went in. I did originally look at including those but it just didn’t really work with the composition. ‘167’ sat perfectly in that space I thought.”
Having produced a handful of artworks, he is keen to donate one to The Scottish Fire & Rescue Service and another to the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society, which promotes and encourages awareness of Scotland's most celebrated architect and designer of the 20th century. He also plans to sell the remainder.
He said: “I’d love for The Scottish Fire & Rescue Service to have one. Even if it just sits in the corner of one of their fire stations of the firefighters who attended the 2018 fire or something like that. I’d much rather that than it sit in storage in my flat.
READ MORE: Art School fire immortalised on canvas to mark 'horrible' anniversary
“I was talking about it with my wife, she studied at the Art School as well. We were both there when both of the fires happened actually. I remember hearing something at the time of the 2018 fire that’s stuck with me for years that the fire brigade go into buildings to save people.
"It’s not their job to save buildings, it’s about saving people. During the Art School fires on both occasions I remember hearing tales that firefighters went above and beyond and actually did try and save the building, because they all knew its importance and they were all from Glasgow.
“They knew how important that building was to Glasgow and to Scotland and to the architectural world. That just kind of gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. The fact they had gone above and beyond to protect Mackintosh was absolutely superb I thought.”
And Mr Carr said that while his plans are to donate copies of his work and also sell the remainder, he hasn’t ruled out using the stencil to produce a piece of street art a'la Banksy.
“I’d actually love to do that but I’m probably too much of a rule-follower just to go out and do it. If someone had a bit of property where they wanted the stencil on the wall I’d happily go and do it. I think it would look great", he finished.
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