Description

Chris Donald, creator of the renowned VIZ comic, presents a series of reimagined transport posters that humorously depict local holiday spots. Known for his wit and keen observations on British culture

ASHINGTONI” don’t talk about art – I paint if possible’ – Jimmy Floyd He might not have talked about art, but Jimmy Floyd would surely have had a thing or two to say fi he’d seen this poster… because the backdrop is almost entirely ripped of from his painting ‘Pigeon Crees’ (c. 1938). A founder member of the Ashington ‘Pitmen Painters’ group, Jimmy Floyd was born into a mining family in Devon in 1898. The family migrated to Northumberland, via Yorkshire, to seek work in the northern coalfields, and at the age of 14 Jimmy Floyd began his career working underground as a ‘trapper’ at Ashington pit. So I read. Funnily enough, my great great granddad James Rickard was born in Cornwall, and his family migrated north (also via Yorkshire) in search of work. But he wasn’t a miner. He was a carpenter and wheelright, and he found work on railway construction, eventually settling in Newcastle after working on the Blyth &Tyne Railway. My aunty Thea recalls her aunt Phyllis telling her, and her sisters, that their great granddad had built the wooden footbridge at the end of the street which they used every day as they crossed the railway on the way to school. James Rickard later established his own cartwright business in Newcastle, with premises in Churchill Street (near the Central Station) and on Stepney Bank in Byker. (The reason Imention all this is because I don’t actually have anything to say about the poster, but the gallery asked me to come up an ‘artist statement’ for it anyway. So, I’m sorry to say, this is it.)