Syanide (aka Sandra Belgrave) Painting

Moved from Manchester to London in 1985, worked as a freelance illustrator in the fashion, advertising and music industries. Beginning with a punk photomontage style, he was inspired by the mixing techniques of Hip Hop Djs to turn the colour photocopier into an image mixing desk. Clients included Vogue, Soul 2 Soul and City Limits. In 1988, he became joint coordinator of the Tabernacle community grafitti project based in Notting Hill. Where he helped to form 'West London Pressure' Londons first commercial grafitti crew, producing backdrops, banners and graphics for community groups, charities, music promoters and Notting Hill carnival. In 1993, Thames & Huson published his art thesis titled "Strecnology - graffix user manual" under the pseudonym of "Various Artists." His work was first reviewed by Creative Review in 1988 and showcased in 1994, on the first commercial website - Levi's. In 1999, he was invited to hold a joint exhibition called 'Hamburger Icons', mocking celebrities of the time, it was reviewed by the Daily Star and Heat magazine. In 2014, he produced a series of raster graphic images using techniques developed for the photocopier and adapted for digital technology. Part of 'Notting Hell Icons' exibition. The images from the 20th century are the only remaining impressions. Many of them are scans of photocopies, taken from the originals, which have not survived. In other cases, files have been deleted. He still illustrates, almost exclusively vector graphics. Mainly for his books, as he now writes reference manuals on alphabets and magic symbols.