Lonely Hearts Club Print

Part of a triptych of murals commissioned by the Malmaison Hotel group, to hang in the waterfront hotel in Liverpool where the originals can still be seen today, as well as a large 4 Meter print of this particular painting, which dominates the hotel lobby. This work was first commissioned to commemorate the cultural milieu of Liverpool and of course, perhaps it’s most famous musical contribution to the world, The Beatles themselves. The work is inspired by the bands’ life and music, from humble beginnings to global sensation, as well as the surrounding counter-cultural matrix they existed in; hippiedom, free love, flower power, psychedelia and the spirit of revolution. Bristol based artist Oliver Lavery has tried to incorporate this general mood of the 1960’s into his painting with his trademark graffiti style inspired by the Pop Art movement of the 1980’s as New York street artists Jean Michel Basquiat and Kieth Haring. He often includes text in his works, as well as multiple layers of painting and great attention to detail. As such, people often get lost in front this painting, finding new things each time. Lavery often likes to work from a photograph, often painting over the top of a photographic image, printed onto canvass, and them printing further images on top of that, before painting over those as well. The result is a sea of images, words meanings, swimming in a hallucinogenic tangle recalling the Cultural Decade of the 1960’s itself. The original image underlying this particular work are the gates of the ‘Strawberry Fields’ children’s home, made famous by The Beatles’ ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’. The original photograph was taken by Peter Lavery. The work was designed to hang as part of a triptych, with two other Beatles artworks.