After the success of ?Chorus at Dawn? in 1988 the monumental installation at Grand Central Station New York, which was a collaboration with Metro North Railroad and PS1. Queens, the Dulwich Festival in London, invited the Artist to create a mural which would involve the participation of ten local schools in 1993. Stan chose the location Peckham Rye Park (a stones throw from where he was living at the time) and the subject ?William Blake having a Vision of Angels? which happened to be at Peckham Rye in the eighteenth century.
This was the beginning of a Genre where artists and writers including Johnny Depp and Peter Ackroyd commemorate the ?Visionary Blake? in the nineties.
Chorus at Dawn. Grand Central Station. New York
City. 1988.
Ilana Heiss of PS1 the Queens? based Art group invited the Artist
to participate in a project to revitalize the fading glory of the Station
with art that would attract attention not only for train travellers but
to retailers who Metro North Art for Transit were desperate to attract.
It was successful and is now a Mid Town mall. The second phase of this
installation was to introduce the whirlpool of addiction with Marlboro
Man dangling the addicted into the pool. This installation faced the Phillip
Morris world headquarters on 42nd and Park which also exhibits part of
the Whitney Museum of Art?s collection on it?s ground floor.
"Artist opens a window on City?s Life??a compilation
of several backdrops he has created throughout his career. A cardboard
painting of a turnstile, replete with commuters, once graced the Unique
Clothing Warehouse in Greenwich Village. Peskett said cardboard cutouts
of people in shackles are intended to depict society?s slavery to
?the system?. And Peskett?s ?sea of pollution?
alludes to the recent contamination of the area beaches?" Melanie
E Eversly New York Newsday 08/02/1988
William Blake?s Vision of Angels. London 1993.
Following Chorus at Dawn in Grand Central Station New York 1988 this was
the artist?s second high profile work that would not be a backdrop
for selling product but like the N.Y. C. installation be more thought
provoking, by being loaded with a social narrative.
The artist moved into this section of London Peckham Rye and Dulwich
in 1991 and realized the historical significance of the location. The
artist lived within 100yds of Peckham Rye Park where Blake as a child
had a vision in 1756. The artist tried to create an event to commemorate
Blake on his Birthday in November 1992. A professional fundraiser curtailed
the event by demanding exorbitant fees for the company?s services.
A year later the Dulwich Festival organizers needed a focus for their
first Arts Festival and asked the artist to initiate a concept and totally
organize and fund raise for a mural to be painted somewhere in the area.
The artist scouted the Vision of Angels mural site, and he chose a location
on the wall that bordered Peckham and Dulwich. The gable wall happened
to house a ?care in the community initiative? a semi slum
dwelling owned by the Prince of Wales (Duchy of Cornwall). The occupants,
adults with learning difficulties assisted by ten local schools to paint
the mural in one week the duration of the Arts Festival.
In 1997 part of the mural was stolen brick by brick. Unfortunately neither
the Local Member of Parliament Tessa Jowell nor the local church that
used the mural for fund raising purposes wanted help in the reinstatement
of the mural. Even though it has become a historic fixture and featured
in the tour guide books along with the Globe theatre for the London Borough
of Southwark.
Peckham Library London 1996
London Borough of Southwark library services were looking for a way to
stem the outbreak of Graffiti. They were in the process of having a new
art centre and library designed and built by an award winning architect
on an adjoining site and needed a more positive focus for the older library
while the new library was being constructed.
The Big Book served it?s time and made a difference to the very
site where an African pre teen was murdered making a world press story.
The theme extends into digital media focus, as the internet becomes an
important part of library services, a universal communication tool.
Participating in this were local middle school and art college students.
Deptford Time Piece Triptych Deptford London 1996
This location is a bottleneck situation on the main route into Central
London (the A2) from France and Europe. It is also in a very impoverished
multi cultural section of South East London, very close to Greenwich (the
Millennium Dome). Investment to gentrify the area came by way of tax breaks
for National Chain retailers. Deptford City Challenge was responsible
for ?The mural as Window dressing? and the ?Challenge?
was steered by Ad. Agency Saatchi and Saatchi. The mural was executed
by local artists and school children.
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