Artwork description:

I was commissioned by a private client at Heathrow to produce a series of illustrations of the runway and the planes to be displayed in their offices and lounge at the airport.

I was granted access airside to take the photographs that form the basis of these prints, as part of that access I was able to ride in the cockpit of a jet as it was towed from being cleaned back to the gate. From here, eyeball to eyeball with the other jets I captured a series of images that were to become the final pieces.

I chose this exaggerated landscape format for the prints in to capture the vast scale of the runway.

‘On The Runway #1’ captures a 747 jumbo jet being towed into it’s gate, with an air New Zealand jet behind. This is a scene never to be repeated as BA have retired the 747 and air New Zealand no longer fly out of Heathrow.

The final pieces are hand pulled screen prints and resin on CNC cut OSB with a white laminate edging.

Months of trial and error and small scale proofing went into perfecting the technique for the final pieces. To make these I had the OSB is cut larger than the final print, I then coated the OSB in a layer of epoxy resin and left to dry for 72 hours. I then sanded it back before hand printing the illustration. Once printed I then applied another coat of epoxy, if you look closely at the piece you can see the print floating just above the surface of the OSB.

Once the second layer of resin had set, I took them to another studio on site where a friend of mine runs a furniture making business, I trusted the prints to him to be CNC cut and mounted on the sub frame (also cut from OSB) finally the edges are routed smooth and a white laminate edging is glued around the piece.

In an edition of just 3 with one artist proof, they are signed on the reverse and the title, edition number and date are etched into the reverse of the frame.

Materials used:

Screen print and resin on OSB

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