Southbank Mosaics Studio & Gallery had an open weekend last week. They are a group of artists based in the Creative Crypt at St John's Waterloo. A lot of their work is community based working with ex-offenders, the homeless and parents and schools. Their projects aim to reflect the diversity of London and transform public spaces. One of their most recent projects was the "challenging stereotypes" series. The image on the right is from this series where for example soldiers are represented like this one facing the sun, or another image has flowers instead of bullets coming out of a gun.
Some of the images represent people who lived in the area such as William Blake who lived in North Lambeth. A series of pictures at the moment are being made to illustrate inspirational women. One example here is Catherine Blake, wife and assistant of William Blake who had an active role in the production of William's engravings and colouring some of his illuminated books, as well as being a respected printer. Some of these were being worked on in the studio.
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| William Blake |
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| Catherine Blake |
Here are some other examples of the mosaics on display in the gallery.