CAPITAL OF CULTURE: Artist portrays great panorama

Sep 28 2007 by Vicky Anderson, Liverpool Daily Post

AN ARTIST who has spent the last two years commemorating modern-day Liverpool with a huge panoramic painting of the city will enter the home stretch in 2008 – and complete his work in front of the public.

Ben Johnson is in the middle of producing a huge architectural portrait of Liverpool, and will complete it during a residency in the Walker Art Gallery between January and March next year – it will then be on display until November.

Johnson has produced other detailed cityscapes in such locations as Jerusalem, Zurich and Hong Kong, but this will be his largest and most ambitious work to date, standing at 8ft x 16ft, an area of 128 ft.

Thousands of tiny stencils, taken from photographs, have been produced to be jig-sawed together and then painted by Johnson and his six assistants.

The panoramic view, from 600ft above the Mersey, and stretching from Anfield to Toxteth, will detail every visible street and building.

New work from Runcorn-born artist Phil Collins has been commissioned by A Foundation for 2008.

The former Turner Prize nominee will be making a new film piece in collaboration with the people of Liverpool. Collins often operates within forms of low-budget television and reportage-style documentary to address the discrepancy between reality and its representations.