The Liverpool Cityscape
The Liverpool Cityscape comprises 170 hectares of the city, a near bird’s-eye perspective. It encompasses several thousand individual buildings and took Johnson and up to 11 assistants 24,000 person hours to complete it. In making The Liverpool Cityscape Ben explored the city taking over 3000 reference photographs, considered alternative viewpoints, consulted with architects and historians, as well as the people of Liverpool, and absorbed the city’s distinctive atmosphere. Thousands of detailed drawings were produced before the execution of the painting in minute detail.
During February and March 2008 over 45,000 people came to see Ben work on the painting at the Walker Art Gallery in specially created studio. A live web-cam showing his residency in the Walker was set up to enable the world to watch the creation of the painting online. The resulting exhibition had over 160,000 visits.
The Liverpool Cityscape will go on display in the Skylight gallery of the new Museum of Liverpool, when it opens in Summer 2011.
Read more about this topic: Ben Johnson (artist)