Artists - Peter Blake

Peter Blake

Peter Blake (born 1932) is a painter, collage and pop artist, who has been knighted in 2002 for his services to art, he has created a number of famous pieces such as album covers like ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club’, he has also created work for major events such as the 2012 Brit award statuette.

Recently in January Peter Blake created a large collage for the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in London, the collage spans the length of the hotel while it goes under renovation, the piece called ‘Our Fans’ is a collage of various celebrities who have regularly frequented the hotel.

“Some of my first works were collages of crowds of people; this piece is in the spirit of The Beatles 1967 Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album,” - Sir Peter Blake

This is a collage which was used as the cover for the song ‘Do they know it’s Christmas’ by Band Aid. The piece shows a diverse range of people from jolly to malnourished children al in the same festive looking room as Santa looks in through the window at the back.

The way the characters are positioned suggests that the malnourished children at the front of the cover are largely ignored as the majority of the characters are at the back next to the tree with toys.

As the characters are all from different sources so each has a different colour scheme and style except for the children at the front which the use of monochrome draws the viewers eye towards them rather than the rest of the image which is bright and cheerful.

The use of these children in the same room as the others may suggest that it’s not just third world countries where children suffer instead that it happens worldwide.

I like this piece as it showcases how various people may experience Christmas, as the title of the song is ‘Do they know it’s Christmas’ it shows that not everyone experiences the usual joyous tone of that part of the year.