Look Up is a new exhibition bringing together work by three artists from the Liverpool City Region. The first in an annual exhibition by Liverpool Radicals, it showcases the work of self-taught artists Steve Randall, Lost Hills and Alan Murray.
Steve Randall, who turned to painting after his wife was diagnosed with an incurable brain tumour, works solely in oils. He has described painting as his solace, having lost his brother in an unresolved accident in childhood when he fell from a tall building. This tragic death haunted him for years until he painted the scene, he could not look up at the sky. Painting has since freed him and has been his focus since his wife’s diagnosis to pursue an artistic career that has seen him exhibited at The Walker alongside Turner Prize-winning artists, whilst raising tens of thousands of pounds for charity.
Lost Hills found a route into art through social media, never having been encouraged to pursue his talent as a child. He first established himself on the street art scene with murals, stencils and paste-ups and audiences are invited to ‘look up’ around Liverpool (especially the Baltic Triangle) to see his work on various walls throughout the city. Having recently schooled himself in classical artistic techniques, Lost Hills is now painting icons in music and the arts that he admires and looks up to in the form of miniature contemporary oil paintings.
Alan Murray began life in joinery and youth work but schooled himself in art to the point of becoming the winner of the Liverpool Art Fair People’s Choice Award and the Cass Art Award in 2018, as well as being commissioned for public artworks such as the Titanic on Park Road and Shankly mural in the Shankly Hotel. Fiercely passionate about challenging his audiences to think and question the status quo, he aims to make his audiences look up from their screens and engage in difficult discussions about the issue that affect us today.
Look Up will show at West Tower 28th – 30th June 2023.