Mr Clean has been given a permanent home at New Art Gallery Walsall as part of The Twenty Twenty Collection
Joining a collection of work made during and inspired by the turbulent events of 2020, Mr Clean is a work about wearing a mask and individual identity with reference to mask wearing at work, in my own past performance and painting and art history.
‘Following an open call, which received 220 submissions, The New Art Gallery Walsall has acquired 33 works by 31 West Midlands-based artists, to create the new Twenty Twenty Collection. This closed, capsule collection represents the significant events of the past 12 months, and commemorates this important historical moment which has impacted on everyone’s lives.
The works, spanning a variety of media from collage and photography to drawings and paintings, respond to world events over the last tumultuous year; from the pandemic and lockdown, to the Black Lives Matter movement and Brexit.
The chosen artists’ work will be profiled on the Gallery’s website and social media channels during this year, and be exhibited at the Gallery in a dedicated exhibition in our Community Gallery in early 2022. This will coincide with a solo exhibition by Keith Piper (whose work Surveillance: Tagging the Other, was also acquired with funding from Contemporary Art Society, in response to the events of last year) and the British Art Show taking place in Wolverhampton, bringing significant attention to the region, and further increasing the profile of West Midlands artists.’