"It's sick!"

Friday 21 July 2023

A group of teenage boys are among those who have praised new artwork adorning the walls of Richmond Kiosk, after Tiffany Matthews and her mum spent three days painting it this week.

Known as Tiffany Anna, the artist has built up a reputation for bright, colourful works, usually based on canvas.

She fancied a change, and wanted a bigger surface to paint. 

"(I"m) just trying to bring more colour to Guernsey. It was an idea I had a while ago, and I just thought 'why not?'.  I just want to paint something other than a canvas.

"I thought 'I want to experiment with something bigger, something other than canvases', so I mocked it up in town first which is really exciting because I think we might have the go ahead for that as well. I thought these guys (Richmond Kiosk) were really good - they asked can I do it, and they said 'let's just ask the landlord' and the landlord said 'yes'."

Pictured: The two artists behind the painting on Richmond Kiosk - Tiffany Matthews (r) and her mum Susie (l).

Things moved quite quickly from the landlord giving the go ahead, to Norman Piette sponsoring the paint and Tiffany and her mum starting work on Tuesday. 

"She's the original, I learned from her in lockdown," said Tiffany, speaking about her mum. "She's been painting for years. She paints fish and sea creatures and everything.

"I've painted jellyfish on canvasses before. When I mocked it up on photoshop, I mocked up my artwork as if it was on a canvas onto the wall. So I knew roughly what I wanted to go where but we're just seeing what happens really because unlike canvas, I splat paint on the canvas on the floor and it's really easy to splat, whereas on the wall it's different so I've learned a lot. My mum's taught me a lot. We've just winged it and gone with the flow."

Tiffany said the art work adorning Richmond Kiosk will "last however long they want" and she's already discussed the idea of changing it every year if the kiosk tenant would like her to.

She's also keen to work with other artists who want to contribute to public art projects in the island.

"Artists want to get involved," she said. "We could find other buildings that they can work with as well. You don't need planning permission for something like this. I did ask, and no, you don't need anything."

Pictured: These boys were admiring the artwork and described it as "sick".

As well as the kiosk tenant who was pleased with the art work so far, other people at Richmond on Thursday lunchtime were very impressed.

One man had seen it on Facebook and took his young daughter down to see it for real.

Some teenage boys having their lunch told Express: "It's sick!" 

The 13-year-olds all agreed it looked good and one said "they should do this to all the kiosks."

Tiffany was pleased with the feedback so far.

"(It's been) incredible.

"Honestly, not even one negative comment, which is amazing, because I just thought someone might say something, but no - everyone's been so positive and smiling and happy. That's what we wanted to do, just make people happy and bring a bit of colour."