Galore of the World, Barnieart

 

Commissioned by Zizzis

Designed and painted by Barnieart

 

A fantastical mural that reimagines the classic H.G Wells novel where the Martians land in Horsell Common Sandpit in Woking. The design celebrates curiosity, with the alien-like acorns (as spacecrafts) from in the Sandpit symbolising fertility, rebirth and a bright future - to reconceive the original story’s themes of destruction, isolation and fear.

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Instead of H.G Wells’ mechanical and ugly alien creatures [‘ain’t they got any necks then?’...’octopuses’ said he ‘that’s what I calls ‘em!’ War of the Worlds], I created alternative more majestical copper-lined chimaera aliens. With whisks as heads the creatures reference Kenwood mixers, whose enterprise began in Woking in 1947. The red heat-rays and beams described in WotW have been transformed into patterned beams of light illuminating the magical Sandpit and Horsell tree roots. Dome shapes throughout the design celebrate the beautiful Shah Jahan Mosque nearby; and tiny parachutists gliding the skies give a hat-tip to Woking’s parachute manufacturing industry in the 1930s.

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This commission gave me so much creative freedom to think about Woking and its stories and bring my sketches and ideas together into a design for three walls of the restaurant, the second busiest Zizzis in the country.