A friend of ours Padraig Parle asked us to do him a little favour. When we heard what it was we just couldnt resist getting involved.  Padraig had rented a billboard opposite the Bank of Ireland in Rathmines and planned to have a dig at the bank and the state of the irish economy in lieu of the recent bank bailouts etc.

Pudge sketched his creation and created his finished his piece using a mix of paint, pen and newspaper (not the financial times) to create a collage.

Once this was done he brought a photo of the final artwork into smudge for us to create the print ready billboard artwork ready to be sent to JC Decaux

We then did this nice photoshoot to the amusement of some onlookers! hope you enjoy as much as we did.

The billboard got picked up by two national newspapers (the sun and the daily mail) which was great exposure. It was perefect timing in that the billboard went up the day that the CEO of bank of ireland stepped down and the national media was ranting on about bank bailouts, bonus schemes and the general state of the nation!

Actually speaking about the state of the nation, the billboard was picked up by many bloggers including bigphathar from http://www.thestateofthenation.ie who more eloquently stated:

“If Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa gives us an insight into the life of the middle class in early16th century Florence through a portrait of the wife of a wealthy Renniasance cloth merchant, Parle’s work gives us an excellent insight into life in the early 21st century in middle-class Ireland through the medium of banking.”  read more here

Here’s some more places that featured padraigs work.

http://www.mavis.ie/publicgesture

http://leotraynor.wordpress.com/2009/05/18/b-o-i-werent-banking-on-this/

He’s also been back in touch about another project so we’re very curious to find out just what he’s got in mind for next time. Loving your work padraig! you’re like our very own Banksy, oh except you rent expensive advertising space…. you should have just got some wallpaper paste out… chicken!