EDEL KENEALY
A Pa i s l ey ar t i s t morphed into Covid Man as she promoted an art project designed to raise funds for lifeline charities.
Lorna Pirrie’s Thank You initiative will see a host of art created throughout the pandemic sold to raise funds for the Trussell Trust and Renfrewshire Foodbank.
In a bid to publicise the art exhibition, which opens on Saturday, Lorna dressed up as the Covid Man she created for an emotive collage, The Covid Games.
The piece - which features a menacing character complete with plague mask - will, when sold, raise £500 for Renfrewshire Foodbank.
Lorna told the Express: “I got the idea for Covid Games at the beginning of the pandemic and drew a cartoon like figure about how I felt the government here and in the US were handling the situation.
“Me, as Covid Man, is the life-size version of that.”
Lorna turned heads on Paisley’s High Street last Saturday as people stopped to learn more about the exhibition.
The launch of the exhibition this weekend marks the culmination of months of hard work by nine artists who signed up to offer portraits and other art to frontline workers who had sacrificed so much throughout the pandemic.
The Thank You exhibition will see these 26 images, as well as other works created by the artists over the past year, displayed at The Line Gallery in Linlithgow.
All artists have pledged to offer a portion of the funds raised from the sale of their work to the Trussell Trust, which operates hundreds of food banks across Scotland.
Lorna - who spearheaded the project in April last year - will be selling the Covid Games Collage and Stag Man.
She told the Express: “In the exhibit, I am donating all the profits from two pictures to Trussell Trust food banks.
“One is Stag Man, a painting I did of a family friend who was a chef and tragically died just three weeks after we last messaged about a piece of art he asked if I could create for him.
“I did a drawing of Madds Mikkelson with Stag antlers - like his character Hannibal - and he wanted one of himself with antlers, so I did it anyway and am donating all my profits to food banks in his honour.
“Also, if my large collage called ‘Covid Games’ sells, I will be donating £ 500 to Paisley, and two other area food banks.”
The exhibition at The Line Gallery begins on Saturday and will run until June 15.