Artist’s work celebrates creation of Olympic Legacy Park in city
AN ARTIST from Sheffield has unveiled a piece of work that has been commissioned as part of the legacy of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Joe Scarborough was commissioned to produce a major piece to mark the completion of the first development phase at the Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park, which has attracted over £100m in public and private sector investment.
The Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park was set up after the London 2012 to deliver whole population improvements in health and wellbeing and it is the only Legacy Park outside an Olympic host city anywhere in the world.
Mr Scarborough was asked to capture a moment in time reflecting the old Attercliffe and to celebrate the future being created through the transformational economic, health, sporting and environmental legacies being created at the Park.
It is the first time he has featured himself in a piece of his own work and the painting was originally meant to be 30in by 24in but has doubled in size due to the amount of detail included – such as the image of a concierge outside the Adelphi, modelled on himself.
The artist is originally from the Pitsmoor area of the city, where he still lives on his muchloved narrowboat.
It was on the boat that he started the latest painting and the end product was unveiled at The Old Library building last Friday before a host of invited guests from Legacy Park Ltd Chair and former Sports Minister Richard Caborn, the current and previous Legacy Park Ltd chief executives, Dr Chris Low and David Hobson, and members of several organisations associated with the Park who joined together to commission the painting.
The original painting will initially be hosted at the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre (AWRC) and in the future will move around Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park to different venues, while 100 limited edition prints are available to buy.