New gothic mural by Macclesfield artist gives vigour to shopfront
By Alex Greensmith
23rd Feb 2023 | Local News
Some new life has been immersed into a decrepit building on Sunderland Street.
Macclesfield artist Becca Smith, who already has a portfolio of street art across the town, has painted a Macclesfield Forest-like scene on an empty Macclesfield retail unit.
Tall trees tower over the shop window and door of the empty premises, as if it were reclaimed by nature.
But there are also chopped trees, felled trees, and new shoots, perhaps representing the changing nature of Macclesfield's (and many high street's) across the country.
Her new artwork has already received hundreds of likes on social media, with one Macclesfield Nub News reader even comparing it to David Hockney.
Becca revealed her inspiration for the blue-and-orange mural.
"The shop front and the door were based on two images I photographed", said Becca.
"The first is of Macc Forest, what really attracted me to it was an evening light, a beautiful orange and the shadows were incredible. I really noticed a perfect zigzag of trees where I was standing at the time, and this work is to reflect that.
"What I wanted to capture was the tension and particularly this kind of anxiety that I tend to have sometimes if I'm out in particularly Macc Forest, somewhere that is quite huge and significant.
"It is kind of the sense that a lot of it is asking 'is this going to last? Is this going to be here in 20 years?'. So this sort of panic sense of the impermanence of it.
"The building looked a bit creepy and enigmatic, which informed what I was to paint.
"I also added a plague stone in Higher Sutton that is in a road outside Macc Forest, what wasn't in the original picture but I have been doing a lot of work learning the history of them and drawing them, so after learning what the brief was for this collective Charles-Tunnicliffe inspired art project, I decided to put it in.
"Tunnicliffe worked a lot with the environment and all around Macc Forest, and this plague stone was a signifier of the area. This one is from near The Hanging Gate. It was a place where people would leave goods, and the money would be doused in vinegar to cleanse from infection.
"The plague stones are also a way marker for travellers coming over from Leek towards Macclesfield. There's stones like these all over Macclesfield, you can see them in West Park. A lot of the stones were Christianised, so were recognised as having some sort of power."
A recent tenant of the site was Mac Spice takeaway. The artwork has seen support of the building's owner, as well as the local community.
The piece - along with other adjacent murals - was funded by an arts grant which has already seen the Charles Tunnicliffe-inspired mural pillars at Macclesfield Railway Station.
The same Avanti West Coast and Cheshire East Council funding pot has also seen two other murals come to Sunderland Street, including one next door to Becca's new mural where Mac Flames is.
To the right of Becca's Macclesfield Forest mural is also a separate portrait of South Park.
"Looking at these murals as a whole, I wanted to get something else local in there," added Becca.
"So I added a reference to a mill at South Park, while keeping with the eeriness of the overall piece."
Her next project is a new art school at the Silk Musuem, on Park Lane.
You can follow the Macclesfield artist on Facebook. Becca's Twitter is @BeccaSmithArt and her Instagram is @beccasmith_art.
See Also: Meet the Macclesfield DJ who has raised almost three grand for good causes
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