Battle Street | Various Editions | Mark Davies

Battle Street! Various Editions available 

Standard Giclee, Edition of 45 + 5 APs. Framed Size 38.5" x 26" 

Large Giclee, Edition of 20 + 5 APs. Framed Size 46.5" x 34.5"

Canvas. Edition of 20 +5 APs Framed Size 48" x 33"

Original 64" x 41" 

On every street there lives a hero and a villain, where their egos are as big as their armour as they each fight for space. ‘Neighbourhood watch’ would have a field day here! ‘Battle Street’ gives you an intense insight into what happens when their worlds collide and they just simply can’t play nice!

Everything is possible if you can imagine it right? Well, what’s the worst that can happen when ‘Thundercats’, ‘The Real Ghostbusters’ and ‘The Masters of the Universe’, all live just a stone’s throw from each other?! For those who loved their action figures as a kid and still do to this day, you will absolutely LOVE this piece!Judging by the sales numbers, it’s clear that you guys adore my pieces that showcase the childhood toys from our youth. The likes of ‘The Memory Remains’ and ‘Skool’s Out!’ series are both cracking examples of this!

When we really used our imagination, without limits, what wonders filled our little minds eh, back then toys were absolutely amazing, no social media, barely any gadgets, it was all about the action figures and dolls. What did we then dream of every time we flicked through the catalogues? The playsets! It was that scene that the toy company always created that showed them all positioned next to each other for the figures to come to life. They opened our minds, and purses and piggy banks so easily! It’s been a good while since I first had the idea to explore the chaos and carnage if the action heroes and villains that we adored as kids were to live together on the same street.

At the time of starting this piece I had the epic ‘Hooky Street’ original hanging to the left of my desk, whilst to the right sits ‘Castle Grayskull’ and ‘Snake Mountain’ from the ‘Masters of the Universe’ toy range. So, with the need for me to focus on creating nostalgia-fuelled ‘happy place’ art, I knew it was time to get cracking, and I really went for it! You know how I don’t hold back with the level of detail that I inject into my scenes and ‘Battle Street’ showcases this brilliantly! Panoramic in proportion, this image took well over one hundred studio hours to create, and you know what?

I absolutely loved every moment of it! The more I was consumed by the image, the more my imagination ran wild with some crazily random scenarios that weren’t planned but really do show how my mind works! I guess that is what makes an artist so different to another because it is so much more than technique that forms a recognisable style, it is the window into their mind that sets them apart.

The hardest thing with this piece was to limit what could go in, there were so many more characters that could have rocked up and played their part, along with many more epic playsets but I wanted to keep the impact big. ‘Playbours’ is the umbrella brand where many more of these style pieces will live in time, so you can imagine the potential here! Of course, everyone has their own memories of their childhood toys and their favourite characters that they collected, for ‘Battle Street!’ I have plumped for four iconic playsets that I have no doubt will have been on many of my collectors’ birthday and Christmas lists!

This had to be a bold and dramatic image, one that hit you hard and brought all those memories flooding back. After all, it was how the toy companies and their marketing teams created their images to make you want to collect everything they produced! So, a vivid sky that is bursting with drama, fireballs and lasers plays a big part! You’ll see the hint of a leafy wood in the background which leads you onto the sister piece, ‘Cuddlewood Grove’.

I remember integrating many of my toys as a kid, where they all played their part and it works so well in this scene, where they have all come to life with hilarious consequences. I will leave you to pick out of the carnage from this scene, there’s loads!

What this piece has further reminded me of is that I wish I had looked after my old toys so I could have kept them like so many of you lot have done, I guess I took them for granted and never imagined they would be so massive after all these years. It is so great to take a step back into our positive childhood memories to then leap forward inspired and grateful for a truly magical time that simply cannot be beaten.

I am so proud of this piece, and I hope it brings you so much joy, after all it is seeing how my collectors enthuse over my retrospective artworks that drives me on and pushes me to create mesmerizing scenes like this. I am always listening and learning, this is a collaborative journey between artist and collector and I absolutely love it!