Enter London's Tottenham Court Road station, and you're in for a treat. Greeted by a tapestry of tiles, outstanding mosaics by the enormously talented Eduardo Paolozzi.
London is the birthplace of Paolozzi, who died in 2005 aged 81.
Themes in the murals vary from everyday life, music, and some abstract patterns.
The beauty is in the details. It's quite funny that everyday you see thousands of people pass by these grand murals in the Rotunda in such a great hurry, I sometimes wonder if they even noticed.
Interestingly even the mural here shows a rushing pedestrian mixing with, a mask from the British Museum and a cow and chicken, far removed from how they appear in the fast food outlets above ground. The Northern and Central tube line platforms have very different styles. For the Northern (black) line, the mosaics are harsher and sparser. The Central (red) line has brighter, more flamboyant, designs.
This is just one of the stations, but in London very famously, every station has it's own unique art walls.
I wanted to design a print, inspired by the hidden art in London Underground Stations. In fact I got so excited by it, that I kept hopping off in different stations and lines, looking for interesting tile patterns and murals.
The Black Horse on Black Horse Lane and the multicolour mosaics on Tottenham court Road are my absolute favourites. How about Hatton Cross? Or the black crows in Leytonstone, a tribute to Hitchcock. The Maze in Oxford Circus, or the Acanthus leaf in Regent Park?
This is a tiny part of the bigger puzzle, a graphic kaleidoscope from the giant treasury of exquisite tiles in the subway.
This print features pieces of Black Horse Lane, Tottenham Court Road, Seven Sisters, Regents Park, Leytonstone, Stockwell, Russell Square, Hatton Cross, Oxford Circus, Warren Street, Baker Street and Hyde Park.
Can you spot the Paolozzi?
Print available in the shop.
