2012 artist in residence inspired by construction workers

An artist working on the Olympic park has re-created a classic painting using construction workers as his subjects.

Neville Gabie, the park’s artist in residence, used Georges Seurat’s Bathers at Asnieres as his inspiration for Freeze Frame.

Gabie said: “There is an obvious and surprising physical connection between the two landscapes, but the concept for the work explores the more striking similarities between the social and political contexts of the two.

“When Seurat painted the Bathers at Asnières in 1883-4 it was seen as a radical image, based as it was on working class people in an urban park, in an industrial landscape. Seurat was one of the first artists to celebrate the ordinary working man in the places they inhabited.”

The image forms part of the Olympic Delivery Authority’s Art in the Park programme and will be exhibited at the View Tube.

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