Artist to create dazzling new landmark

Tuesday 21 April 2015

A local artist is transforming an ex-US Army tugboat into a WW1 Dazzle Ship and creating a new Jersey landmark.

Ian Rolls is starting work on the “Elektra”, his largest canvas to date, as a mark of remembrance for all those lost at sea during the Great War.

Ian said: "I am hugely excited at the prospect of transforming what was a rusting tugboat into a Dazzling landmark for Jersey. It is difficult to imagine the full effect the Dazzle design will have once completed, but I am expecting it to make a few heads spin!"

The boat is currently moored in St Helier’s Harbour and this week Ian has roped in a group of local artists to help camouflage it – just like thousands were painted during the Great War to distort them and make them harder for enemy submarines to target.

The group of Skipton Arts Series artists will be working with Ian to make the tugboat look crumpled with strong linear elements. They’ll paint a single red line in a twisting spiral from the funnel that wraps itself around the boat and dips below the waterline to merge with the solid red of the lower hull.

The idea is that it will symbolise the war's sinking ships but also the rising out of the red field of war to a higher place – an uplifting mark of remembrance.

It’s the first project to receive funding from the Jersey Arts Trust’s Great War Art and Community Fund – set up for arts and community projects that reflect on or commemorate the First World War.

Jersey Arts Trust Director Tom Dingle said: “We’re delighted to be able to support Ian realise this visionary project. Art is a great way to reflect and explore a subject matter in more depth than we might otherwise do in our daily lives. We hope that beyond it being visually interesting in itself, the dazzle ship will become a physical reminder of the extents that our naval forces went to protect our interests and a symbol of the collective bravery, sacrifice and dare I say ingenuity, of all of our troops past and present.  

"We would encourage others who may have their own ideas about how to reflect and commemorate the Great War either through art or community activities to come forward and discuss them with us.”

You can find out more about the Great War Arts and Community Fund here.