Painting the civic centre

TRIBUTE: The civic centre’s wall of poppies

A TALENTED artist is to record Oldham’s giant “poppy tower” tribute.

In November the Civic Centre tower had images of poppies projected up its entire 200ft height and now Matthew Cook, the official war artist for the Times newspaper, has been commissioned by Oldham Council to create an original painting of the wall-projection.

The original, striking image was created by six projectors, four on the roof of the Three Crowns pub in Manchester Street and two on the roof of Henshaw House. The display cost £25,000 and was said to be visible from as far as Merseyside and Cheshire. It also featured on TV in America and Italy leading up to Armistice Day.

Matthew, from London, paints in water-based inks, and will base his new painting on photographs of the event.

He said: “Unfortunately I will have to work from pictures as I was unable to get up to Oldham, but the idea of the poppies projected on to the building was great.”

Matthew was appointed war artist for the Times in 2003. Equipped with a laptop computer, scanner and satellite telephone, he drove alone into Iraq in the wake of the coalition forces. Cook then went to Afghanistan in 2006.