Liverpool artist Paul Curtis is well known locally for his iconic murals which adorn the facades of buildings around the city. Now he's launched his first ever exhibition at the iconic Royal Liver Building bringing together a selection of his favourite work under one roof.
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00:00 Paul Curtis is a Liverpool based artist specialising in street art and large murals.
00:07 Since 2017 he's created more than 200 public pieces, largely in Liverpool and Wirral but also in locations across the UK.
00:18 Now he's launched his first ever exhibition at the iconic Royal Liver Building, bringing together a selection of his work under one roof.
00:26 We've called it In One Place and that was one of the reasons is that, as you say, I've done a lot of work but it is scattered around the city.
00:33 It is, anyone can go and see the street art but I felt that it would be nice to have a sort of collection of my work.
00:41 It's easier and actually I think there's a lot of pieces here that people didn't even realise I did and it's actually been a trip down memory lane for me.
00:49 Paul first came to prominence with his very first piece of street art for all Liverpool's Liverbirds
00:55 An instant success there were soon queues of people eager to have their picture taken with the wings.
01:01 The piece has since become part of Liverpool's fabric and continues to attract tourists to Jamaica Street to become a Liverbird themselves.
01:09 The wings, that became popular in its own right and it was way more popular than I ever anticipated.
01:14 But I think that when I do street art I kind of think that you need to sort of take the popular angle. You can't be self indulgent.
01:25 I always try to make my work sort of bright, something that's going to raise a smile, make people happy for a moment or two.
01:33 In September 2023, Paul returned to Jamaica Street to paint a striking mural of Liverpool poet Levi Tafari.
01:40 One of the UK's most popular performance poets, he's worked locally, nationally and internationally.
01:46 It's an amazing feeling to be the subject of such a popular artist and he's done it such justice.
01:54 And it was a big surprise to I because I didn't know it was going to be done because it was an anonymous donor who commissioned Paul to paint it.
02:05 And also there's a poem underneath the picture and I just see it as respect and I respect Paul's work.
02:14 Anyone who does anything creative and productive in a constructive way that brings people together and most importantly makes people smile.
02:26 Paul wasn't always an artist. He was a geologist in the oil industry for 15 years.
02:31 But it was a redundancy in 2015 and an extended period of unemployment that led to him picking up his brushes.
02:38 You might think it's been difficult but it wasn't that hard. I mean I've done about 230 murals.
02:44 But a lot of them were not kind of suitable for this space or were not big enough.
02:50 So I basically chose the ones that I thought were most suitable and that I liked basically.
02:55 So it's nearly 50 pieces that are on display.
02:59 In one place is on display at the Royal Iver Building until the 23rd of February.