{"id":296846,"date":"2026-02-18T05:20:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T05:20:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/296846\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T05:20:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T05:20:18","slug":"trainspotting-artist-hosts-new-exhibition-30-years-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/296846\/","title":{"rendered":"Trainspotting artist hosts new exhibition 30 years on"},"content":{"rendered":"

Perhaps as much as Trainspotting\u2019s indelible capture of a time and a place on camera, Blamire\u2019s poster put the film into its cultural postcode. It\u2019s variously been called groundbreaking and one of the most influential film posters of all time, and paved the way for the oft-parodied Choose Life poster.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/p>\n

The young film stars arrived for their pictures the day after their wrap party, with Bremner discovering on the way down that Miller was not in fact Scottish. With all back in character, McGregor was soaked with a bucket of water.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just such a massive fan of modernism and people like Saul Bass, who designed all of the Hitchcock movie posters,\u201d says Blamire. \u201cThey were really true pieces of artform, and really great pieces of graphic design. But by the \u201990s, film posters were just putting heads on the posters and then had the wrong names above the heads.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cThey were turgid and laboured. They weren\u2019t art any more,\u201d he says. \u201cMy motivation for making the poster was to try and do something a bit more memorable; trying to match what some of my design heroes had achieved.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Before the film was even released, the poster was handed out to students in welcome packs as they started university.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt transformed my career, really. We went on to work for Adidas, the V&A, Film4,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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The exhibition was born after Blamire found his way back to Trainspotting and graphic design recently. But it wasn\u2019t an easy sell \u2013 the artist took a few months to say yes.<\/p>\n

With the show set to open, Big Issue felt like a natural partner. \u201cIt\u2019s just a great brand to be associated with, because it\u2019s got strong connections with art,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really rewarding to see people envisaging something that I made ages ago, that they still want to celebrate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stanley Donwood\u00a0\u2013 OK Computer, Orange variant\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Stanley Donwood is best known for his 30+ year collaboration with Radiohead. In his own words, he has \u201cdone many things now and should probably stop. In 1996 I was mostly making the artwork for OK Computer.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Phill Jupitus\u00a0\u2013 collage on vintage postcard, A3 giclee\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Image: Phill Jupitus<\/p>\n

Phill Jupitus started out as a freelance cartoonist in 1983 for various underground music fanzines, going on to work as a poet, bank messenger, tour manager, press officer, graphic designer, stand-up comedian, script writer, singer, broadcaster, DJ, voiceover artist, football columnist, pop video director, presenter and actor. In 1996 he became team captain on a BBC Two pop quiz.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shuby\u00a0\u2013 Bananaspotting, A3 3 colour risograph\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Image: Shuby<\/p>\n

Shuby began as a street artist in 2007. Her work turns the everyday into vibrant, subversive joy. Her signature banana is a cheeky \u2018Up Yours!\u2019 to the patriarchy. In 1996 she was \u201csigning on, doing courses, painting and decorating, getting up for Neighbours at one in the afternoon\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lucy Pass\u00a0\u2013 Come alive, 35\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Image: Lucy Pass<\/p>\n

Pass is a self-taught figurative artist based in Cheltenham. Her work combines representational and abstract elements in an attempt to give physical shape to things that lie deep within us and to piece together what it is to be human. Her dynamic, fragmented portraits are a conversation between chaos and clarity; beauty and unease. She was awarded first prize in both The British Art Prize in 2023 and The Guildford House Open in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd in 1996, I was 10 so, while I was aware of the soundtrack, I was completely clueless as to the on-screen world of Trainspotting\u2026 which is probably just as well really!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chris Ashworth, Untitled\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Image: Chris Ashworth<\/p>\n

Ashworth has gained a worldwide reputation for pushing the boundaries between graphic design and subculture aesthetics for bands and brands including Ray Gun magazine, Nike, New Order, Michael Stipe (REM) and Gavin Rossdale (Bush) as well as exhibiting alongside Banksy and Shepard Fairey. His book Disorder: Swiss Grit Vol II, is published by Thames & Hudson.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 1996 he was designing the music and style magazine Blah Blah Blah in Shoreditch, London for MTV and Ray Gun Publishing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Bench Allen, Bunt\u00e0ta Donn\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Image: Bench Allen<\/p>\n

Allen focuses on hand-pulled screenprint editions drawing inspiration from natural history and pop culture. He combines bold\u00a0hand-drawn imagery with layered textures and halftone, embracing the physical qualities and imperfections of the printmaking process.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing eight, I spent every child-of-divorce weekend in 1996 with my sister, Phoebe. We would be dropped off by our father at the \u00a31 kids\u2019 cinema club in the Odeon, Plymouth, 30p chocolate bar in pocket, obviously not watching Trainspotting \u2013 that would come a few years later.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maxine Gregson, Highs and Lows\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Image: Maxine Gregson<\/p>\n

Gregson is a contemporary artist and printmaker. Her work is an intricate blend of photo collage, graphical elements, grids, and typography. Drawing inspiration from music lyrics, literature, and vintage photography. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c1996 was a great year for me \u2013 I\u2019d just started my dream design job at Malcolm Garrett\u2019s studio in Shoreditch. I remember\u00a0seeing\u00a0the Trainspotting posters everywhere for the first time, cycling down Kingsland Road to work.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/p>\n

Adam + Joe, Toytrainspotting<\/p>\n

\"\"Image: Adam + Joe<\/p>\n

The first thing Joe Cornish and Adam Buxton made for their new TV show in 1996 was a parody of Trainspotting. Instead of the characters in the original poster, the Adam & Joe Show version featured cuddly toys.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought it would be funny to do a movie as grotty and gritty and cool with cuddly toys,\u201d says Cornish.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cInstead of shooting heroin, they were shooting up Sherbert Dip Dabs. We made the shitty toilet out of cardboard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back then, he says, \u201cAdam and I had always been desperately foraging around to find some sort of a foothold in film or TV, so to get this opportunity to make this, even though it was an ultra-low-budget late night TV\u00a0show, the fact that we genuinely made it all ourselves was very exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the intervening decades, Cornish and Buxton\u2019s careers have flourished. Cornish has written films including Ant-Man and The Adventures of Tintin, as well as directing 2011\u2019s Attack the Block. But it was the era of Trainspotting where it all took off.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t taking heroin, I was smoking a lot of weed and living in a flat in Exmouth Market,\u201d Cornish says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the mid \u201990s you were tame if you were just smoking weed. Everyone else seemed to be snorting coke and taking smack and driving cars into lampposts and staying up all night at various clubs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were extremely tame compared to what was going on around us, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n

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He says the \u2018death of monoculture\u2019 has made parody harder than before.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was easier to parody stuff because everybody knew what you were parodying. Everybody knew the detail of the thing you were taking the piss out of,\u201d Cornish says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the mid-1990s everybody was talking about that movie, and everybody was having all the same discussions about pop culture\u201d.<\/p>\n

Adam and Joe\u2019s contribution to the exhibition will see 100 prints priced at \u00a360 a pop, with 100% of the money going to Big Issue<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would seem very greedy and churlish to make any money off it,\u201d Cornish says. \u201cAll we did, really, is send a pretty low-resolution file to Blam. And then he did a fantastic job blowing it up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we were maybe the first people to parody Trainspotting. So thanks to that dubious honour, [Blam has] allowed us \u2013 or invited us \u2013 to join the exhibition.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the first thing that broke through for us,\u201d he adds. \u201cWe were sort of riding on the coattails of
that movie\u2019s success.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt was exciting to be a mollusc, or a carbuncle, on the\u00a0arse of a much bigger cultural phenomenon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trainspotters #T30 is showing from 21 February to 14 March at Atom Gallery<\/a>, Green Lanes, London<\/p>\n

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this?\u00a0Get in touch and tell us more<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Advertising helps fund Big Issue\u2019s mission to end poverty<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Perhaps as much as Trainspotting\u2019s indelible capture of a time and a place on camera, Blamire\u2019s poster put…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[787,412,77142,146,7506,878,40074,85,1037,46,150371],"class_list":["post-296846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-art","tag-books","tag-edinburgh","tag-entertainment","tag-exhibition","tag-film","tag-from-the-magazine","tag-il","tag-interview","tag-israel","tag-trainspotting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}