Bring Some Majesty Into Your Home With Our Vibrant Royal Art

This Spring has brought a wonderful opportunity for celebration with the Royal Coronation. Following last year's Jubilee celebration (an occasion we wrote about at the time ​​Portraits of the Queen With a Difference), we’re looking forward to another chance to celebrate the Royal Family in our own way.

Royal portraits have always had an important role in sharing a vision of those at the head of the country. In the last decades, however, it has been interesting to see contemporary artists enjoying their own ways of presenting our monarchy. 

As we celebrate King Charles III coronation, we wanted to look at the many ways our royal family are being immortalised today. 

The Monarchy Have Their Own Style

Street Art Style

Many successful street artists have created works which celebrate the queen with portraits from throughout her life.

Using profiles to reflect the image we have seen for so many years on stamps, the artist Dan Pearce has created a stunning representation of the young queen in the piece, A Class Apart. Here, she’s presented with a Queen of Hearts Tattoo on an abstract Union Flag made from graffiti messages.

The piece God Save the Queen, by Yuvi, is a hand-embellished mixed media piece with a neon heart element. In this work, Yuvi has chosen to celebrate the queen towards the end of her reign, alongside many other elements of her Britain from popular culture, art, and her life. 

Dylan Izaak, has brought humour to his representations. Again, he creates his portraits of the queen amongst other elements of British life - phone boxes, bulldogs and Routemaster buses. Seeing the Sites brings us one of his unique line drawn cityscapes, his art of London, on aluminium, with the Queen and Prince Philip taking in those sites.

Portraiture

Queen Elizabeth II - Floral II by Pete Humphreys is a stunning original painting of the young queen on a canvas covered in words - telling her story. The line work on the piece is clear, creating a stunning image which has the queen decorated with a climbing rose tattoo on her neck.

Royal Reunion, one of Craig Alan’s Populus collection, depicts a recognisable portrait of the queen through a number of individual figures performing a variety of activities and poses. This fabulous work clearly shows a younger queen engaging us with a keen look, even though the queen’s portrait is mainly white space with the shape created by Alan’s tiny figures. As with any of Alan’s works, the beauty of this portrait is enhanced by the characters within the scene encouraging viewers to explore the different levels of the piece continually finding new stories within it.

Mixing Media

Tom Butler’s work is incredibly popular and it’s wonderful to see his celebration of the Coronation capturing elements of King Charles III and Camilla’s story as they take on the crown. Butler’s art of London is represented wonderfully in Coronation Street, a vibrant piece with an air of celebration in daily life which includes the artist’s usual hidden messages encouraging you to look longer and deeper so you don’t miss anything.

Finally we’re looking at the work of Stephen Graham, a mixed media artist who’s latest works include  Crown I and Crown II. Part of his Ink’d collection, these pieces are influenced by the pop art movement focusing on icons and images which Graham can use to convey the messages which are most important to him. Using acrylic inks and spray paint to ensure a recognisable but chaotic image, he then dusts his work with diamond dust to create a sparkle which makes these royal pieces truly shine.