Liverpool City Council Worker Mounts SIMULACRA Exhibition at St George's Hall

By day he is a council cleaning manager. But Billy Scott has a secret passion which he is about to share with the world. The 50-year-old Liverpool City Council worker is also a talented artist, and now up to 200 of his works are set to go on show in the city's grandest public building, St George's Hall.

Simulacra, which opens on Saturday 25 November, will feature a host of famous faces, brought to life in stunning drawings which Billy creates in a shed at his home in Anfield.

The father-of-three has been producing line drawings, sketched in pencil or graphite, since he was a child.

After attending Anfield Comprehensive, in 1984 at the age of 17 Billy started his working career on a Youth Training Scheme with the city council in the then Central Liverpool Training Workshop, studying signwriting. While there his artistic flair was spotted by lecturers and he embarked on a six-month study of art, building up a portfolio of work to be presented to Liverpool School of Art and Design.

But having turned down the chance to undertake a degree in Fine Arts, Billy put studying to one side and continued with art as a hobby, concentrating on portraits of footballers and celebrities.

To date, this hobby has seen the body of artwork grow to include more than 500 drawings, which remain in his private collection.

With around 200 portraits on show, Simulacra represents two years' work in the making and brings together a diverse range of subjects from various genres of popular culture.

Visitors will go on a journey through sections from icons and sportsmen and women to TV characters, film, British and international music, and famous Liverpudlians.

Along the way you Will B. Able to stare in to the brilliantly realised faces of everyone from Bill Shankly and Dixie Dean to Bjork and Bryan Ferry, Salvador Dali and Ken Dodd to Audrey Hepburn and Adele, and Tom Hardy to Tony Hancock, as well as The Beatles, Cilla, Elvis Costello, Kenny Everett, Leonard Rossiter and the artist's favourite - David Bowie.

Billy Scott says: "I've drawn since I was a kid, but just pursued it as a hobby. I started putting them up on my Facebook page a couple of years ago, and the reaction I got from people spurred me on to do more.

"I've sold a few prints over the years and I've done a few commissions for friends and family. But I wouldn't describe myself as an artist.

"The exhibition will be extremely accessible and is split into different categories. It's only existed in plastic A4 folders until now, so I can't wait to see all the pictures framed and on the wall."

St George's Hall general manager Alan Smith adds: "It's a delight to host such an accessible exhibition depicting the great and good of the entertainment and leisure world. It's even more pleasing to introduce the work of local artist Billy Scott who has produced the drawings over a 35-year span.

"Everyone thinks they can draw, copy, and emulate, but here is a real artist whose sheer joy of sketching subjects he simply likes comes across in this joyous exhibition. It's a real explosion of quality of art."

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IF YOU GO:

SIMULACRA

At St George's Hall, St George's Place, Liverpool, L1 1JJ (North Entrance via Heritage Centre).

Sat 25 November - Sun 7 January.
10am-5pm daily apart from December 24-26 and January 1.

ADMISSION FREE

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This unique neo-classical building is the centre of Liverpool's traditional cultural forum whose foundation stone was laid in 1838. It was built as a result of separate competitions to create a fitting space for the aspirational city to hold its music festivals and other assemblies and contains the vastly ornate Great Hall with its vaulted ceiling, Minton tiled floor, replete with maritime and civic symbolism and is also home to a massive pipe organ. The Small Concert Room at the Northern elevation of the Hall has been described as the 'Albert Hall in miniature' and is circular in design with a proscenium arch stage and is flanked by caryatids, female sculptural figures which are designed to give the impression of supporting the fine lace work of the iron balconies. Unusually, the Hall also houses the Crown and Civil Court which were working courts until the 1980s when the Court Service moved to new premises in Derby Square. The ground floor and basement levels also house holding cells for prisoners and the condemned cell. St George's Hall can lay claim to one of the oldest ventilation and air conditioning systems in the world, the workings of which can be seen in the lower basement level and throughout the Hall.

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