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A local artist, who rose to fame with his elaborate drawings on banknotes, has received plaudits from “queen of burlesque” Dita von Teese for his latest body of work.
As well as Dita, Olly Killip's latest series, ‘Decades of Divine Beauty’ also features "eternally beautiful women" Brigitte Bardot, Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn.
The artist's meteoric rise from a Senior Trust Officer to an artist with works on the market at more than £10,000 a piece started just three years ago when a sketch in which he had turned the Queen into the Joker on a Jersey pound note was picked up to be featured in a book alongside Banksy.
Pictured: Olly's defaced Jersey £1 note featured in the book 'Cash is King'.
His irreverent style, which saw him graffiti a police riot shield for his first ever Jersey exhibition in 2018, saw some label him Jersey's own Banksy, though he goes by the pseudonym of Bluntroller.
Since then, the artist has left his job in finance and shown his work In Paris, Vienna and London and many other places.
Last year, Olly got inspired by ballerina silhouettes, especially American ballet dancer, Kylie Shea whom he painted on banknotes and city backdrops.
Pictured: Olly painted ballerina Kylie Shea on banknotes and city backdrops.
While Olly was researching other famous ballerinas, Audrey Hepburn and Brigitte Bardot came up, inspiring a series of works which were shown last summer as part of Olly’s 'Urbane' exhibition.
These portraits were the first examples of ‘Decades of Divine Beauty’ in which only wants to celebrate “long gone icons” as well as modern day ones with hand-sprayed pieces.
The latest icon to inspire Olly is Dita von Teese, whom he describes as “top level”.
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“Her brand is luxury, she is the queen of burlesque. There is so much to work with and it makes for a really strong piece.”
She reacted to the work on Instagram, describing it as "fabulous", adding: "...thank you, everyone loves it."
Dita’s portrait, like the others, features over 20 layers of hand cut stencils. From finding the right image to recreate to creating the detailed background and cutting the different layers, the process is a time-consuming one - a real “labour of love”, as Olly describes it.
“You print off the image 30 times and you sit there and cut through it, it can take weeks to cut,” Olly said. “It’s hard to explain how you are doing it because you just do it but there is a lot of manpower involved and it can take weeks and weeks.”
Pictured: Audrey Hepburn one of the "timeless icons" Olly wanted to celebrate through his work.
The complex process, which Olly, an entirely self-taught artist, came up with himself, takes about a month for each portrait.
With just a few months to go before his next show - a private members' club exhibit in London - in June, Olly will be “relentlessly cutting” and working “endlessly” over the next few weeks.
“It’s a lot of work,” Olly said. “People think it’s just spray painting, but there is a lot of thought and consideration that goes into it.
“It’s exciting, I work a lot of hours, it’s just what you do 24/7. It’s not really a job, it’s a lifestyle.”
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