“I'll Tell You What's a Great Album”

I'll Tell You What's a Great Album is a single piece of work made up of twenty album sleeves painted on beermats.

In the age of the digital download, music is copied perfectly and instantaneously, being devalued more than just commercially. Sleeve art is generally overlooked or completely ignored. This piece throws the spotlight back onto this artwork, and the images have been produced "long-hand", imperfectly, and with considerable effort. (Beer mats, which are made to soak up liquids, are horrible things to paint on.)

The source for each painting is a real album sleeve. Selections were made to cover as many original media as possible: collage; manga; vector art; printmaking; black and white and colour photography; pen and ink; industrial design; oil painting; and screen printing are all represented and reproduced as accurately as possible. I also own, and am fond of, each of the records represented.

All references to the album's maker and its title are removed. This is an attempt to bring the sleeve art back to being a piece of art. For the same reason, on the explanatory panel, the people who made the sleeve art are credited, whereas the bands who used the work are not.