London is well known for hosting the extravagances of its people, who are particularly creative and sometimes even non-conformist. Carrie Reichardt (below) is one of them and it is on the facade of her house in Chiswick, in the western districts of the capital, that the Briton has given free rein to her imagination. She covered it entirely with hundreds of thousands of multicolored mosaic pieces, a job that took her nearly 20 years. At the origin of this rather crazy idea, the desire to emancipate oneself from the diktats of traditional art advocated by the galleries (one can moreover read on a banner represented above one of the windows:"I am an artist, your rules do not apply to my work”). “I wanted to do something that no one could stop me from doing. […] I finished the front last May, now I'm working on the back. It will probably take another 5 years because I also want to decorate my garden “Explains the main interested in the site Metro .
She confides that her daily life shared between her 3 children and the culmination of her project was punctuated by “not very obvious moments”. But not enough to discourage the mother whose business has fascinated artists from all over the world who have gladly come to lend a hand. “International artists visited me for a week last March to help me finish [the façade]. They were from France, Chile, Germany and Spain. They took care of the top illustrations mainly ". If Carrie Reichardt does not know the exact number of terracotta fragments used over the past two decades, she estimates that there were at least 1 million. The result, very colorful even psychedelic, is completed with the owner's two cars, also covered in mosaic, which remain day and night in front of the house. Something to delight local residents and tourists, who do not hesitate to share their admiration for the finished work in their own way. “People knock on my door, congratulate me or leave gifts on my doorstep. Books and tiles, mostly », concludes the artist. We take our hat off to him... A proof that patience pays off!
