Pics

This reimagined Sgt Pepper cover is a moving tribute to familiar faces who died in 2020

John Plunkett. Updated December 11th, 2020

Every year artist Chris Barker – @christhebarker over on Twitter – reimagines the famous cover art of Sgt Pepper with people who have died over the previous 12 months.

It’s an amazing piece of work and a moving reminder of those we have lost in 2020.

Here it is a bit closer up (you’ll have to zoom in for the full effect).

And just in case you’re wondering exactly who’s who.

This is the fifth year Chris has done it and here’s a bit of what he had to say about this year’s cover.

‘I had a couple of options of how to show this year was a year like no other. My immediate thought was social distancing; to have the characters all really spread out. But that would have proved really impractical. I did consider making the whole thing much wider to accommodate this but then I thought of masks.

‘Face masks have been a very defining part of this year. From being an alien concept in January to the norm in November. I now look strangely at people if they’re not wearing masks in a supermarket, which is something I couldn’t have imagined back in 2019.’

‘It has been such an awful, bleak year. Originally I had as a background a red sky with burning forests. There had been no good news in 2020 and it just felt appropriate. But then suddenly with Biden’s eventual victory and talk of a covid vaccine, there appeared to be the faintest glimmers of hope in the third act of this disaster movie of a year. I had to illustrate the Biden/Harris victory in some way but sticking their flag in the middle of a burning hellscape didn’t feel like the right thing to do.

‘Luckily the most hilarious moment of the year happened and The Four Seasons Total Landscaping background could provide the image with a sense of hope and optimism. The surreal backdrop perfectly encapsulates the final nail in the coffin of the nightmarish Trump administration that inspired this whole project.

‘When I first did the 2016 montage, the loss of such an overwhelming number of iconic heroes was undoubtedly one of the defining stories of the year – even overshadowing Brexit and Trump. But this year, obviously the huge number of deaths from coronavirus is far more significant. The care workers, the NHS staff, the real human cost of the pandemic that we see on a rolling ticker on the rolling news, going up and up every day. I have chosen to represent this with a chalk tally on the floor of the Four Seasons car park. Every line a reminder of a life taken, a family ripped apart.

‘Every time I do this montage it is an emotional journey, however detached I may get from the subject matter while I’m in the thick of the photoshop, when I put the list together for the key at the end and look at it, it is a quite sobering moment. I know a lot of people who have lost family members this year and I always try to remember that all the people I am including have left people behind too. I have to try to be respectful to everyone and to pay tribute to them and the way they lived their lives.

‘If people feel so moved, I am asking that they make a donation towards NHS charities this year. Despite government underfunding and criticism, these and other care workers are the true heroes that have prevented the death toll from this horrendous virus being even more devastating. Be safe this Christmas and New Year. Hopefully 2021 will be a better one.’

2020’s not over just yet, of course, and it was sadly updated to include the late, great, Barbara Windsor, who has died aged 83.

And here are Chris’s amazing covers from the previous four years.

Follow @christhebarker over on Twitter here!

Source Twitter @christhebarker