Can Art
I'm afraid I haven't produced any recycled drinks can art for many years now and as you can imagine I get quite a few enquiries. I don't have the time to go into every detail but here is some info that you may find useful! Drinks can art was actually something I started making by hand back in 1980, (before re-cycling had been embraced as anything worthwhile - I used to call myself a "super-scrap-man" back then) and sold exclusively from my stand at Covent Garden, London (1980 - 1994). This work consisted of a number of popular designs which are very distinct from my "CanArt".
CanArt - as it became known - was commercially produced for the brewery trade by the company Atlantic Art, which a benevolent entrepreneur partner and I founded in 1994. I designed and produced a series of framed images that were primarily for the brewery and drinks promotion industry but were also sold through a number of small galleries and art shops. However, the company - Atlantic Art - only produced CanArt from 1994 until 2000 when it ceased trading. The CanArt made by the company were produced by a "state of the art laser" which my partner pioneered (at eye-watering costs) and which now no longer exists, and so any CanArt you may have is quite rare - only a thousand or so of even the most popular designs were ever made but in most cases just a few hundreds and sometimes only tens of the designs were ever made. They have become quite collectable items now and I see them come up on ebay from time to time; some go relatively cheaply but I have seen the rarer ones fetch quite amazing prices. There were some Limited Edition works which I also produced - Motorcycles, Knights in armour, Playing card "Kings" and F1 race cars to name a few - look out for those, there weren't a lot made, and the editions were never completed!
However, if you are interested in beer "branded" images, you may be interested to know that my interest in beer hasn't diminished over the years and I now have a series of images I call - "Can-Structions".
It has recently come to my attention that a few un-assembled, component parts of some "CanArt" designs have been discovered and "re-built" into Can-Art designs. These are easy to spot as they don't have the CanArt Logo or the "Martin Allen" badges on then - so be wary when viewing them, especially on ebay!
