Artworks displayed on huge urban canvas

Artist Alex Knell’s work We Are Our Only Future is being exhibited as part of the launch of the One Grafton Street Urban Art Gallery, London W1 – a huge canvas measuring 19x43m.

Knell’s work won an online competition in which the public voted for their favourite artwork by students from the Royal Academy Schools, and will now be exhibited alongside work from the 12 other finalists.

We Are Our Only Future is a digital print on archival fine art paper, which Knell says examines the notions of hope and meaning.

The works are being shown on a huge canvas stretched across the face of One Grafton Street, a building currently being developed by Hines, who ran the online competition in conjunction with the Royal Academy Schools.

The Urban Art Gallery is the first iteration of Hines’ One Spirit Showcase project – a planned series of collaborations with arts and cultural organisations.

Peter Holden, director of Hines UK, says, ‘This competition was a wonderful opportunity to support and promote the next generation of talented artists from the Royal Academy Schools.’

Professor Maurice Cockrill, the keeper of the Royal Academy of Arts, says, ‘The sheer size of the urban gallery is a fantastic platform to show the wider public the creative originality produced by the students at the Royal Academy Schools, and we hope that this wrap will inspire and delight all who see it.’