One of the country’s leading manufacturers of softwood and hardwood staircases, Pear Stairs distributes throughout the UK with over 65 staff working three shifts covering 24 hours a day, six days a week. The Welshpool-based company is now attracting attention, thanks to the unique livery featured on its lorries.
Employee Clare Harper – who studied art at Central St Martins, London – designed the curtains. Her brief was to “Do anything you want as long as it’s amazing”.
Her concept was to “pique the curiosity of the viewer by making the images both blatantly obvious and cunningly obscure”. Although there are ‘pears’ and ‘stairs’ covering large parts of the huge canvasses, any reference to the company name is subtly incorporated within the picture so the viewer has to look for it. The idea is to encourage the onlooker to think about what they see, so to reinforce the inextricable link between the vibrant images and the Pear Stairs brand.
The designs are influenced by and reference (or play on the words) pears or stairs in classical and contemporary art:- Vermeer’s “Girl with a pear earing”, Magritte’s “Son of Man” or Hirst’s “A pear divided” and Eschers’ “Relativity” with its never ending impossible staircase.
Pear Stairs Manager Clive McNamee said “We wanted to produce something a little different to what you usually see. The images are about poking gentle fun at the world while seriously imprinting Pear Stairs onto the memory of everyone who sees them. Clare has done a fantastic job and we are absolutely delighted with the end result.”
