PARTHIAN SHOT at the PARTHIAN SHOP!

Parthian Shot at the new Parthian Shop – ARTWORK by @majkaillustrations

Have you visited our new retail area at Parthian Southampton? Get to know Artist Karolina and learn about how the design came to fruition.

My art career officially started in Arts University Bournemouth, but also way before that, back when I was a little kid scribbling on anything and everything I could get my hands on (sorry about the walls mum). I discovered climbing while I was at university, I found it fascinating how similar the thought process was between climbing and making art, the focus, creativity and problem solving. Naturally, I caught the climbing bug. A few months after graduating I found myself working at Parthian Southampton.

When I heard that we were changing our shop space, I threw in an idea as a joke that I could paint a mural for Parthian, to give it a bit more character. When Mark said to make him a mock-up, it sparked a sense of inspiration, and I immediately got to work.

Some artists might relate to this but the worst part for me is always the beginning. That fear of a blank canvas, idea generation can be quite daunting, especially when you’re a perfectionist. So of course, the initial ideas were quite cliché, those being mountains or stuff involving the Parthian logo etc. While researching online, map contour lines caught my attention, but I wanted something that had personality, not just a decorative piece but something with meaning, so it still didn’t feel quite right.

Until the day I heard about Parthian shot.

I was having a chat with our previous head setter, Sam Banks, about the history and origins of Parthian. He explained to me that it was based on a climb called “Parthian Shot” that John Dunne, the owner of the company completed the first ascent back in 1989. I also found out that the name was based on a military technique, made famous by ancient Iranian people called Parthians. While seemingly performing a retreat at full gallop, the horse archers would then turn back to shoot the enemy which required immense strength and skill. This was my lightbulb moment.

Finding the actual location of the climb was a lot harder than I thought. There were no coordinates, various climbing websites weren’t very helpful until Sam looked on Ordinance Survey. We then managed to pin it down. It all seemed straight forward, but I didn’t want to just copy and paste the design on to the wall, so I decided to delicately mix it in with my signature style inspired by Polish folk art to give it that more decorative playful aspect. This project was a great challenge for me as my previous experience consisted of digital work or children’s book illustration.

Altogether both murals took me 5 days, a lot of patience and newfound respect for muralists who do this full time.

Nevertheless, I’ve had a lot of fun during this project and I’m looking forward to do more mural work in the future!

PS: See mum drawing on the walls has paid off in the end!

If you like the mural and would like to see more of my work take a look at my Instagram at @majkaillustrations!