Everybody Razzle Dazzle Across the Mersey

Want to experience a piece of original art from the brilliant Sir Peter Blake? Then head to Liverpool and take a ferry across the Mersey. Everybody Razzle Dazzle is the name of the work that wraps around the Snowdrop ferry transforming it into a bonafide dazzle ship.

The bespoke design carries the signature uses of colour, monochrome and shape long associated with Blake since he began as a pioneer of the pop art scene in the 1960s. The art of dazzle began decades earlier as a means of camouflage for ships during the first world war. Unlike regular camouflage, dazzle is meant to baffle not conceal, making it difficult to estimate a target’s range, speed and direction. Each ship’s dazzle pattern, in monochrome and colour, was unique.

Everybody Razzle Dazzle is the third in a series of Dazzle Ship commissions, and Liverpool’s second – Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez’s is also moored on the waterfront there; the third by Germany’s Tobias Rehberger is on the banks of the Thames in London. Blake’s moving artwork sails most days on the Mersey – check Mersey Ferries for details – and passengers can see a display of the history of dazzle on board. “I’ve had a long association with Liverpool over the years, and I’m honoured and excited to be asked to design a dazzle image for the iconic Mersey Ferry,” Blake said.

And it doesn’t end there. When you want to take the weight off, stop by the café at Tate Liverpool, just a few hundred metres along the dockside at the Albert Dock where Blake has given the place a lift with his dazzle-tastic designs.