“Shore Leave” is an original oil on canvas framed 965 x 765mm (picture size 805 x 605mm) created by Ian Mackenzie.
 
This artwork is framed in a traditional 3 inch black wooden surround with a light coloured insert. It comes with a Certificate of Authenticity which is signed and verified by the artist. 
 
The Story Behind “Shore Leave”
 
Down in the deepest darkest depths of Pierhead Building, lies a series of rooms. Damp, dusty and foreboding, they are not the most comfortable on the Welsh Parliamentary estate.
 
Picture life above in the offices during the 1890’s. Landowners selling their materials, quarry proprietors shipping their coal all over the world, and the Marquis of Bute creating a fortune for Cardiff and its docklands. A rich prosperous hive of activity. 
 
But life below in the Pierhead Building is different. The key is turned, and another drunken sailor thrown down the stone stairs to join his fellow raucous compatriots. Those that the local police cannot control and have no space for, who remain pending first light when the captain comes calling for his missing sailors, to return to their ship catching the rising tide, until Tiger Bays Sirens lure them to shore once more.
 
Ian Mackenzie