An art school drop-out is set to take the art world by storm after getting his paintings shown on the cult Channel 4 series Ackley Bridge.
Joe Tully, 28, was born and bred in Huddersfield, lived in Bradley and went to school in Mirfield. He now lives in Longwood.
After dropping out of Leeds Art School after just two or three months he worked at Pizza Hut for several years then went back to university in 2013.
He showed his talent by graduating with a first class degree in advertising and marketing.
Joe describes his style as neo-expressionistic combined with elements of abstract, pop and advertising while his artistic influences are: Jean-Michel Basquiat, a cutting edge American artist, LS Lowry, David Hockney and Picasso.
He said: “I have always loved art, and painted whenever I could, but never anything serious until about a year and a half ago.
“I started painting at home to calm my nerves in the final year of university. I had built up a collection of around 20 A3 size paintings and my partner Natasha kept nagging me saying: ‘What are you going to do with those?’ I said: ‘Sell them...’ not really thinking I would.
“Eventually she pushed me to put them up on eBay and to my delight they all sold – and fast.
“I started painting more and more, selling as I went and have since sold over 200 paintings, built up a large social media following and built my own website.
“Eventually I was asked by a company who spotted my paintings online if they could display them in a catalogue which gets shown to Channel 4 television shows – clients including Cold Feet etc – allowing them to choose artwork for film sets, which has been cleared of copyright by the artists.
“I accepted, of course, and have recently discovered that the artwork will be featured in the background of Ackley Bridge, the drama series about a fictional school set in Yorkshire.
“Things are going from strength to strength and I hope to one day bring out a book of my works, and maybe even do my take on Huddersfield.”
