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Belfast Live
Belfast Live
National
Jane Corscadden

Bangor artist stunned as Carl Frampton stops by to pick up 'epic' portrait

An artist from Co Down was left stunned after champion boxer Carl Frampton came to his house to pick up a portrait he had created.

It's the latest portrait in a collection called 'NI Legends' created by Bangor artist, Johnny Hamilton, which aims to highlight the people who have helped shape Northern Ireland.

As well as painting the North Belfast boxer, other portraits in the series include Rory McIlroy, George Best, Gary Lightbody, and Joey Dunlop.

Read more: NI artist 'overwhelmed' as member of Royal Family orders her Christmas design

The 39-year-old works in engineering, but did A Level art and always had a love for creativity. He found himself returning to drawing and painting during lockdown and the rest is history.

After reaching out to Carl Frampton on Twitter, Johnny received great feedback as the double world champion followed the art work's progress.

When it was finished, Frampton travelled down to Johnny's house to pick up the original, as well as signing 50 smaller prints for charity.

Johnny's drawing of Carl Frampton which The Jackal signed (Johnny Hamilton)

"I start all the pieces with an outline, so I tagged Frampton in that and he said he couldn't wait to see how it goes. I tagged him in the big reveal on Twitter and he said 'I've seen many, but not as good as this.'," Johnny told Belfast Live.

"He got my number and tried ringing me twice, and I don't answer numbers I don't recognise. So because it tried me twice, I text the number saying I had a missed call, and the response back was 'Hi, it's Carl Frampton.'

"He turned up at the house by himself, which was pretty epic. He's such a nice guy, I have all the time in the world for him.

"I'd offered him the original and said whatever he chose to do with it was up to him, he said he'll likely donate it to charity, then he asked if there's anything he could do for me, and asked if he could sign some of the prints, so he did.

"He came down, signed 50 of the prints and we chatted away with him. He's a proper salt of the earth kind of guy, really friendly and nice.

"He arrived down in his Porsche and the portrait wasn't going to fit in that, so he said he'll have to borrow his wife's car and will be back down to pick up the final piece."

The paintings in the NI Legends collection so far (Johnny Hamilton)

As for future plans, Johnny said he wants to keep highlighting the range of talented figures from Northern Ireland, and is even considering making the leap to working as an artist full-time.

He has ambitious plans for what he would like the NI Legends collection to become.

Johnny said: "I feel like Northern Ireland has a plethora of legends as such, so I want to keep going with the drawing to highlight that.

"I have a cool vision of them being in the arrivals at one of the airports, so people come off the plane and it's like a welcome to Northern Ireland.

"Because the art work is quite big and dramatic, it would be quite cool as you're getting off to see all the legends from here. It could be quite a nice thing for tourists coming in to see."

You can find out more about Johnny's work by clicking here.

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