This poster of people the world has lost in 2017 is just heartbreaking

The second edition of the Sgt. Pepper poster has been released.

2017 has been a tough year for us.

British artist Chris Barker created another hard-hitting take on the iconic Beatles album cover ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club’, showing once more the celebrities we’ve lost in the year.

2016’s cover was dominated by the Panama Papers, Mohamed Ali and Brexit.

2017 is a new beast, with tributes to Hugh Hefner, Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington and Tom Petty.

But this year, a number of unsavoury people were included in the poster, and Chris tells indy100 how he managed to work around that.

Speaking to indy100, Chris said:

The grim reaper has tested me. Last year the hardest thing to try and do was include Debbie Reynolds respectfully next to Carrie Fisher, this year the wild card it threw me was whether to and how to include the monstrous figures of Charles Manson and Ian Brady.

I nearly decided to give up on the whole idea when Charles Manson died.

I couldn't exclude him, but I didn't want him to have the same prominence as people who are famous for more honourable reasons.

Luckily, the fact I'd included a bag of rubbish as a tribute to auto-destructive artist Gustav Metzger gave me a handy solution. It's fitting for them both to be put out with the rubbish.

This year, Chris also decided to use his platform to raise awareness about climate change, setting his poster in a flooded, red-skied wasteland.

Last year the stars we lost were so iconic, from Bowie to Wogan, how could anything ever compare?

But I decided I could do it again to try and highlight the effects of climate change.

People don't really seem to have picked up on the red sky, hurricane winds and rising flood waters as much as I'd thought they would - they're just playing dead celebrity Where's Wally again.

I suppose we're all desensitised to it.

Picture:

Last year as I was doing my 2016 montage, there was another twitter user making angels of the passed celebrities for her Christmas tree.

This year she has done it again and is hoping to use it to get people to donate to Macmillan Cancer Support.

As my montage is a non-profit image, if people who enjoy the image feel so inclined it would be great if they could support her cause too.

There is a link to donate on my tweet.

Thanks again for all the positive comments.

Follow more of Chris Barker's work here, and you can find him on Twitter as well.

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