Giant pink mammoth and BBC Ceefax - Joe Lycett unveils first major solo art exhibition

Joe Lycett wants art exhibition to inspire othersImage caption, Joe Lycett wants his first major solo art exhibition to inspire others to get creativeByEd James, David Lumb, Reporting fromin Birmingham and Susie Rack, West MidlandsPublished7 minutes agoA life-sized pink woolly mammoth, Ozzy Osbourne, and an old phone are among some of the subjects comedian and artist Joe Lycett hopes will inspire others to get creative.Everything Must Go at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery was inspired by "things that are no longer with us", he said, describing his first major solo art exhibition as "a neon graveyard, full of colour"."I want people to come in and go, 'well I could do that', and then go and do it, please, go and do it better," he said."It's so good for you and I really get cross when people go, 'oh I'm not really creative'. If you can put pen to paper, you're creative, you can make things."Lycett has been working on the collection, which opens on Wednesday, over the past year.He said it sprang from his love of painting animals, then became an "exercise in looking into grief", also honouring friends who had died.Image source, Tom BirdImage caption, The exhibition will run until February next yearIts centrepiece is the mixed media sculpture of Martin the mammoth, which has ceramic yellow toenails and a latex tongue.He decided to make it one night "at 4am, which is when all my ideas come".It was available to buy for £80, he joked, "but you do need to get it out yourself".The Nokia 2210, an acrylic on canvas, depicts the comedian's favourite-ever phone, and features a message saying, Snobs?, referring to a legendary city nightspot.He said he was inspired to paint Ozzy after attending his final show at Villa Park last July. "I was so moved by it," he added.Image source, Tom BirdImage caption, The idea for Martin the woolly mammoth came to Lycett in the...