A SCUNTHORPE artist is set to display his work at the prestigious Florence Biennale.

Arthur Cross, 59, took the option of redundancy and retirement from the Corus steelworks in 2000 to pursue his life's dream.

He invested his redundancy payout in a four year course at Newcastle University and put on his first show at the 20-21 Visual Arts Centre, in Scunthorpe, in 2004.

And 18 months ago, he got an invite from the organisers of the Florence Biennale.

"I was sent the invitation and at first I thought it was a scheme," Arthur said.

"But once I checked it out on the Internet, I realised it was not a scheme and I needed to register."

Getting entry to the Biennale is by both invitation and application.

In Arthur's case, it was because they had seen his work - called Acre Rigg [named after his first school] - online and liked the eight-foot by four-foot painting so much they wanted it at the festival.

Arthur said: "The painting took two years to do. I was never quite happy with it.

"Then I was reading the newspaper and saw this photograph, with this man and his machine gun.

"The other thing was he was dressed in Nato camouflage but he had a Russian machine gun - it was the opposites.

"I thought it would go brilliantly on the painting."

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