Scott Walker is a UK based artist and illustrator with professional experience in festivals and events as well as industry and commercially based projects. Scott’s interactive cartoon installations (UP AGAINST THE WALL) draw inspiration from contemporary character design, outsider art and urban street culture. In collaboration with POSCA we invited Scott to our Flagship Islington branch to do one of his incredible murals! We spoke to the man behind the mural to get an insight into his practice. Enjoy!
Your artistic journey began in London's underground club scene in the late 80s. How has your signature style, "comic fed, urban psychedelia," evolved over the past three decades? What influences have shaped its transformation?
There does feel like a kind of evolution, a non-lineal progress in my work over the last 30 years. Making art that is designed for collaborative inclusion means that I tend toward bold graphics, I am also looking get as much content into mural as possible so that there is plenty of activity available. From my wild painting days in the 80’s to the vast collaborative works I make today, I hope there is a spirit of humour and a hint of the absurd that flows through. Using my graphic design and illustration skills have been vital tools throughout a career as a working artist.
The eclectic nature of my work through those years is pretty broad. Gigantic sound system covers for concerts, photo-real DJ portraits for Radio 1, school workshops in China or children’s book illustrations. In the last decade I had been lucky enough to be able to focus on what I really love, which is the cartoon/character design side of my work. All of those experiences are naturally influential, I like to think that I am looking at my work with the same sense of wonder but with a different perspective.
Your work has transitioned from the energy of clubs to more permanent murals. How does creating a large-scale mural differ from your earlier work on a smaller scale?
Festival murals can be so much fun, its all about the process and the excitement that swells as a giant piece of canvas transforms into a work of collective graffiti. At a public event, such as a festival, you never know what’s going to happen, they can be wild - and really beautiful - or sometimes just wild. Collaborative graffiti is a kind of anthropological snapshot in time, there are messages, styles of the moment, comments about some famous personality or someones obsession, there’s a kind of zoning as well where the colouring and drawings are out of reach from the little ones. It really is true graffiti.
I try to make work that will inspire energy and a spark of creative fire in the people who join in, whether thats a transitory thing like a street festival or a more permanent mural like the one we have created at Cass Art Islington. There is a definite difference with a mural on a wall, an aesthetic that people instinctively understand is for show, its like putting on your best outfit and making something beautiful - but it should, and does still have a bit of wild, a bit of humour and joy
You often do festival murals and interactive events alongside gallery work. What are the challenges and rewards of transitioning from interactive installations to a more permanent mural?
Festival murals can be so much fun, its all about the process and the excitement that swells as a giant piece of canvas transforms into a work of collective graffiti. At a public event, such as a festival, you never know what’s going to happen, they can be wild - and really beautiful - or sometimes just wild. Collaborative graffiti is a kind of anthropological snapshot in time, there are messages, styles of the moment, comments about some famous personality or someones obsession, there’s a kind of zoning as well where the colouring and drawings are out of reach from the little ones. It really is true graffiti.
I try to make work that will inspire energy and a spark of creative fire in the people who join in, whether thats a transitory thing like a street festival or a more permanent mural like the one we have created at Cass Art Islington. There is a definite difference with a mural on a wall, an aesthetic that people instinctively understand is for show, its like putting on your best outfit and making something beautiful - but it should, and does still have a bit of wild, a bit of humour and joy
Creating a large mural can be quite a process. How do you approach planning a piece like the incredible mural you’ve created in our Islington branch, and do you involve the audience or space in your creative decisions?
The Cass Art mural originates from my love of character making, my influences when making these comic /absurdist creations come from everywhere. Stories, nature, folklore and animist cultures, outsider and alt comic art - and ,I like to think, humanity and humour.
My sketch books are full of these characters, always changing, morphing and hopefully contrasting with each other as I attempt to pull down unique creatures and original content.
With a mural like this I made the original composition on an Ipad using procreate, I love the flow and clean line that procreate has, along with the editing capabilities that help me fit my characters together. This kind of composition is what I call a crowd scene, it reminds me of a line up of unusual suspects or some weird and wonderful audience at a music festival - just waiting for the act to come on.
In order to work fast in getting my artwork scaled up and on the wall, I used an old 3M overhead projector and even though we were in a very light space it enabled me to rough sketch my creations in place ( sometimes I will grid, sometimes simply free draw- depending on the type of artwork and space I’m in)
Im woking with Posca pens on this Mural and they provide a really dense and smooth black outline, I love the effortless way they take to a wall like this which means I can concentrate on the artwork. The same goes for colouring, Posca’s provide vivid opaque pigment, the range of colours are fanatic and the quality acrylic ink means that they work so well for layering, adding colour textures and even blends. I hear nothing but good things about these paint pens from my fellow colours as they step up and get involved. And it is a collaboration, its something I really enjoy in mural making - giving over, or at least sharing the process of colour creation. Everyone is unique, people are inspired by what goes before them and in turn inspire others and its a fantastic atmosphere being amongst fellow ‘colour-naughts’ explorers of pigment and creative triumphs.
What was the inspiration behind this mural you created in collaboration with Posca?
Making alt-comic styled characters and monsters that have quirky animist, human-centric personalities is what I love doing - and they are the most fun to throw colour at! My inspirations are so varied but the final artwork here is designed for collaboration and maximum participation.
Using Posca markers for such a large-scale piece is quite unique and how did they influence your artistic approach?
Maybe I’m obsessed with Posca, I use them for all my murals and graffiti walls because they deliver what I need; A bright, varied and vivid palette that's water-based and comes in a tidy package. I love them for their durability and convince but also people (myself included) love them for the colour and diverse expressions in creative play that they enable.
Check out more of Scotts work on his website and be sure to follow him no Instagram @swalksup