Interview with Nick Walker
fluoro’s Associate Editor, Audrey Bugeja caught up with a key figure of the 1980s Bristol street art movement. An individual who is known as being the inspiration for artists like Banksy and who created the infamous Vandal who roams the streets of the globe living it large. We’re talking about Nick Walker.
“It was good wasn’t it, it was a good night.” Walker said, referring to the Royal Doulton event in Sydney, Australia where Bugeja and Walker met. The collaboration with Royal Doulton was a different venture for the artist, but nonetheless a determined one. “It’s never bad being introduced to a wider demographic. And I think people that don’t necessarily go to galleries or have the budget to buy an original canvas, can actually get a limited edition plate or something else that was an original canvas painting itself, and I think it’s good. It gives everyone a little piece of something.”
Back in Bristol after some time spent in New York, Walker was set to prepare for his upcoming show in Hong Kong, while also spending some time in the city where he found his fire.
Audrey Bugeja. You’re back in Bristol. How did the collaboration with CRASH & Bio go in New York?
Nick Walker. Yeah good, we’ve got an exhibition planned in August, so when I get back to New York we’re gonna do maybe four or five more pieces. I’m going to get new images cut for it. I have new materials to create. I’m not going to be using old images, you know. It gets boring, so we’re going to crack those out, and August is the opening. It should be good. We might do something in Paris, which will be cool.
AB.What will your new work entail?
NW. New Vandal images and more number stuff, you know what I mean? Those images that I do, that’s purely number based. The numbers are called the Smoke Series because when you see them, they’re all completely multiplied on top of each other, it almost looks like smoke. I’m going down a more contemporary road with this.
AB.Is that different for you?
NW. Yeah, it is, but it’s something I’ve been playing with and dipping into every now and again, but now I want to focus purely on a whole series of pieces that are all number based.
AB.Are your materials remaining the same from what you used 20 years ago?
NW. Umm well, I’ve always used spray paint and stencils, which I started using in 1992. I’m still using them to this day. Materials are changing as technology changes where you can get things laser cut into different materials.
AB.Why stencil? What made you pick that up in 1992?
NW. Well, I think it was mainly, like, the fact that you could actually, and basically find anything anywhere, like magazines and images, the Internet – which was obviously really young at that time – so quality of images were particularly great. So, I used to find images and blow them up on photocopy machine and then cut into them after that, and they were quite raw looking kinda of things, but I kinda like it. I don’t like the clean shiny, that’s bullshit, you know what I mean? It doesn’t give it any edge. You see some stencil art, that is so photographic where you might as well just go buy the photo. It’s a bit weird. But each to their own. They’re all very skilled, but I just like it a bit dirtier.
AB.How have you changed since you first started?
NW. Yeah, no, I still enjoy what I’m doing. Sometimes it’s difficult. You’re thinking you’re not where you want to be as such, you know, and then other times I think ‘fuck me I’m completely blessed!’. I sell my work for good money. I get flown across the other side of the world to attend a dinner party. Sometimes I’ve just got to think I am lucky to be doing what I love doing. There are many people who aren’t and can’t. But on the other side of it, you sometimes hit a wall, and you’re like ‘fuck’ you’re not really into what you’re doing.
AB.What do you do to get yourself out of that and back on the road? Do you drink a lot of red wine?
NW. [Laughs] I’m actually drinking red wine at the moment! You go on a bit of a mad one for a while, I think. You just don’t paint for a bit and you lose yourself slightly. It’s good to go out there and get lost, only to find yourself and discover something else about yourself, and about what you want. Ideas don’t come when you look for them, they come when you least expect them. And, you know, that’s always been the case for me. Especially after shows, when you go onto the next thing, and the next thing, in close proximity. You don’t get time to decompress and recharge your batteries and shit.
I actually think one of the reasons why I hit a wall, going back to that, is because when I’m in New York, I’m going back and forward, and I use a friend’s studio, and that’s not always ideal, you know what I mean? It’s kinda good to have your own space, where you don’t comprise anything. I think that’s kinda where I went and hit a wall. I thought to myself ‘fuck you know, I’ve gone backwards’. I mean, in Bristol, I have this huge studio, but I’m hardly in Bristol, and the travel element, I feel in limbo quite a lot, like living out of a suitcase. I do enjoy it when I know I’m going to be in a place for a couple of months because you can really put the focus into the things that need it.
AB.Your space in Bristol, what’s that like?
NW. You know, it’s really good. It wipes it’s own nose a little bit while I’m away. I’ve got friends in there doing T-shirts and stuff like that. They’re using the front area, which I don’t use, and I use the back-end of the studio.
I have an intern back there who does all this stuff for me, but uses the studio while I’m away. In return I get him sending off paintings if need be while in New York. Everyone kind of gets in and gets their hands dirty.
AB.It sounds like a really creative space.
NW. Yeah it’s alright! I get back in the studio and don’t do anything for a couple of days, to get acclimatised, and wander around finding things basically. ‘Where did I put that?’, ‘Where did I put this?’ drinking coffee and having banter with the lads. Umm, and yeah, just being on the phone to my electricity and gas company telling them they’re a bunch of cunts basically, asking them why they’ve given me this huge bill when I’m basically never here. That’s kind of like the usual behaviour. The to-do list I’ve got to do every time I get back. A week of catching up and paying bills.
AB.Do you feel that you always link back to Bristol with every piece?
NW. Ummm, not really, but Bristol has a great big place in my heart, it’s where I grew up, found my fire as it were, and ummm, I was lucky enough to be able to focus on that and not let go. A lot of people loose it. It’s just a base for me, a good base. I have a property here and stuff, and when I’m here my kids come and stay with me the whole time.
AB.How has the melting pot that is ‘street art’ changed since you first started?
NW. I just think we’ve all evolved from the days of subway art, the early train writers and anything that was kind of coming from New York and influencing Europe and the rest of the world and stuff. I think more people have come to the table with a lot more different eccentric styles. Nothing is really generic anymore, it’s random. Craziest stuff ever; we’re talking style there. In terms of edge and stuff, I think, it doesn’t have the edge it used to when you’re running ‘round at like 4am on a school night sometimes, trying not to get arrested. And now it’s just become… it was an underground phenomenon, where journalists really had to dig deep to enter certain circles to find what they were looking for. Now it’s almost an overground phenomenon, like, everyone can be reached at a touch of a button. It’s so easy these days. The world’s changed. You finish a piece, click a button, and then everyone sees it all over the world. So in terms of street art now, to what it was then, you’d only ever read about it in magazines. Now everything is so immediate. This has spawned a larger generation of artists and writers. Whereas, if you can imagine, there was a handful in Bristol at around 1986, now you say there are probably about 2-3,000 and in the world, millions. It’s a massive, massive scene these days. It’s become completely commercialised these days.
Even when it comes to finding a wall in New York, there are a lot of greedy motherfuckers out there, and because of the Banksy phenomenon; they [property owners] want to basically charge artists to paint their walls, where it was normally the other way around. If you want to paint a space, they see it as advertising space, you know, it’s changed, it’s mad.
AB.Do you sometimes need to grit your teeth and get so annoyed?
NW. Yeah, yeah! I went to ask this one guy in Bristol about whether I could paint his wall because everyone used to tag it, and I was just like, ‘How about you let me paint you’ wall’ and he was like ‘Well, what’s in it for me?’, and I said ‘I’m going to paint your wall’ and he said ‘Why you’re gonna paint my wall?’ and I said, ‘Well it’s a good wall and I can stop it from being tagged’, and he wanted ME to pay HIM to paint his wall. And I was like ‘Wow! It’s a different world now’, and I was thinking ‘Fuck you I’m not going to paint your wall. When you go, I’ll just paint a big cock on it’ [laughs].
AB.Did you actually do it?
NW. No I didn’t. My daughters go to a coffee bar down the road from there, and I reckon they would guess that I did it. ‘Idiot what’s he gone and done now!’ [Laughs]
AB.Now, street artists are normally so elusive and secretive. You’re not, why?
NW. Ummm, well for artists that, kind of like, paint trains and are still prolific on painting X-lines and stuff, then I understand why they don’t want to show their face, but when I was growing up there wasn’t really a metro line in Bristol and stuff. Eventually, I kinda thought I want to use my own name. I never played the anonymity card. It worked for Banksy but I don’t get why other people do it, when they didn’t do it from the get go. Their faces are on a gallery, private view, where there are photographs taken, but then other times they are masked up. It’s like, you gotta have continuity, be consistent with that shit, there’s no point otherwise, and they’re changing their name, it’s just contrived. There’s only one person that’s done it well and that’s Banksy.
AB.I’ve got to ask, back to Banksy, you’ve been quoted as one of his influences. How do you feel about that?
NW. Yeah that’s cool. He once said to me that I’m like an enigma to him. Then we had a conversation a little while later, I think it was 1998, where we were just doing this thing called Walls on Fire in Bristol, and, um, later he said to me, (we were talking about this image that had been put into scrutiny over whether I did it first or he did it first) we were chatting and stuff, and he basically said there was an area that he had been too, that I didn’t think anyone knew about, where there are some of my earliest pieces in Bristol. You know, he can say some good stuff, he’s not afraid to say that he was inspired by your stuff. It’s whether people want to believe that, because some people only know one stencil artist in the world. It’s amazing how so many stencil artists get attributed to Banksy. People are so narrow-minded, ‘Oh mannnnnnnn it’s amazing, oh stencil, that must be Banksy’, you’ seen on Instagram that people put people right all the time. It’s human for you right. They don’t have the will to believe that there are other stencil artists out there. It does get a little annoying, but sometimes it’s funny. You can’t do anything about it. It is what it is.
I remember this one time, I went up to one of those street vendors selling these Banksy knock offs, and I asked him if he takes all these photographs himself. And this geezer was like ‘Yeah’ and I asked if he went to Paris to take this one – I was referring to the Love Vandal, the first one I ever did in Paris – which he was selling as a Banksy. He claimed ‘Yeah, yeah someone took it for me’. ‘Umm well it’s not actually Banksy, it’s actually mine’. And he was like ‘No Banksy did it’. I was like, ‘No he didn’t. That’s MY piece and you’re selling it at your store’. But it was an image that someone else had taken, so look, there’s nothing you can do. If it was a photo I took, that would be different. My Moona Lisa, was apparently by Banksy too. It’s really annoying. I think, I ended up breaking one of the frames on him. It kinda kicked off a bit and then I decided to leave Central Perk. If it escalated I would’ve been in a problem. English people, visas revoked, that kind of thing. Not clever.
AB.Now, on the Vandal front, you mentioned that the Vandal came to you in 2005 from an experience. But does the Vandal represent some of your altar-ego?
NW. Not really… yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait… kind of.
I mean everyone sort’a says, well, it’s funny ‘cause I’m not like a city worker, pin striped suit like, donning kinda individual, but he, the Vandal, is doing things that I would’ve loved to do, do you know what I mean? Like going to the top of buildings and pour mass paint down them, and all the rest of it. In that sense, I’ve invented a character that does all these things that I never did, as it were. But basically, he’s just a character. Some said once ‘Oh Nick Walker, yeah he calls himself the Vandal, but his pieces are all legal’ and it was funny because this was coming from a person that was actually endorsed by the Mayor of his city to do what he wants, on anything, so it seems kinda weird, like, sour grapes kind of thing. And I read it and it didn’t really bother me but I was kinda like ‘Hang on a minute that’s like saying that Stan Lee is Spiderman, but he’s not, he just created Spiderman’, so you know, I don’t actually call myself the Vandal, I call myself Nick Walker. The Vandal is just a character that I’ve invented. People take it a bit too serious sometimes when it’s just fictitious and just a bit of a laugh. And I think in the graffiti thing, it’s very egotistical and a lot of people take themselves way to seriously and for me it’s like… it should be a little more light hearted, and not worry about what people really say and shit.
AB.Well it looks like the Vandal is having a blast, so you’ve don’t that pretty well!
NW. Yeah yeah, he’s out there, living it large!
AB.The Vandal uses red type and a certain style of lettering, why did you choose that colour, style and font?
NW. I think just the imaging. The image of red, white and black are like three very strong colours and obviously a fair bit of grey tones in the pieces too. I just think, as a colour palette it works, it’s strong, for me. It’s very, very visual in that way, not too detailed and busy. Other stuff is more colourful, but with that particular storyline, it’s great to just keep it simple, you know.
AB.What’s happening next? You’ve created work for Coachella, hitting up Miami Basel, the Hong Kong show in September this year, what’s happening after that?
NW. Yeah the Hong Kong show is in September, Basel in December. I may be going, depends on the time, in September – October, to do some pieces. I might do a project in Dubai, but it’s still to be seen. I’m not too sure yet. But next year, I’m going to focus on doing large-scale murals and stuff in and around New York, anywhere I can. I want to try to get back to Australia at some point. I do intend on releasing the Sydney Morning After, which is part of the Morning After series, but I want to try and look into doing a Melbourne one, but that may come at a later date, because personally, I want to take the photograph myself.
AB.We’re looking forward to you visiting our HQ here in Melbourne and I did try to convince you in Sydney, but that didn’t work too well did it?
NW. [Laughs] Yeah, it was a busy time. A mate of mine lives in Sydney, he moved there 6 years ago and now lives there with his wife and two kids and stuff. So we caught up and chatted about doing things together like possibly a pop up show in Sydney and a similar one in Melbourne. I want to think about it a little bit harder, before I rush into anything.
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And on that note the conversation came to a close. It was late at night in Walker’s hometown and Bugeja let go of the artist for now, either to put down his glass of wine and turn in, or to hit the streets of Bristol ‘on a school night’. We can’t know for sure.
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