{"id":421,"date":"2011-01-20T11:47:23","date_gmt":"2011-01-20T11:47:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/streetartlondon.co.uk\/artists\/?p=421"},"modified":"2011-01-21T10:16:15","modified_gmt":"2011-01-21T10:16:15","slug":"david-walker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/streetartlondon.co.uk\/artists\/david-walker\/","title":{"rendered":"David Walker"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most people\u2019s first job involved burgers and fries. David walker\u2019s first job was creating t-shirt designs for The Prodigy. After that, he started designing record sleeves and party art before running his own street wear label called \u201cSubsurface\u201d for five years. It was only three years ago that he started painting. (Pretty impressive he\u2019s accomplished all of that considering he\u2019s broken his hand over 10 times!)<\/em><\/p>\n

Once a fan of only black and white (with a little bit of pink thrown in for good measure), David now paints with in explosions of colour following his discovery of a little treasure box of spraypaint tucked away in a studio. His portraits are realistically surreal \u2013 the sort of images that make you stare for ages.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"David<\/p>\n

Which aspects of London life most influence your creativity and how?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I like the randomness of cities and the anticipation that anything can happen (good or bad) and that in turn you can make things happen. I have lived in small towns where there is just not the same sense of possibility, so this is very inspirational for me. I feel\u00a0privileged to be\u00a0making art\u00a0full time and the speed in which this city can move pushes\u00a0me forward.<\/p>\n

Faces are the main subject of your work. Who are the people you paint? Do you know them?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know them at all. I like that they\u2019ve never met me and they don\u2019t know they\u2019re being painted. I use found photography, old magazines, the web, snapshots, anything that\u2019s not staged by me. The fact that the subjects are unknown also\u00a0allows people to make up there own narrative to the portraits.<\/p>\n

Tell us about your approach to your work, your unique \u201cno <\/strong>brushes\u201d style and your choice of fantastic vibrant colours.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m drawn towards the idea of making something beautiful out of what could be classed as lo-brow materials and methods. I don\u2019t use brushes because I want the pieces to raise a question about graffiti and traditional painting as\u00a0there can be strong preconceived ideas about both. People are normally quite surprised the work is made from spray paint and I think many are also surprised they actually like the work when its outside on a wall; suddenly they have connected with a scene that they\u00a0previously had no time for at all.<\/p>\n

As for colours, I\u2019ve gone from two extremes. For two years, I only painted in black, white and pink (as it was cheaper and allowed me to concentrate on the subject more), then I came across a \u00a0box of random coloured spray paint that had been buried in the studio and started exploring as many colours as I could and all at once. It just felt right at the time and it\u2019s been a lot of fun.<\/p>\n

Favourite memory of painting on the walls of London?<\/strong>
\n <\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>Pretty much every time I paint outside, someone comes up to me at the end of the day and says \u201cI saw you doing this earlier and I thought it was gonna be a right load of old crap, but I like it now. Nice one.\u201d I think this is a great compliment.<\/p>\n

Do you prefer exhibiting in galleries or on the street?<\/strong><\/p>\n

They both have there positives and negatives. Walls are great because you have room to be very expressive and lots of people get to see the painting. With gallery work you\u00a0get to\u00a0spend time developing techniques and immerse yourself without anyone watching you. I try to balance\u00a0both but I need to get outside more next year.<\/p>\n

Which other London-based artists do you admire?<\/strong><\/p>\n

So many for so many different reasons. At this very moment: Adam Neate, Will Barras, Polly Morgan, Christopher Moon, Arth Daniels<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most people\u2019s first job involved burgers and fries. David walker\u2019s first job was creating t-shirt designs for The Prodigy. After that, he started designing record sleeves and party art before running his own street wear label called \u201cSubsurface\u201d for five … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-londonstreetartists","p1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/streetartlondon.co.uk\/artists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/streetartlondon.co.uk\/artists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/streetartlondon.co.uk\/artists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/streetartlondon.co.uk\/artists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/streetartlondon.co.uk\/artists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/streetartlondon.co.uk\/artists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":542,"href":"https:\/\/streetartlondon.co.uk\/artists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421\/revisions\/542"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/streetartlondon.co.uk\/artists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/streetartlondon.co.uk\/artists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/streetartlondon.co.uk\/artists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/streetartlondon.co.uk\/artists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}