ISSUE 02 / Art

BRIDES ON FIRE: DAVID WALKER

Meet The Fiery Street Artist Dubbed The New Banksy 
by Eleanor Careless 

The current exhibition at the Rook & Raven gallery aims to break down the distinction between the art gallery and the street. David Walker's vivid, chaotic street-art canvases quite literally cover the walls – one oblong painting has been spray-painted directly onto the sides of the gallery itself, across a doorframe and several still-white light switches. Each painting features an upturned, sidelong or downcast female face, melded into the spatter of layers upon layers of spray-paint. These are David Walker's "Brides On Fire", a series of works in which the traditional subject matter of fine art, beautiful women, are displaced from gold-gilt surrounds and oil paints and cast into the frame and medium of the street. Containment in a gallery space does not domesticate these works but it does cast a new light upon them. Rook & Raven's directors, Richard Grindy and Rachelle Lunnon, are keen to stress that gallery spaces should not be confined to "fine art" as such, and plan to keep their own gallery space in a working dialogue with contemporary urban art.

Topman GENERATION: Your latest exhibition is full of fiery female faces seemingly sculpted out of fire and brimstone. How did 'Brides On Fire' come into being? What does it mean?
David Walker: I hadn't thought of the abstract elements of the paintings as fire and brimstone, I like it! They're not literal, more about seeing what the paint can do when applied and manipulated, what marks are achievable, I'm trying to include the dumbest and most destructive marks that are associated with tagging and vandalism with fine art portraiture. It's essentially moving the tradition of the woman's portrait and spray-can art into what for me is mostly unexplored territory. Initially, the landscape of street art was very masculine – I believed that putting up a beautiful painting of a woman was bolder. The name 'Brides on Fire' is adapted from an Antony and the Johnsons lyric, I just thought it was a great line and it really stuck with me. The women in my portraits are meant to be strong, individual, fearless – 'on fire', and because I have created them, in a way they are my 'brides'.

Topman GENERATION: You have said that there is a kind of poetry in painting a beautiful woman with a cheap can of spray paint. How do you view contemporary artists who work in oils, watercolours and other 'fine' mediums?
David Walker: I am a big fan of fine art painting, it just so happens that's not the path I took. I have been an image maker my whole life but never found the right outlet, even getting back into painting was by chance because a number of my prints and drawings got lost in transit for a show and I had to paint the walls. I like the way this had happened though, I'm glad I was never taught painting academically, most graduate painters I know spend most of their time trying to 'unlearn'. Urban art or urban contemporary or whatever it's called at the moment is still a very young and restless scene, whereas as soon as you put oil to canvas you are taking on hundreds of years of painters and tried and tested techniques. It's exciting to be working in a fresh medium.

Topman GENERATION: Do you take your spraycans out into the street? Or do you only use walls that have been designated as canvases?
David Walker: I don't do illegal walls for several reasons, one is I can't paint my style in the dark, I've tried, another is I spent a fair amount of my youth running from the police for one reason or another and don't wish to relive the experience, also I don't need to. I like to interact with people when I paint, it's actually pretty liberating getting the public's candid opinion of what you're doing. It can also be quite humbling. This year, I'm putting a new street art concept into motion, which will hopefully pose the legal, illegal, art or eye-sore question back on the public and the authorities and they will actually be able to do something about it there and then.

Topman GENERATION: What do you make of the street and public spaces as a place to exhibit art – versus the commercial gallery where your current exhibition is held?
David Walker: They both have their individual benefits. It's great to see your paintings lit and housed in an amazing space. When you put something outside it takes on a life of its own, it starts a dialogue with the city – it becomes part of someone's day, a meeting place or reference when giving directions and so on, you then become part of the culture of the city.

Topman GENERATION: You've been compared to Banksy, but as far as I can tell your work is very different. Who are your influences, if any?
David Walker: I'm influenced by all sorts of people, Malcolm McLaren and Jean Debuffett for instance to me both represent the idea of simply working with what you have and within your means and not caring what anyone else thinks. When I couldn't afford to buy much paint I thought about the three-chord punk saying, 'This is a chord, this is another, this is a third. Now form a band.' I then starting using only three colours for all my work, black, white and pink and stopped stressing about it, I painted in that palette for two years.

Topman GENERATION: What drives you to create? Why through this medium? What does your work represent?
David Walker: I just want to keep pushing myself and do more! I want to see the spraypaint work through to its conclusion, I don't know what that is or even if there is one yet, I have plenty of ideas I haven't touched on so I'm sticking with this medium for now. I know what my work represents to me but I'll let other people decide how they see it. The process of making the work is for me, the final painting is for everyone else.

Eleanor Careless is acting staff writer for Topman GENERATION and contributing writer for QUID and The Paper Nautilus

Brides On Fire runs until 19th January 2012 at Rook & Raven Gallery

 



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