ben wilSon
Wielding a blowtorch, a worn elbow cushion, a tackle box full of acrylic and a macro hairbrush, Ben Wilson, 47, is about to complete another masterpiece. “You can make something special out of something that people find disgusting,” he says as he hunches over a piece of chewing gum on a soiled British curb. After recent exposure in the New York Times and on the BBC, Wilson has become known internationally for what his Muswell Hill neighborhood has called him for the past six years – the chewing gum man. With the stillness of a hunter and the artistry of a rice painter, Wilson has created nearly 10,000 works of gum art throughout the London area, taking hours to create each one. He has commemorated the passing of businesses, birthdays of notable citizens, and has depicted local scenery and even composed a gum epitaph at the request of a boy who lost his grandfather. “Everything is transitory,” he says, “what’s important is the creative process.” What at first appears to be an act of rebellion against some abstract aesthetic develops into much more. The crouching, the disheveled look, the lying on the street, the material, and most importantly, the use of communal space, is all part of the idea behind the work. With his growing notoriety,
and even a few copycats, Wilson has gum painted his way into the upper echelons of Britain’s public-artist elites, even attracting comparisons to the current throne sitter, political prankster Banksy, for his engagement with public geography and the politics of that engagement. “I believe people have a right to be creative in their immediate environment and to be spontaneous. And the more people can have a sense of belonging to it, they’re going to be more responsible for it.” The bigger picture of Wilson remains to be told. Behind his nearly 10,000 pieces, many of which only he can find, is a long list of heretics defining the boundaries of art, high culture and space. A law abiding, kind, unassuming and overwhelmingly normal man, (once arrested for his actions and then released for doing nothing), his artistic flamboyance is not in the style he brandishes, in his mastery of a visual discourse or in the company he keeps, but rather in his wretched curled up body draped in speckled rain gear concentrating diligently with a single-haired brush on trodden English streets. Darren Fleet
(G1) Art Fart.indd 6
11-08-26 2:07 PM