Lying on his facet on the floor of London’s iconic Millennium Bridge, artist Ben Wilson paints a chunk of dried chewing gum trodden into the bottom.

“The important thing is the gum is below the metal tread,” mentioned 60-year-old Wilson, wearing a paint-daubed orange jumpsuit. “The beauty of it is they’re all different shapes and sizes so there’s no conformity.” What most individuals actively keep away from or just do not see, Wilson views as a chance to show a tiny piece of discarded garbage into one thing lovely. It’s additionally a technique to delight passersby, engaging them to take a more in-depth look underfoot.

“By painting a picture which is so small, those that see it then discover a hidden world beneath their feet,” Wilson mentioned. “If they look then they see, so it’s about perception.” Back in his north London studio, Wilson paints on the floor of a small mosaic tile which shall be a part of a set that he sticks on the partitions of London’s Underground prepare platforms, hidden in plain sight. The photos are extra private than the chewing gum works, Wilson says, and signify an “intuitive visual diary”.

“The pictures are a celebration of my life and those that I care dearly about … they are (also) a process of visual inquiry – trying to make sense of the world,” he mentioned. London-born Wilson was raised by artist dad and mom and recollects working with clay from age three, along with his first artist present at round 10 or 11 years outdated.

His art work developed into sculpture and enormous items within the pure surroundings earlier than his curiosity turned to garbage and discarded gadgets from a consumerist world, like chewing gum, which he is been portray for 19 years. The high floor of the dried gum isn’t topic to native or nationwide jurisdictions, creating an area the place Wilson says he can paint with out defacing public property.

“I found this little space where I could create a form of art where I could be spontaneous and do something which evolves out of the place in which it’s created,” Wilson mentioned. The artist has had a lot of his public avenue artwork eliminated by authorities – gum from the pavement or tiles from the Underground – however the a whole lot of gum work on Millennium Bridge have been left untouched.

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