The Greenwich Foot Tunnel

I was recently offered a wall in a courtyard of a house on Trafalgar Road in Greenwich, near Maze Hill station. At first the task seemed daunting since the last mural I painted was in 2010 and also because the wall is 5x3 meters approximately so rather big.


I was given carte blanche and for a while I toyed with various London landmarks. However, on the way down to my first meeting with the client I was cycling from East London down to Island Gardens to get across to Greenwich via the foot tunnel as I had done many times before. I've always found it fascinating, ever since I read the story of the Thames Tunnel, the first ever underwater tunnel and its engineers' ordeal. As I was exiting the dome at the other side I came up with the idea of these archaic creatures that guard an underground crossing hidden from public view. Similar to the underground labyrinth in Ursula K. Le Guin's The Tombs of Atuan.


By the time the Greenwich foot tunnel was given planning permission engineering had been perfected considerably so it's construction wasn't as dramatic as that of the Thames Tunnel. Completed in 1902 it allowed workers living south of the river to reach their workplaces in the London docks. Equipped with two large lifts and spiral staircases nowadays it still is a public highway and therefore opened 24 hours.


In this piece I wanted to focus on the usage of the tunnel and the idea of journeying through the innards of these huge ancient architectural beings. Will you be the same person when you get out? I did it with Aztec art and 8bit video game level designs in mind and it's hand painted with black and white masonry paint over blue spray paint.

Under water

Above water

End of the journey and the Minotaur

Early sketch

Scaling with my assistant Ana

It's hand painted. In freezing conditions.

A Map of Soho

This map of Soho was commissioned by estate agents Greater London Properties. Proudly based in Broadwick Street as the only property shop front in Soho, they wanted a vibrant vision of London's renowned entertainment district that would encapsulate the energy and diversity of an area they have operated in for more than 10 years and have an unrivalled knowledge of.

Together we sat down and went over key moments of its exciting history. From its beginnings as a failed urban development for the 18th Century's wealthiest to the dazzling culture hotspot that is today, without ignoring its recent past as London's notorious red light district.


We then picked a few from a myriad of interesting characters that at some point lived there and, in a bit of a surrealist effort, related them to some of Soho's most popular buildings. Thus, with my bicycle and camera I set out on an exhaustive journey through its labyrinthine streets and crooked alleys.

From the barren to the tourist-barricaded corners I took tons of photos of facades, pieced them together and drew over them to create these quirky characters.

Carnaby Street as Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band – The Beatles' milestone album added a sound track to the commercial epicentre of psychedelic Swinging London.

The John Snow Pub as Himself – even scientists drink beer, especially when 'someone' has dismantled the local water pump.

Brewer Street Car Park as Paul Raymond – one's got to park the car somewhere before a long night out in neighbouring Revue Bar.

The Windmill Club as a Can Can Dancer – these dancers could only legally perform naked as tableaux vivants.

St Anne's Church as a Great War British soldier – it resurfaced from the ashes after being hit by a bomb during The Blitz.

Compton's of Soho as Casanova – the master of romantic suspense had fun in Soho too.

Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club as Himself – his saxophone solos still reverberate across Soho streets.

Bar Italia as a Barista – only Italians truly understand the alchemy of coffee making.

Old Foyles Bookshop as Karl Marx – philosophers buy their books somewhere.

The Palace Theatre as an Opera Valkyrie – nothing less than the consecrated home of British grand opera back in the time

Greater London Properties offices as a friendly property expert!

And to finish with, the A5 postcard of the map. 

London Stories: The Blitz

Recently there has been the Serco Prize for Illustration which is a yearly competition by the corporation that runs Transport for London. The winning illustration is displayed on a London Transport Museum poster which, for any city lover, is an honour for this is the oldest underground network in the world. Unfortunately, I didn't win but here's my submission. 

This year's theme was London Stories. Participants where encouraged to produce a vision of London inspired by fictional or historical narratives set in London throughout its long history. In my case, the main inspiration is a fascinating photo taken during one of Nazi Germany bombings in World War II in December 1940, more commonly known as The Blitz. The image shows St Paul's Cathedral dome still standing behind a massive smoke column while London is ablaze.

Thanks to the lives of many firefighters, St Paul's survived more than 50 days of consecutive bombing and still stands today as a symbol of British endurance in a war that back then must have seemed impossible to win. The fear of a Nazi invasion of Britain was very likely at a time when much of the European continent was under the grip of fascist governments. London Underground played a major part in this story not only in guaranteeing commuters getting to work during the war but in setting up improvised air raid shelters in its underground stations. 

Thus this illustration shows a busy London running under the shelter of St Paul's Cathedral encouraging its people to keep calm and carry on. 

Further down there's the poster version I submitted to the competition without the explosions – to make it more palatable. Could all these bombs falling from the sky and the overall Dantesque look have put the jury off?

A Map Of Clerkenwell

Slightly North East from Central London, Clerkenwell is plenty of history and probably the most central area to join London's recent mass gentrification. Named after the Clerks' Well that still stands nearby –albeit enclosed within a building and behind a glass window– the area is linked to a long forgotten monastic past. A backdrop for historic characters of the likes of Oliver Cromwell –he owed a house there– Charles Dickens– a scene of his Oliver Twist is set in Clerkenwell Green– and Vladimir Lenin, who used to work at number 37a, now the Marx Memorial Library. 

This map stems off a commission that fell through, but that allowed me to explore and investigate the rich history behind an area that best reflects the old-village-absorbed-by-Victorian-metropolis feel. Find out more about Clerkenwell's living landmarks, starting clockwise from Angel. 

The clock tower built by J.D. Smith and Sons marks the entrance to The Angel in the Borough of Islington and its long strip of shops recalling an era of clockmaker business. 

Further down South there's Northampton Square where City University's main campus is. It houses the prestigious Inns of Court School of Law.

Due to being built on marshland St Luke's church laid abandoned for 40 years until it was refurbished into a music hall operated by the London Symphony Orchestra. 

Densely populated with web-based companies, Old Street Roundabout has been nicknamed Silicon Roundabout and is infamous among cyclists. 

Flanked by elegant early council housing, Whitecross Street livens up every Thursday and Friday at lunchtime with food stalls serving all sorts of delicious take aways. 

Hidden away off Moorgate, there's the Honourable Artillery Company's grounds, the second oldest military organisation in the world, now a charity. 

Designed by the same architects, the Golden Lane Estate is the forefather of the Barbican, notorious in its darkest times for suicides from the rooftop and now sought after 60s property. 

St John's Gate reminisces Clerkenwell's monastic past. It was the entrance to the priory of the Order of St John, the Knights Hospitaller. 

In Victorian times Smithfield Market, London's main meat market, was described as the most pestilent place in the capital. It still serves its original purpose, being the last surviving historic wholesale market in Central London. 

Next to Chancery Lane station still stands one of the few Tudor buildings to survive two of the toughest moments in London's history, the Great Fire and The Blitz. The Staple Inn, currently the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries. 

When Farringdon Station opened in 1863 it was the terminus of the Metropolitan Railway, the first underground metro line in the world. 

The Medieval City of London had business organised in different quarters by trades. The area around Hatton Garden was and still is the jeweller's quarter and centre of the UK diamond trade.

Lively Leather Lane with its daily food market and its Edwardian tenement blocks, the Bourne Estate. When the working day is over cycle couriers gather up around the repair shop/cafe Full City.

The spiritual centre of Clerkenwell, the Green, is presided by the Old Sessions House, a Classical style building that was the centre of the judicial and administrative court of the County of Middlesex, mostly part of Greater London now. 

St Peter's Italian Church was built for the growing Italian immigrant community that settled here in the mid 19th Century and made this area London's Little Italy.

For centuries the ground of the Sadler's Wells theatre has been dedicated to performing arts and it is currently one of the UK's foremost dance venues.

A photo of an A4 print.

Walkie Scorchie

Do you see that thing looming over the river? Does it get bigger as you look up? That's 20 Fenchurch Street the only skyscraper in London that does not block sunlight off the streets but reflects it back on several times brighter. Get your sunglasses. 

Designed by Rafael Viñoly, its unique shape stands out amongst the new breed of high rise that are sprouting over the City of London financial area. Apart from concerns raised by heritage groups about its visual impact on nearby historical sites it has also drawn mockery and been renamed the Walkie Talkie because of its distinctive shape. Some people even call it The Pint which I find even more appropriate.

But last summer the situation escalated when a car was found damaged in nearby street Eastcheap. Investigations followed and it was found that the reflection of sunlight on the Walkie Talkie's concave facade was generating a beam of light capable of frying an egg or even melting parts of a car's bodywork. This beam is 6 times brighter than direct sunlight shining onto the streets beneath! The media immediately came up with new names for the building, the most successful being 'Walkie Scorchie' or even better... 'Fryscraper'. Apparently, a building in Las Vegas by the same architect has a similar reflection problem and locals have dubbed it the 'Death Ray Hotel'. 

After reading the article in The Guardian, I could only see the Walkie Scorchie as a laser-equipped robot on a barbecue mission roasting cars and turning them into sausages. A bit like the War of the Worlds meets Bad Taste. However, there's more to that after what Viñoly himself saif after being questioned about the building's burning impulses. 

 "When I first came to London years ago, it wasn't like this. Now you have all these sunny days. So you should blame this thing on global warming too, right?"

Environmentalists have pointed out that the Walkie Scorchie's problem demonstrates the principles of solar power tower technology and would make a useful power source. Is the Walkie Scorchie in an environmental crusade for zapping cars off London streets then? After news like this, it definitely should. 

Poirot's Florin Court

These days I'm working on a series of postcards for Clerkenwell based estate agent firm Hurford Salvi Carr. The first illustration is based on Florin Court, an icon of British Art Deco. It dominates Charterhouse Square, in my opinion one of the most interesting squares in Central London, at the very edge of Islington and bordering the City. It is also known as the Whitehaven Mansions, the fictional residence of Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, created by Agatha Christie.

When architects Guy Morgan and Partners built it 1936 they imbued it with a total Art Deco style so when I was invited to visit the interior I was able to appreciate its fine details; railings that resemble clouds passing by, curved surfaces, and the distinct type used throughout the building.

I played around with these design features to produce a portrait caricature of Poirot himself, elegant and stout. I drew on period Art Deco posters to portray Florin Court as a modern efficient building in the thriving London metropolis. 

Have a look at the original building here.

Battersea 2050

Born out of a conceptual collaboration with Aaron and Will, Battersea 2050 is the new and unexpected continuation to the Battersea Power Station Series, as of today a quadriptych.

Following on the theme of excess and energy I decided to take this new entry to the extreme and it is larger and denser than the other three. On the ‘A Catalan Weekend in London’ private view night Aaron challenged me to envision a future for Battersea and suggested year 2050 for the next milestone on the history of the famous London landmark. Borrowing from Will’s comment about a shift in the power source, this time it’s London what’s nourishing a reborn Battersea, satirised as a  carefree hyper powered revamped power station – now a leisure venue of some sort.

The London side has two new addition rows to the cast of characters from previous entries. Behind the Victorian houses, housing tower blocks and functional office buildings now stands the stardom of designer architecture of corporate present day London. From the back row towers over a line-up of hypothetical organic megastructures functioning as vertical districts in order to tackle overcrowding. The unmistakable city skyline has been redefined for good. By this 2050 plugs are bygone and everything runs wireless. Energy is generated by a zombified society that now powers a delighted Battersea set to entertain with fireworks of pure joy. Due to the climate change it also grows palm trees on its top.

Battersea Power Station – 2050

707x1220 mm

Acrylic paint, Indian ink and colour pencil on board.