Monsters it turns out are my natural company. Where on earth does such a story begin?
Perhaps as a small boy stepping onto a plane to escape war in southern africa. A tearful Granny waving from the airport viewing platform. I was clutching paint brushes in my hand.
The beginnings of displacement I would go on to experience throughout my life for many socio-economic and political reasons. Abstract concepts deeply affecting a persons reality. Forced moves because the tide turns on beliefs, governments, resources and all the multitude of reasons bringing humans into conflict for centuries. I became no stranger to being the ‘other’. Mocked on tarmac school playgrounds in inner city London, the early dark night of winter pressing in when once I played on green fields with bright blue sunlit skies above.
It was not until I reached London again in my mid forties that Monsters entered my Art. I had been living, ironically, right by the place where it usually says ‘Here there be Monsters’ on old maps - Cape Town, South Africa. Design, branding, illustration, webcomics had been my practice there. Adorning the walls of London were Monsters, a favourite subject of Graffiti and Street Artists. Meanwhile the denizens seemed hounded, driven to rush about like mad things as if wolves would soon be released and eat up anyone not keeping pace. The city itself was a devouring consuming beast. Who knows how many disposable coffee cups cast aside in the frenzied whirlwind of each day. I watched in horror as 40 brand new wheelie beans were thrown into a waste lorry and crushed. The building site was finishing up and in Zone 1 the balance sheet prefers destroying bins to the cost of storage space.
London was proving more frightening than anything I ever encountered in Africa. Indifference, willful ignorance, unforgiving, a desert of hard concrete, flowering only for the well financed. This Monster needed a face, something I could stare down.
The ubiquitous Underground symbol seemed to hold a smile, mostly laughing at fleecing a couple more quid. I began to tease it out.
Now I know this for what it is ‘Sympathetic Magic ’. A practice deeply rooted in the human psyche. Seeking to control or hold power, at least protection, from the surroundings, threats real or perceived, by making symbols and images. This may be the very purpose of the first pictures humans are known to have made.
Sympathetic magic is written about in the bible when the Israelites wandering in the desert are attacked by seraph serpents.
Numbers 21
8. The Lord said to Moses, "Make a seraph serpent and put it upon a pole. Whoever has been bitten and looks upon it will live.”
9. So Moses made a bronze serpent and put it upon a pole. If someone had been bitten by a serpent and he looked up at the bronze serpent, he lived.
An Artist, an economic exile, lost in a strange city casting about for a protective symbol and therein TUBY was born. My brainchild, my talisman. At the time I did not know what I was doing only the compulsion to make this thing. To reveal the character I was sure existed in the tube roundrel.
Then schism, split, ‘all change please ’ I need to move again. Berwick-upon-Tweed alongside my brother fighting for his life because once again some people, a very few people, had significant influence over peoples lives.
When confronted with writing this Biography the mind naturally searches for logic, order, some thread of meaning that will perform as a suitable explanation for where one is, what you are and what you wish to become. Preferably in an Arty somewhat easily digested manner. On reflection and having been at the mercy of forces beyond my control this may simply not be possible. In many ways it does not make sense and I have to face admitting that. The mind bucks at such a notion. There is very little coherence at times. Choices made in a hurry, pins stuck in maps, storms will carry you to strange shores.
My response to being repeatedly uprooted is to try and belong to the place one finds ones self in. Adapt, adopt new ways and attach the self, ‘become a part of ’. Either that or risk complete alienation, be adrift or retract into a shell. These are not healthy options although seemingly offering survival. Engaging in some way - any way - is better. SO I find myself creating in place. Drawing and painting IS the thread, the sequential element, the coping mechanism, tools to engage with where I am. By finding inspiration from the current environment, being present in the evident reality I can ‘deal with it ’, process it quietly. In sketching and painting the mind is grounded. I am no longer in a strange world. NOT living in the past in a home long gone OR hoping for a future that could well be upturned tomorrow.
This is the MONSTERS offering reflection, a way to explore my lived paradigm AND of course the magical protection GOD bestowed on Moses through a bronze seraph-serpent.
Berwick-upon-Tweed. 7th August 2026
Picture Credits: This page: Polaroid Portrait by Alex Amery, Painting in Global Street Art by Matt Bowen.