The Island- London Series

The Crypt St Pancras Church on Euston Road- February -2 March

Stephen Walter’s intricate drawings of London isles were a wonderful psychogeographic experience of the changing face of a very personal but also very public London and its environs.
Each London isle was neatly indexed and numbered so you could travel around London and stop and examine the various comments, official and unofficial toponyms and tags for the various landmarks and quarters of London boroughs, high streets and parks. Hackney is qualified with a sign saying ‘spot the artists’, St.Pancras is indicated by a ‘man at work’ triangle and Burgess Park carries a warning not to walk at night. These are a but a couple of the graffito or scrawling that make up this well documented historic A to Z of London that is then neatly translated into the large map encompassing all the isles. The labyrinthine crypt became a wholesome portrait gallery of London's aspects. Each section or island of London with its scrawls, scribbles and illustrations seemed to represent the weather beaten, well trodden face of a particular geographic personality London that had seen and will continue to see change.
This particular portrait of London will serve as a specific historical map of London for the future as the city continues to evolve and it is well worth preserving for future occasions.