Stephen Walter’s drawings are a tangle of signs, words and images that draw the viewer into the artist’s intricate worlds. A graduate of Manchester Metropolitan University and the Royal College of art, he is best-known for his series of hand-drawn maps, done in enormous detail and layered with both visual and textual information. Each work is an intricate world in itself; a tangle of words and symbols that make up a complex of hidden meanings and wider contradictions. Through drawing, photography and printmaking, his artworks explore the meaning of objects, the glory of maps, our place in the world, and the potential legacy that we bequeath to future generations.
Our new collaborative collection brings Stephen’s iconic drawings to commercial interiors. We have nine designs which we can resize to suit your wall. Print onto any of our base materials, including colours, textures, metallics and window films, and retain the hand-drawn quality of the original artworks.
Myriorama
Myriorama is a full-height endlessly repeating forest, full of magical mystery and intrigue.
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Hub
Hub shows the district names, art galleries and places of interest in London’s central areas. It takes on the style of early ‘picture-maps’ of London printed before the Great Fire of 1666. Here, the topographical features such as churches and houses are drawn pictorially upon a street plan. Whilst Hub, doesn’t claim to be a comprehensive map of all the spaces and organisations that exhibit and contribute to London’s art world, it provides a insight into where many of the recognised art spaces operated within the city, with its three main cluster areas of activity – the West End, Hoxton and Hackney.
Affordable Houseton
New Halewood
Road Signs
Map of Liverpool
Taken from his study of maps, web-based research, historical books and through word of mouth, Map of Liverpool is geographically accurate. It highlights many of Liverpool’s main roads, railway lines, built up areas and green spaces, with an enlarged section of the city centre added in the lower left corner. It shows the city’s docks, its architectural and footballing heritage and it’s place name histories. The map records such things as several memorable historical figures and folklores such as the birthplaces of the Beatles, Auld Ma Bushell and her Toffees, Kitty Wilkinson, Joseph Williamson and his Tunnels and a fella know around the Northern Docks as ‘The Broken Bulb’ – who was always skint and never had a light. All the pubs of Liverpool’s neighbourhoods are shown, so are a scattering of warnings of Purple Aki and a number of Liverpool hauntings. Running alongside notes on serious history, other epithets include ‘The Northern Star’ (a police helicopter) that is always above Norris Green, the ‘Boarded up Ville’ of Edge Lane, the local names of ‘Tin Town’, ‘Dodge’ and ‘The One Eyed City’ and a sign stating that ‘You are now entering a Celtic Enclave’. A closer look reveals these and many more.
London Subterranea
Commissioned in 2010 for the London Transport Museum, London Subterranea geographically tracks the routes of London’s Lost Rivers, its main sewers, the tube network and it’s ‘ghost’ stations including the Crossrail project. It also pinpoints archeological finds, ruins, known plague pits, secret governmental tunnels, the Mail Rail and the Water Ring Main tunnels. Epithets to the ‘underworld’ of crime, and the scenes of notable killings such as the acid-bath murders get a look in. So too does the site of the infamous Tyburn Tree and its many buried corpses that still lie in its wake undiscovered.
The Island
The Island is Stephen’s most iconic artwork, a celebration of London, the etymology of its place names, its folklore histories and the idiosyncrasies of its past, present and future. It is a tangle of words, drawn elements, epithets, inherited histories, cultural residues and autobiographical references – all pinpointed to certain locations. Sometimes dry history is recorded, important architectural and cultural landmarks shown. Sometimes trivia is depicted, stereotypes highlighted. Signs and symbols abound – childlike bungalows with their pitched roofs litter the map, indicating formless suburban sprawl. Watch the BBC film about the making of The Island here.
Read more about Stephen’s work in The Guardian here and watch the short film below by Dominic Holland on the making of London Subterranea below.
Click here to view the full collection and order samples, call us on 01938 551 990 or email sales@newmor.com.
