Dear Friend,

A publication dedicated to an artist’s work is an important vehicle for its longevity; it is also a perfectly pleasurable way to experience art in our everyday lives. In surroundings other than the gallery space, it can become a companion on a journey, a reference, or a document which is usable within a personal space. The regime of such an experience is an important one; opening these fresh pages will introduce new spaces and spending more time with it, time to study in depth, thoroughly and completely. This re-presentation can only be a good thing for the drawings that feature in the following pages.

To be invited to write the foreword for this book is a great pleasure. I visited Stephen Walter’s studio at the beginning of last year and the works featured in this publication were well underway, it was apparent that some exciting dots were beginning to join up. Visually speaking Walter tends to fortify an appetite and hold potential to accelerate the movement of drawing. The compass of this work comes with time - it is a chronicle that becomes apparent only when we seek out the many layers and meanings. For me, The Island has a very certain voice and I am excited about seeing each borough endorse its freshness and continue with this strength of feeling in the TAG Fine Arts exhibition presented at the St Pancras Crypt.

‘From the derive point of view, cities have a psychological relief, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes which strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones.’

The primary geographical feature in all of these boroughs is the city’s navigable river which crosses the city from South West to the East; it has a physical significance to each drawing. The division between nature and city is obvious – the only nature in the city being that of the River Thames, a few trees and us. It was only until very recently when I caught a boat from Greenwich to Embankment, the entire city and its makeup made complete, historical, social, geographical, economical and architectural sense. However, even these elements are influenced and controlled by the forces of the metropolis, it is apparent that nothing isn’t based on human decision. That is the beauty of London.

Walter introduces us to a London that we recognise but through thoughts and intricate knowledge, we are presented with a journey of history, humour, politics, socio-economical insights into the city and its infrastructure; each drawing can be interpreted as a pilgrimage, an active shift from the objective to the subjective, as Iain Sinclair commented in London Orbital ‘[our] world is kept in balance, the wheel spins.’ This cartographic bird’s eye view is how Walter experiences London – more symbols and signs than streets and pathways, each borough is densely populated with masses of statistics, legends, facts and myths. In our minds, we can fly through the streets and houses from Westminster to Gypsy Hill; we can visit the 2012 Olympic site and then within moments find ourselves at the “End of the World” - the cut-off point of the island where suburban London stops. However amongst the grey districts and areas, the atmosphere, the colour, the cocktail of foggy streets of a Dickensian London, Samuel Pepys’ Great Fire, The Plague, Peter Ackroyd, James Boswell’s Life of Johnson, Teddy Boy Central, the Krays and Marie Lloyd is not lost… ‘maybe it’s because [Walter] is a Londoner’?

Walter’s drawings are an extraordinary visual key of the city and it is remarkable to see through this interpretation how much of the city is recognisable and how swiftly we can orientate ourselves within its elaborate fabric. This is the charming experience of these drawings. So, I am delighted to leave you on your journey with my small introduction to this work, I’d encourage you to get out your magnifying glass, if you please my friend, and imagine Sherlock Holmes picking his way through the Walterian world of London.

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