Meet the Muralist Ellen Rose

Budding artists at the Lewisham School of Muralism have been transforming walls in their own home this quarter, while their home learning continues during lockdown.

The Lewisham School of Muralism was launched in 2020 with the goal to train the next generation of muralists. However, with the tough lockdown measures, the school had to adapt and ask the students to create a mural in their own home, whilst moving their learning to an online environment. In this article we get to hear from student Ellen Rose, who tells us all about her project, and how it came to life.

"My housemates and I decided a wall in our garden was the space most in need of a mural. It had been painted by previous occupants and my housemates didn’t like the colour. 

First, we wrote a manifesto based on what we thought the wall needed, what we didn’t want to see and what we felt were important qualities we needed to incorporate into the mural. In our first two participatory design sessions, we used the copy-lefting technique to share and develop our ideas. This technique allows the flow of ideas to advance quickly, whilst bringing everyone’s concepts into the design. It can, however, be quite intimidating for non-artists who aren’t confident drawing, so for our third session we explored collaging. 

My housemates and I cut out shapes, textures and colours from magazines that we were drawn to. We then drew again from these, closing in on our final concept. 

The final piece is based on a mobile. We liked the quality of a hanging object – we wanted to create tension and work with the corner space, shadows and surrealism. We didn’t want anything too literal, but something that let your eye wander and left you thinking about its meaning. 

The mural took me a few weeks to complete, because I had to find time to paint in-between work, my course and the rain! Not being to control the surface quality of the walls before painting was challenging, but we successfully adjusted the design to work. 

I found the mural was ever-evolving. Having been involved in the design process, my housemates also had ideas to share during painting, which made it hard to settle on a finished piece. I think we are all satisfied with the mural now and excited to share it with our friends once lockdown is over."

To see more of Ellen's work, head over to her Instagram @ellcamrose_art.

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