The Gum-painting Visionary

It is calculated that, at any one time, there are approximately 300,000 squashed blobs of chewing gum stuck to the pavements of London’s shopping hotspot, Oxford Street. The Borough of Westminster has been doing some counting, too. It reckons there are roughly twenty pieces to every square metre of pavement. When one thinks of what the statistics must be for the whole city – well, the mind boggles!

41-year-old Ben Wiilson is an artist with a unique vision. He treats these spat-out eyesores as mini canvasses and paints on them. It started in 2004, when he decided to paint a trail of discarded gum all the way from Barnet to London’s West End. His subjects are wide-ranging: animals, flowers, cityscapes  suns – whatever takes his fancy on the day. Now those who keep their eyes peeled can spot these miniature works of art all over our gum-ridden the city.