Chewing gum artist 'Ben Wilson'

I would like to introduce you one of the fantastic street artists, 

'Ben Wilson' :)

 Ben Wilson turns industrial waste and rubbish into an art work. 

He is famous for painting chewing gums stuck on the street beginning in 1998. 

In addition to the chewing gum art, Ben Wilson also paints and sculpts in England, United States, Germany, Ireland, Finland and France.

Most of his chewing gum art works are found in North London, Muswell Hill, and Barret and total number of his works are approximately more than 10,000. He draws variety of things that pops into his head and some according to the requests from people. Personal requests varies from death, birth, marriages or about some other special occasions.

Personal request from Koreans, stating 

"Peace, and Dokdo Island is Korea's not Japan's."

 

 Ben Wilson was arrested in 2005 and 2009, when he was arrested by the City of London Police in 2009 on the suspicion of criminal damage he stated that it is not illegal because he is painting the gum, not the pavement. The case was dropped when dozens of people wrote letters of support including the Barnet police.

 In the process of chewing gum art, he firstly heats the gum with a small blow torch, secondly coats the gum with three layers of acrylic enamel. 

Next, He uses special acrylic paints to paint his pictures, 

lastly finishing each with a clear lacquer seal. 

The paintings take from two hours to three days. I was surprised to know Wilson put a lot of effort and time into this small cute chewing gum paintings :)

 

I would love to see his work some day, it is amazing how he makes those useless, meaningless and dirty chewing gum into a piece of art which adds a color and joy to people on the street. Last of all, I would like to show my favorite chewing gum artworks and Wilson's wonderful words he said on the 'The observer', a British newspaper :)

“Kids are not allowed to feel any connection with where they live... They can't play in the streets because they are likely to get run over; then you have the national curriculum, and all this testing at school, and no opportunity to play or to make things, and everything you do outside is recorded on surveillance cameras. The only imagery that children see around them are billboards and TV; every part of their environment is out of bounds or sold off. That's why they don't care about their streets. This is a small way of connecting people.” 

–Ben Wilson