Artist duo Snik, aka Laura and Nik, are equally at home working in the studio or on the street. Their murals – created using traditional craft methods and layers of intricate handcut stencils – can be seen from Aberdeen to Miami and Hong Kong.
There is beauty in decay. There is beauty in places that are not perfect. And there are a lot of abandoned spaces. We want to show that these spaces still have a life to them, still have a purpose and meaning. They potentially have more years in them than people realise.
These places shouldn’t just be forgotten about. And they also shouldn’t be knocked down and redeveloped every five minutes. People can be very quick to write something off if it’s not new and shiny these days.
The gentrification of London, especially, is at such a rapid pace. As soon as we have a site scouted, we might come back the following week to paint it and find that it’s gone.
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But if you think back to when you’re 11 years old – if you walk by a house that’s completely boarded up, you’re intrigued. You want to go in. As humans, we have always had this interest in seeing what’s behind that boarding. We have an interest in seeing things that are broken and decayed.
Our mission is to highlight abandoned spaces that people might say are forgotten, but we think of as rewilding themselves. We want to show there is beauty in things being left alone for a while. We want to change the meaning of the word decay. Because decay is a natural part of the process of something growing, living, decaying and dying and restarting. And there is beauty in it.
