The 'gum artist' asks that his works be preserved on London's Millennium Bridge

Ben Wilson has taken street art to extremes never seen before. Known as the chewing gum artist, he usually spends long hours lying down and painting the chewing gum that has been stepped on and “fossilized” on the sidewalks.. With the patience of a minimalist, Wilson turns the patches on the floor into mosaics of furious colors where a Bengal tiger roars, where a smiling angel flies or where two doves kiss.. He calls it “gum art”, a genre of his own with which he has become famous all over the world without leaving London.

A decade ago we spent an entire morning with the bubblegum artist, watching him in action in his Muswell Hill neighborhood, converted into something like a ground-level museum. From there he jumped to Shoreditch, the neighborhood par excellence of graffiti, until he finally found his habitat on Norman Foster's Millennium Bridge, which connects St. Paul's Cathedral with the Tate Modern.

Up to 600 small works by the also known as the Picasso of the Pavement can be counted along the 325 meters of the wobbly bridge, which will close to the public on October 14 to undergo a facelift. Ben Wilson has cried foul, fearful that his paintings will be erased with the replacement of the synthetic membrane and the renewal of the worn surface…

“I have been working on this bridge for more than ten years, turning what is literally trash into pieces of art. “I would like people to be able to continue enjoying them because I know they are loved and admired.”

Ben Wilson is right: dozens of tourists who cross the bridge every day bend down to the pavement to immortalize their small, great works on their cell phones.. A double-decker bus, a black cab or a stray cat come incredibly alive under our feet on a canvas the size of a two-euro coin.. Sometimes they are simply phrases, declarations of love (“Will you marry me?”) or dedications that people ask of him and with which he can make his art profitable.

“There is nothing like capturing everyday beauty and creating connections with people,” insists Wilson, always so inclined to talk to the curious or explain on the fly how he does it.. Using a blowtorch, soften and spread the trampled gum on the sidewalk. Then he applies a varnish and several coats of enamel.. And so the canvas is ready, waiting for the master hand that will give it life with very fine brushes and a small palette.

The artist occasionally takes a lighter out of his backpack to dry the acrylic paint and ensure that the chewing gum converted into a micromosaic can withstand the footsteps of passers-by.. According to his calculations, over 15 years (almost 60) he has carried out more than 15,000 small works. He keeps a very precise record of all of them.

And although he can now paint in peace, thanks to a safe passage from the local Police, it was not always like this. He was arrested twice at the beginning with his hands in the gum, and one of them (in 2010) was precisely on the Millennium Bridge.. “I was painting the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral before a group of students who were enthusiastic. The police came, they accused me of “criminal damage” and I couldn't finish the painting. “They dragged me over the bridge, forced me into a van and I ended up in a cell.”

Time has moved on in his favor, and the authorities now look favorably on Ben Wilson, who is also an accomplished sculptor and exhibits in galleries. The City Bridges Foundation has recognized “the value of his art” and has committed to “identifying a limited number of pieces that will be preserved” during the cleaning and maintenance works of the also known as “tremble bridge.”