OnApp moves to new office, with street art by Nathan Bowen
15 September 2011 by
It’s an exciting week at OnApp, as we finally move into our new offices - complete with original street art by Nathan Bowen! Check out the video to see Nathan working, talking about how he got started and describing his art movement, Afterlives.
Our new office is still in the Old Truman Brewery complex on Brick Lane, but now we occupy a large chunk of what used to be the cooperage.
It’s a kind of neo-industrial space, with ancient wooden flooring and bare brick walls, and some fairly substantial pieces of ironwork dotted around. Power and network tendrils hang from shiny metal gantries, and it’s all topped off by a very retro-looking aircon system.
It feels a bit like somebody crashed a B-movie spaceship into the roof of a Victorian factory.
We love it, but the top floor of the office had some very plain-looking white walls that were crying out for something a bit special, just to finish it off.
That’s why @Ditlev decided to get in touch with Nathan Bowen.
Nathan Bowen - Afterlives and crazy builders
Nathan is a street artist whose work can be seen around Brick Lane and other parts of London. We tracked him down and asked if he would transform our plain white walls.
As you can see below, he certainly did. Now we just have to sort out the boring stuff like seats and screens...
Art complete (everything else, still in progress!)
We grabbed a few minutes with Nathan to ask about his influences, his style and the Afterlives movement.
"Afterlives is giving walls an artistic reincarnation," he says. "So I go to street locations, and find run-down walls... walls that have been completely vandalized... and I reincarnate that wall in an artistic way."
Nathan draws quickly, confidently and with flair. Within minutes our walls are coming to life with the characters that feature prominently in his work at the moment - a motley crew of builders, part human, part troglodyte, part clown.
They can often be seen on boardings at construction sites around London.
“A lot of building sites are quite run down, anyway, so they could do with a bit of Afterlives... a bit of reincarnation," Nathan explains.
Nathan has a soft spot for his strange construction workers.
"These builders are clumsy, they're immature...but I kinda feel for them, y'know? I feel what they're going through. They're just fun-loving characters."
Nathan’s art is moving beyond London – he travels to Paris this week (“taking it global,” he chuckles).
Nathan is a really nice guy, and we had a lot of fun watching him work.
Now his builders keep a watchful eye on the OnApp team at our new office...
More of Nathan's art
There's much more of Nathan's art at http://www.artofnathanbowen.com
You can also buy limited edition prints of his work here.