My cultural diary

What’s the best thing about your work?

Catherine: On a micro level, I love that we make people happy and that we can change how people look at flowers. A child will look at a daisy, which is essentially a weed, and find it magical. We don’t have that, so being able to draw a daisy and blow it up so adults can see flowers with new eyes – that, for me, feels really special.

Lee: Catherine and I both grew up in urban environments, and I wasn’t interested in nature at all. Then, via Japanese art, I really started homing in on nature through a human lens. I was just drawn to flowers more and more and more. They just made me feel much better when I was drawing them.

When did you start Graphic Rewilding?

Catherine: We were working together on another project called Skip Gallery. Lee was drawing and painting flowers in his studio, and they would take people’s breath away. I was curating lots of artwork for the public realm, and I said to Lee, “Let’s take your flowers and blow them up.” When we started showing them, we just thought, “It’s making everyone so happy, so let’s do it.” We completely changed our lives.

Why do humans need art and culture?

Lee: I used to live in Newcastle in the 1990s as a student, and we used to make a lot of art in derelict buildings on the Quayside. Then, in Gateshead, they started really putting money into the arts – they really, really went for it. Antony Gormley did his Angel of the North, and it really inspired people; I get goosebumps thinking about it. I’d never liked exhibiting my work in galleries. Via public art, even then, I could see the joy and magic it brings, how it can transform an area and transform perception in an area.

What makes you happy?

Catherine: I love travelling. I’m never happier than with my passport in my hand, running through an airport or a train station with Lee or my son, Loris. I had my first trip to Rome in March – we were in an exhibition out there – and it completely blew my mind.

What are your favourite places for food and drink in London?

Catherine: Last weekend I had the bougiest food weekend I think I’ve ever had. I had oysters and sublime monkfish and king prawn curry at Scott’s, then we went to a Mexican restaurant, Zapote, in Shoreditch, and on the Saturday we went to Noble Rot in Mayfair. Oh my god, they had the best bread selection I’ve ever had in my life. It was like eating cake with the lashings of butter.

What art exhibitions do you really want to see this year?

Catherine: Definitely the Christo and Jeanne-Claude collaboration with the artist JR in Paris. He’s wrapping the Pont Neuf bridge in homage to The Pont Neuf Wrapped, which happened 40 years ago. Also, the Hockney exhibition at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. They’re the big blockbusters.

Lee: One of our bonding experiences was going to Lago Iseo in Italy in 2016 to experience Christo’s saffron bridge. The year before, Christo literally pulled up in a boat by our hotel, and we were like, “What’s going on? Are we in a dream right now?”

What concerts or festivals do you want to see this year?

Catherine: I’m so out of the loop because we’re so head down working, but we’ve got a potential opportunity to do something at Glastonbury, and I’m well up for seeing Busta Rhymes.

Lee: I haven’t actually been to a festival in years. I used to play festivals a lot in my days as a musician; I’ve even played the John Peel stage.

What are the exciting up-and-coming names to watch?

Catherine: I love some of the really exciting curatorial art collectives in London, like PLOP Residency or Pigeon Park.

Lee: Dion Kitson, a surrealist who doesn’t get enough love, is absolutely phenomenal. We’re big fans of the painter Lydia Blakeley; she’s very much on the rise. There’s a painter called Victoria Cantons, who does really powerful self-portraiture. I’m very much a big fan of painting and admire a lot of installation artists as well, like Craig & Karl, who are doing great work.

What app can you not live without?

Lee: I think I’m on IMDb more than anything. Who directed what, who did the music for this, who composed that? And obviously games are in there as well – I’m always fascinated by big-name composers doing video games. Nile Rogers did a brilliant one for Halo, which is crazy.

Where do you take visitors to London?

Catherine: We had a German exchange student staying with us a couple of weeks ago. The plan was to go to Shoreditch because that’s where my son loves going (actually, he just wants to go to Highbury and look at the Emirates Stadium). Then this boy was like, “No, if I don’t go to see Big Ben and Buckingham Palace, my mum will be really disappointed.” I was like, “Oh, you are joking – that is so boring.” Anyway, it wasn’t. We went down streets we’d never seen before. The whole of Whitehall was closed off for this incredible car chase. We had laughs with the security guards. We had kebabs and chips. Even when you’re kind of doing that full tourist trail, there is always something new to experience and new to see.

Lee: I’m really proud of London. When my nieces come over, I take them straight to the restaurant Ave Mario in Covent Garden because it’s an absolute Instagram fest, and there’s always so much going on around there. Catherine and I do a lot of walking in London because it’s a feast for the eyes. I love Fleet Street for that real mix of old and modern architecture. And Selfridges, because it’s that brilliant balance between art and retail.

What film should everyone watch?

Catherine: OK, the real answer is National Lampoon’s European Vacation. Every time I go to Trafalgar Square, I just can’t stop thinking of the scene where the car’s going round and round and round.

Lee: A Complete Unknown. I felt completely transported, and I felt like I was there.

Who do you think is the greatest artist ever to have lived?

Lee: It’s a Japanese artist called Itō Jakuchū. He was one of the most innovative artists you’ll never hear about – the artwork that made him famous at the time was a 33-scroll series about nature called The Colourful Realm Of Living Beings, which took him 11 years. I think he was like the Picasso of his day in Japan’s Edo period.

What’s your motto for a good life?

Lee: Oh, I had a good phrase yesterday. It was ‘Work harder to make luck.’ Catherine was saying, you know, “God, we’re really lucky.” And I said, “Yeah, we’ve got to work harder to make our luck.” We get a lot back from what we put in, and that feedback loop is really giving me a lot of happiness.

What’s most exciting about your work Wild Swing being at Greenwich Peninsula?

Catherine: Watching people really enjoy themselves playing in an artwork that’s also a mini golf course is really good fun. Every time we visit Greenwich Peninsula, it completely surprises us. It’s super cool; the different architectural styles are just brilliant, and there’s The Tide public art walk and the food at Canteen Food Hall & Bar.

Lee: I think Greenwich Peninsula is one of the first developments we’ve worked with that has really captured magic through art.

Catherine: NOW Gallery is also not afraid to break boundaries or to deal with subjects that could be seen as political or sensitive; I think that’s really commendable.

Lee: We’re about playable art as well – that confluence of making people think a little bit while enjoying their experience. Not being frightened of it, not having to walk into the hallowed walls of white-cube spaces. We really enjoy artists who extend that out to the world.

Who or what is the greatest love of your life?

Lee: Catherine. Catherine changed my life.

Catherine: Lee, of course. My son, Loris, and my cats.

@graphic_rewilding; Wild Swing Mini Golf tees off July–August, Peninsula Square