Mural painter Camille Walala is taking over London one façade at a time

If you’ve walked around east London at any point over the past few years, the chances are you’ve come across some of Camille Walala’s work. You can’t miss it – her geometric designs are plastered across walls from Great Eastern Street to Redchurch Street, with a few popping up in New York and Paris, too. The artist and designer had always wanted to paint walls, she told us, so she started with one small space in Shoreditch, and now she’s taking over the world, one Memphis-patterned wall at a time.

“My favourite wall I ever did is on Whitby Street, behind Redchurch Street,” Camille explains. "It was two years ago, and at the time my ex-boyfriend, the street artist Jumboist, was doing some painting in the street, and an old lady called Georgina asked him if he would be interested in painting the back entrance to her house. He said he couldn’t as he was going back to Australia, but I said ‘well I CAN!’

“Georgina said ok, but then never asked me to show her any designs beforehand,” Camille continues. “She only told me that her husband had died the year before, and that originally she had wanted to have his face painted on the wall… I’m glad I didn’t have to do that, as with my style he would have had a rectangle for his mouth, a rectangle for his nose, and two circles for his eyes!”

“Anyway, a few weeks later a friend was in London with me and we did it together, a complete transformation of her façade.” From that small beginning, Camille has moved onto greater things, recently painting an entire five storey building on a huge main road in east London. And with projects for the likes of Facebook, Urban Outfitters and Katy Perry already under her belt, she doesn’t seem likely to stop any time soon. “Since then my real pleasure and goal in life is to transform dull and boring spaces and walls and to bring them life with bold colour and patterns. Slowly but surely I’m getting there!”