Earlier this year we received a visit from Scottish artist KMG and Irish artist Zippy – each of whom having visited Penge in 2022 for the first time and on separate occasions – who at super speed hit up a pair of superb and fun collaborations in one short winter day around Penge as part of the ongoing community mural project we coordinate around our hometown of SE20. Flowing their respective illustrative and typographical skills beautifully, the pair left us with two striking artworks that we have had the please of enjoying most days over the last 9 months. Both of the artworks below were placed up with support from London Calling Blog for SprayExhibition20 and we would like to offer a big thank you to both of these talented artists for coming to our corner of the city on their visit to London and hope it isn’t too long before we get to enjoy some of their art down South again.

Long and Winding Woods in Penge High Street, with a nod to the etymological origin of the Penge’s name which means ‘top or edge of the wood’ in Celtic. At the time of the towns origin Penge is documented to have been home to wild boars, which accounts for KMG’s red boar character set aside Zippy’s flowing text. We for one couldn’t think of a better town sign for the heart of Penge.

Foos Yer Doos in Padua Road. This piece, the second of the day, was inspired by the two visiting artists noticing the amass of now native parakeets flying around Penge. Having come from colder areas up North, the pair of artists were curious as to why we had such exotic wildlife flying about and when they was told by a local that they are everywhere these days, kind of like pigeons, they had the inspiration for the above work. The piece presents the green parakeet – aka The Penge Pigeon – by KMG and the flowing text by Zippy stating ‘Foos Yer Doos’ which is a common question – “Foos Yer Doos?” – asked by those who speak the Doric dialect in Aberdeenshire. The correct answer to the question is to reply “Aye peckin awa! Aye peckin awa!”. The phrase comes from the love of racing pigeons and doves that was, and is for some, commonplace in Aberdeen.