Camille Walala and Simone Brewster Discuss the Shifting Shape of Creativity

Camille Walala is a French artist and designer known for her colorful, full-facade murals and public art. Her work also explores immersive 3D installations, interiors, and set design. Camille’s breakout moment came after her “Dream Come True” mural burst onto the London streetscape with a fusion of color and geometry in 2015. Since then she has collaborated with brands including LEGO, where she created a two-story house in central London using two million tiles. In 2019 she unveiled her “Walala Lounge,” a collection of semi-permanent street furniture at the London Design Festival. Her creative vision also extends to the SALT of Palmar hotel in Mauritius and London’s XOYO nightclub, where she led the artistic direction.

Simone Brewster is a London-based artist and designer known for work that combines craftsmanship with narratives celebrating Black female identities. Her practice encompasses a variety of mediums, including furniture design and sculpture, both reflecting a fusion of African and Western influences. Simone incorporated painting into her portfolio during the 2020 lockdown, with work that often explores societal pressures on the female body and mind. She was the 2023 London Design Festival Commission winning designer for her installation “Spirit of Place.”

Camille Walala: After discovering your design work, I noticed you started painting.

As a designer you can sometimes limit yourself to a particular practice or style. But your paintings are really different from everything else you do; I love that freedom of expression. You have these strong, bold objects and 3D elements in your work, and there’s a sense of defiance—you’re not trying to follow any set rules.

Simone Brewster: I’ve been talking about this a lot with my friends lately. Especially when you have a practice that involves making things, it’s a process of concentration and self-expression. For women, every time we adapt to something another change happens. That definitely feeds into my work.

I never had kids, and there was a point when I wanted to. My family, even my dad, would say, “You can have it all. You can have kids and be creative.” I was really driven, but it didn’t happen for me even when I wanted it to.

It’s a complicated subject for me, but I admire successful women who manage to be mothers and still maintain their creativity. It seems like motherhood brought you new creativity, and I’m a bit envious of that. I wish I could have tasted a bit of that.

It’s a strange thing. If you’d seen my life a few years ago, I didn’t think it was possible. I always wanted to be a mom—I even wanted five kids, but life doesn’t work that way. There are practical realities, like finding a partner and living in London. I was lucky to find someone worth making those big life changes for because it impacted my work and my individuality.

The most surprising thing about becoming a mom was how important my creativity became. So much changed in my body—I gained weight, had nerve issues, and struggled with mobility. These are things you don’t think about until they happen. After my son was born my schedule was turned upside down, but the one thread that connected me to who I truly was my creativity. It was the one thing from my life before that I could still access—it was mine.

I understand that. In my case with perimenopause, it’s like all of my perception, my work, and my style are in flux. I just want to create. Lately I’ve been scribbling and doing messy paintings, just trying to get things out.

I don’t know exactly what I need to express, but it feels like I want something different from my creativity. It’s hard when you’re on this roller coaster. You just have to keep pursuing the work, maintain your integrity, and not do something just because people expect it.

Your work has such a strong visual language. I know your work just by looking at it. But sometimes that strength can be limiting. When I first saw your work, I didn’t know it was yours. I just remembered seeing it and then seeing more of it and thinking, “This must be by the same person.” Later I found out it was yours.

During the lockdown I forgot my own style and just let loose on paper in a way I never had. It was flexible and spontaneous and felt a bit like art therapy! In a time when I was mentally struggling with what was going on in the world, creativity really helped me to push through.

I think many creatives struggle with self-doubt; it’s normal, but it can be really tough. Right now I know I need to push through, but I can’t force myself. If I’m bored or uninspired nothing will come out. I often take myself to the countryside to have some inner quiet. I find that this really helps my creativity.

I know I’ll always be creative, but I don’t want to compromise. I’m not really showing my work to people because I’m still figuring out what I’m doing.

How long have you been working, actually? How long would you say you’ve been practicing?

I was a bit of a late bloomer. I started university when I was 28 or 29 and did a textile degree. This is where my eyes were finally opened to the possibilities of creativity and individuality. Before that I wasn’t involved in any creative work at all. I was quite nervous about it.

What made you change? Why did you decide to go for it?

I think it was school. My dad told me to come to London when I was 23 because I failed my GCSEs and my literature degree. Nothing stuck in my head—I couldn’t remember anything. So my dad said, “OK, you have to go to London to learn English.”

I didn’t want to go. I was living in a village of 300 people in France, and then suddenly I’m in London. But in the end it turned out to be the best thing for me. After three months I knew more English than I’d learned in seven years at school!

I was so proud, but it was also the freedom of being in London. I just wanted to party, and I worked as a waitress because there wasn’t much else I could do without speaking English. 

I always wanted to wear crazy clothes. When I got to London, I lived in Camden in 1997, and it was like, “Wow.” It was the place to be. Everyone was wearing wild outfits, like the ones I wanted to wear.

Eventually I started taking different courses and discovered I loved textiles, patterns, and textures. I took evening classes to build my portfolio and ended up studying textiles for fashion in Brighton. It was great, but I was 10 years older than everyone else and still wasn’t entirely sure about my path.

Even after university I was a bit hesitant about being a textile designer because I wasn’t sure if that’s what I really loved. I remember telling my dad that and he said, “You know what? When you’re 40, that’s when you should really know your direction.” My dad’s an architect and works for himself, so he understood.

I was 32 at the time, so he gave me eight years to figure things out. And when I turned 40, that’s when I painted the “Dream Come True” building on Old Street. That building was a huge opportunity for me. I did it for free, but it set the stage for everything that came after.

When you talk about your journey, I feel like there’s so much bravery in it. I’ve written a few articles and spoken to other creatives, and I’m always interested in how they got to where they are. People often ask me why I do so many different things, so I’m curious about others’ paths.

I’ve noticed that especially for women, many of them didn’t start out doing what they really wanted to do. If they didn’t come from an extremely wealthy background, they didn’t trust themselves to pursue their passion right away. There’s often a convoluted path—first they were a teacher, then they took an evening course in jewelry-making, and then they found out they loved it. That transition into the thing they really love is so common. For me there’s something really brave about continuing to search for what you’re meant to do because being a creative is a hard job.

Did you always know what you wanted to do?

I initially wanted to be an architect. When I was around 6 years old I went on a family trip to Trinidad, where my dad is from. I was fascinated by a particular house and asked why it was so cool compared to the others. My dad told me it was because his cousin was an architect. From then on I decided I wanted to be an architect and design nice places to live.

I studied architecture at University College London, and I didn’t like it. I graduated when I was 21 and worked in architecture for a while until I decided to get some money together and pursue a master’s degree in design at the Royal College of Art.

The course being there, which was initially furniture design but evolved into design products, was life-changing for me. I thought I’d try it out to get it out of my system, but I really enjoyed it and decided to stick with it.

It’s nice to have diverse experiences. When people try different things it often leads to pieces of the puzzle coming together. Every experience, even something like working as a waitress, can teach you valuable skills.

It seems like you also had a clear direction from a young age, which is quite rare. It’s amazing how you followed that direction despite the challenges.

I think it’s important to ask yourself if you would regret not pursuing something. Sometimes I say to myself, “You’re going to die someday. Are you going to regret not doing this?” That’s the whole reason I’m here.

When I studied I had really good grades in chemistry and good grades that could take me to architecture school. I was like—when I die, which one will I regret? Not being a chemist, or not being an architect? I thought I better go into architecture since that was what I always wanted to do.

To know what you want to do is hard. I just realized that it’s not about the final outcome. For years I dealt with a lot of self-doubt, chasing dreams or wanting to achieve big things. After working so hard those dreams finally started to happen. It’s great, but now I’m left wondering, “What’s next?”

I’m proud of what I’ve achieved. I did it for myself, and maybe a bit for my parents, to show them I’ve found my path. But now I’m thinking that maybe my next step won’t be so driven or egocentric. Maybe it will be something smaller, something more personal.

As I approach 50 I’m questioning what will truly make me happy. I used to think I wanted a big studio, a team under me, but now I realize what I want is freedom. I want to wake up every day without regrets, loving what I do, and with as little stress as possible.

Some people thrive with big teams and projects, but for me it’s different. I’ve learned I don’t want a massive project or a big team. I work with Julia Jomaa who is amazing at producing, and we have an assistant now and then. But for me, it’s about being able to decide each day what I want to do. If I don’t want to work that day, I don’t have to.

That freedom is what I dream of.

What’s interesting is realizing your relationship with creativity is the most important relationship you have with yourself. It needs to keep evolving. For me, anyway, that’s how I see it. I don’t always know what I’m going to do next, but I do know what I want to explore.

Can you share what you want to do next? What’s on your mind?

There are a few things, but I definitely need to keep painting. Painting offers a sense of freedom. When you’re designing furniture, spaces, or anything else there are always constraints—clients, materials, practicalities. Even when you’re creating something for yourself, like a piece of jewelry, you have to respect the materials.

You can’t force wood or metal to do something it can’t. When I’m making jewelry I have to respect not overheating it or everything melts. There’s a frustration in the act of making because of these limitations, but with painting the frustrations feel more playful. There’s a different kind of freedom.

My work has evolved a lot since 2020. That’s when I really started painting, during lockdown when I couldn’t go to the studio. Everyone was stuck at home, so I took the themes I was exploring in my 3D work and started translating them into painting. It was a new way to express the ideas I’d been working on.

It was actually my husband who encouraged me. I always thought I’d start painting when I retired, but with lockdown I finally had the time. We had these date nights on Wednesdays, and I asked him to teach me. He kept saying, “No, no, no, you’re trying to paint like me. Just paint like you, like those sketches you did in the garden that are more fluid.” He paints with bold, blocky, flat shapes, but he pushed me to find my own style.

When I say he taught me, he doesn’t see it that way, but teaching isn’t just about showing—it’s about guiding someone to discover their own way. He gave me the confidence to start.

I began posting my work on Instagram. People were like, “These are great,” which encouraged me to keep sharing. I didn’t actually intend to share it, really. The painting itself was an act of freedom during a time of complete restriction.

At first I was just using India ink on paper, all in black and white. But then color started creeping in, and soon my paintings became full of it. It even influenced my 3D work later on, like in the Now Gallery show. If I hadn’t started painting I don’t think I would’ve had the confidence to use color the way I did.

There’s this idea of the “happy” accident. Have you had one?

There is one moment that stands out. I was working with textiles on a small scale, making things for fashion and selling my pieces at markets. Then someone approached me to design an entire nightclub, the XOYO in the Shoreditch area of London. I had never done anything like that before. I didn’t know how to use computer design software, so I resorted to taking photographs of patterns and scaling them up to create the designs.

It took three months to design, and this guy trusted me with my crappy photocopies. I went all in.

The nightclub ended up being pretty amazing—unique for its time in London, full of vibrant design. Seeing everyone’s reactions, thinking, “What is this?” made me realize I had found something special. It was like finding my true calling in life, to create spaces that bring joy and wonder.

It sounds like the happy accident was really finding your true calling. If that didn’t happen, it might have taken you another five or 10 years to figure out you’re meant to work on a larger scale.

Exactly. I always think about that moment and how it was a turning point. Someone trusted me with such a significant project based on a small-scale cushion at a market. It all came together perfectly.

For me a lot of happy accidents came from paying attention to opportunities and being open to change.

Going to the Royal College of Art was a bit of a happy accident. I was encouraged to consider it during a lecture, and it seemed like the perfect fit. I met incredible people and had too much fun in the workshops, which led me to continue in that path. Sometimes it’s about staying alert and receptive to these moments, and that’s how I ended up where I am today.

camillewalala.com, simonebrewster.co.uk

 

A version of this article originally appeared in Sixtysix Issue 13.