Mural artist Louis Masai has travelled the world highlighting the plight of endangered species with his ‘soft toy’ concept - his hometown of Margate is the next target, writes Joe Bill

“The best way to describe it in a sentence is that they’re ‘soft toys’. But they’re the idea of preservation. And this is the souvenir of life. And this is all we’ve got left.”

Artist Louis Masai (@louismasai) has been creating murals across the planet for more than a decade, with the specific aim of highlighting the environmental impact that the modern world is having on animal species.

“Ironically, if you look at a lot of environmental NGOs, they say ‘If you invest into us, we’ll give you a soft toy’ and so I like that parody as well. It’s a little bit of a question mark to the NGOs: ‘Come on, sort yourself out, we’ve gotten past the cuddly toy phase’.”

Community is at the heart of Louis’s work and, having been restricted in his output due to Covid since moving to Margate a couple of years back, he is on a mission to illuminate the seaside town with a series of eco-focused murals under the banner of Rise Up Residency.

The project, which is planned for September this year, will bring international mural artists to the walls of Margate.

“It’s essentially 20 murals painted by a group of artists who are interested, within their core, in philanthropy or humanitarian and environmental justice. Some are local to Margate, a lot are local to the UK and a few are coming over from Europe,” Louis says.

“Some of them are the highest-profile artists in this scene, and some of them have never painted in the UK.”

The murals will be focused on aquatic life and the conservation work that needs to be done to have a healthy ocean.

“It’s about the interrelation of a species and a toy. And so the toy is the reference of what is left if we don’t look after the environment”

— Louis Masai

“They are artists from all walks of life and at different stages of their careers: artists from the black and brown and diaspora, female artists, male artists and queer artists. It is designed to show all elements of society. Within that roster you have artists who sometimes paint abstract, some who paint portraiture and some who paint flora and fauna.

“We will use that as an opportunity to not just talk about wildlife affected by the ocean but also humans that are affected by the ocean.”

In collaboration with local CIC Rise Up Clean Up (@riseupcleanup), which was founded due to the enormous amount of rubbish left on the town’s beaches every year, the mural project has an underlying motive: to push for the removal of single-use plastics in Margate.

Chatting to Louis just a few hours before he headed out to Mexico to paint a huge salamander on a wall in Mexico City, the development of his philanthropic nature is a story that had to be explored.

FOUNDATION

Spending most of his early years in Cornwall, Louis’s creative energies were encouraged by his parents and particularly his father, who owned a restaurant but would paint well into the wee hours after diners had left.

Trained in fine art, it was during a degree course at Falmouth University that Louis’s interest in street art began to heighten.

“I was doing a series of work about homeless people. I would go into cities, whether it be Truro or Plymouth or London, and do interviews with people living on the street. And then I started drawing around the character with oil bars so you saw the shadow of the character left on the wall.”

Preferring to create his work alone and not in the studio - especially when surrounded by ‘talking sh*t’ - Louis found a new space within which to work.

“At that time, there were loads of abandoned hotels in Falmouth,” he says. “So I just broke into the hotels and started painting my homeless people there. It was like this idea that I was rehoming them.

“I just felt more energy in the idea of breaking in and exploring an abandoned building and leaving some artwork there. Among that you find other guys have been there doing graffiti or painting illustrative stuff with cans. And then I just thought ‘F*ck it, I’m gonna start learning how to use cans properly’.

“Meanwhile, I was really studying juxtaposition and that whole illustrative fine art movement into the streets and vice versa.

“I was just like a sponge, I was just trying to grab it from anywhere and everywhere and reflecting on it by starting up mini collectives and trying to curate shows.”

It was on moving to London that Louis began to paint wild animals.

“When you’re working with wild creatures, your data comes from the internet and I got kind of bored of seeing the same images. So I started to dig deeper in photo archives looking for animals that I hadn’t seen anyone else paint.

“I realised that many of those animals were endangered. That’s when the penny dropped. And I was like ‘Oh, I can actually be a voice here for the voiceless’ and essentially speak up about things.”

WILD WORK

While starting out painting animals in a more realistic way, the development of his ‘soft toy’ concept started life as the dregs in the bottom of his cans.

“It’s your leftover bits of paint and I wanted to use it up. I have a fascination with colour and fabrics. So I started to use a bit of colour into the ears of an animal or in the underbelly. Soon the artworks were being covered in a patchwork of smaller designs, some with socio and eco references.

“It gives me the opportunity to bring in popular culture, cultural references and micro stories, whether it be how the animal is abused or the effects it’s having on its nature. So, essentially, inside one painting are hundreds of mini stories,” he explains.

Louis also began to use animals that were a bit more ‘edgy’ in his pieces, which added another dimension to the ‘soft toy’ concept.

“A frog or a salamander or a crocodile, animals we don’t want to go run up and give a hug to, like we do an elephant. And so what I was trying to do was remove that stigma that there is of how we view an animal - it’s called speciesism.

“I was trying to create a cuddliness to all species so that we want to cradle it and look after it.

“It’s about the interrelation of a species and a toy. And so the toy is the reference of what is left if we don’t look after the environment.”

A fan of the DIY movement and counterculture, Louis was never likely to be one to sit back and wait for his artwork to be admired and, having seen the boom in social media in showing off your work, travelling abroad, creating art and showing the world was always the next step.

“Well, I’m going to South Africa because I want to go and paint about endangered species in South Africa, in the lands where these animals exist. And so as soon as I did that trip, everything just started to snowball,” he says.

“And so rather than relying upon invites to things, I just make sh*t happen. So I would go to South Africa and make my interlinks and then just be like ‘I’m here’.”

While Louis lives off his work, being commissioned for murals around the world, as well as producing prints and solo shows, it’s his self-initiated projects like the Rise Up Residency that have gone on to become the most high-profile.

Endangered 13 saw 13 artists take on a 120-metre stretch of railway arches in Tower Hamlets, London, to raise awareness of endangered species.

“I like the idea of being a fire under the belly and bringing in different organisations and energies to a table to take something further,” he says. “I had to get known before I could invest back into conservation.

“And then to use my connections to bring in the funding to then put on this project. But the way I look at life is, if you’re doing good, like whether it’s financially good or spiritually good, if you do good, if you allow it to be a circle, whether it’s circular economy, circular fashion, whatever it is, if you put back in what you take, it just continuously spins.

“So every time I give and I put back into whether it’s community, environment or philanthropy or my art, I always get back tenfold.

“I’m going to keep making the work because that’s my enjoyment. I don’t do this for money.

I love the engagement with creativity and then passing it on to someone to enjoy.”

Louis artworks have long been used to spearhead campaigns for conservation and while his aim is to encourage communities to “love nature more”, he says he is no activist.

“The art is the catalyst,” he says. “I’m not an activist, I’m just an artist, but I’m just using my vocation to do what I think artists should be doing. And I think that if you look through the history of art, art was never done to create wealth, it was done as a way in which to spark a reaction, whether it be storytelling in cave paintings, or like very politically charged murals from the Mexican Revolution by Diego Rivera. And I think that, especially when you create work in the public domain, you have to respect the public domain’s opinion and how it interacts with what you’re placing.”

If you are in Margate and have a public-facing wall, get in touch with Louis Masai at louismasai.com