This week, our team had the pleasure of visiting the unveiling of Frank Creber's brand new mural for Whitechapel Stories.
Can you introduce yourself, where you are from and how long you have been with Artfinder for?
I am Frank Creber, a painter and printmaker as well as a mural artist. I have been with Artfinder for about 8 years, and have sold quite a number of paintings during that time. I was born in Amersham on the outskirts of London and after leaving college I decided to move to London to be in this vibrant lively and creative city.
Huge congratulations on completing the Whitechapel Stories Heritage Mural, this is a stunning piece of work and a clear labour of love. Could you explain to us a little more about how the project came to be?
I was asked if I would like to apply for doing the mural, I am known for doing a number of murals in East London UK, 20 artists applied and then 3 shortlisted, I did a presentation in front of 11 people who were the mural panel. The local residents and tenants association of Johns Place, a local estate, had the vision for doing a mural back in 2020 when Covid Lockdowns changed people's lives. The residents were faced with an unpleasant large wall half covered in grafitti and tagging, everytime they left the estate. Joining together with a local historian they wrote a successful bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund. Once they had the funding they went out to find a suitable artist, I had worked in a community context for 30 years as a community and public artist and I was used to managing creative projects with local groups.
By Mid March I had made 6-8 versions of the design adding new elements each time and trying out different composition ideas. The scaffolding went up on 14th March and in three weeks we had painted the mural, my wife Margy was my assistant.
How long have you worked on this and what has been the process from start to finish?
In October 2024 I did an initial design - it was a small canvas in oil paint, the application criteria gave several pointers as to what the locals would like to see on the mural wall. I covered many of the themes and was appointed, I then began to have meetings with the residents and developed the design further. Over January and February 2025 I ran 6 workshops in schools and community groups, the aim of these was to get ideas from people and create a broad ownership of the mural.
Did this differ from other mural projects you have worked on? If so, in which way?
The Whitechapel Stories Heritage Mural was better than previous projects in that the people who wanted the mural had researched the history of the area in great depth, and already had a sense of ownership of the mural even before an artist was chosen. The other thing about this mural was that I was supported all the way through; the mural themes became quite complex, there were in fact around 30 different stories interwoven, every step of the way the mural organisers kept me on track, they would give me feedback on images I was coming up with and would make alternative suggestion and even commented about the positioning of certain elements within the whole arrangement of the composition. On previous projects I had much less collaboration and I think it was building the relationship and friendship between the artist and those commissioning the work that has given this mural a core strength.
What would you say are the main technical difficulties when working on a project of this size?
Scaling up the project was an issue, it was about 10 metres high by 8 metres wide, so elements like faces ended up 50 cm in height on the wall. Another issue was needing to see the whole composition on the wall - this was made harder by the use of scaffolding. The third big challenge was making the faces realistic and close to the original source imagery. I had about 25 portraits to make on the wall, both well known people that are no longer alive, and local residents that I would see on a daily basis. I didn't use projection, instead I use a method of adjustments. I would copy the face by eye, from an A4 sheet image, then I would photograph my first attempt. Back in the studio I would overlay the original source photo of the face over my first attempt on the wall, I would do this in photoshop keeping the layers transparent, then back at the wall the next day I would adjust my working progress using the "adjuster image".
What is the next project you are working on?
Several people I know that have now seen the mural, are really impressed and have said they will go off to explore starting a new project else where, I will also be looking out for call outs for murals.
Do you have any advice for artists out there wanting to get involved in creating a mural, how would they go about it?
I always had an instinct to paint big, and I do large canvases in the studio, I was lucky I did a trip to Nicaragua to learn with a group of teenagers how to paint murals in a project called Funarte. I have learnt how to scale up my work using a grid technique that the old masters used, this gives the flexibility to work very big without being tied down with a projector. I would advise young artists who want to be muralists to try and do a placement or be an assistant to a muralist. I would also suggest not to get too dependant on using photography in your technique, digital imagery is swamping our lives and I believe a hand painted image conceived with artistic depth and authenticity empower communities.
Explore Frank's Artfinder shop here.
