Jailed graffiti artist 'Tox' may be feted for his work one day

• IT is sad news that the Camden graffiti artist Daniel Halpin, aka Tox, has been jailed for 27 months. 

In sentencing him, Judge Peter Clarke said “There is nothing artistic about what you do”.

Vandalism has now become a matter of taste. As Banksy, who recently eulogised Tox on a Kentish Town wall, typifies. His stencil depicts a censored child blowing soap bubbles to the font of Tox, in recognition of the child spirit that compelled  Tox to explore his environs and beyond. 

It is a homage to the indefatigable labour Tox has committed to his continuing masterpiece. This tag is merely a symptom of an epic journey to identify every brick in the city. He has traversed the city like no other and has found its transcendental value. An atavistic practice, like cutting initials into bark, painting bison in caves, or piling stones on song lines. The spray can is the quill of the urban vernacular.

Indeed, the Banksy stencil could be seen as a character reference. Having been corralled into the establishment himself Banksy may hope that this stencil will offer a judicial reprieve for a kindred spirit.

A misperception is that the Tox tag has no artistic value. Yes, as a single tag, it causes no concern for craft. But as an exponential growth across the cities of Europe, it delivers a new age of wonder. Tox is indiscriminate to what and where he tags. By dating the year it offers an archaeological promise. The manifesto is speed and extensiveness. Each tag leaves a trace of a nocturnal climb, a visceral aftertaste of physical risk, an intervention into a forbidden space. Indeed, the approach is that of an archetypal Situationist, an art movement that is lectured on in every art history course.

Already art galleries have begun to commodify Tox, for the myth is ripe to harvest, and the establishment beckons. Who knows, Camden Council may one day need more Perspex to protect all the Tox tags, and opportunists will be grinding out railway walls to sell to art dealers. Stranger things have happened.

MARK NEWELL     
Maiden Lane, NW1 

Published: 21 July, 2011