At any time of day or night, the skyline of Media City is shattered by a geometry of lights, lines, and colours. Now, thrusting along the water, its bold shapes find echoes in the vibrant new artwork Square Eyes by Camille Walala, which is opening the next chapter of public art at the Lowry. 

Originally from the French countryside and transplanted to East London, Walala is a lauded figure in the international art scene. Square Eyes is her second project in Manchester and the scale reflects the rising trajectory of her career over the intervening years. 

“It was about 15 years ago,” recalls Walala. “I came for a few days, I just painted and left. But I always want to come back.”

Since painting the entrance of a Manchester nightclub and various walls around London, she has been commissioned to create work for the London Design Festival, the Design Museum, and transformed an entire building in New York. Walala smiles. “It’s a nice full circle, it was just the beginning and now I’ve come back here.”

Walala’s art is instantly recognisable when you discover it in the wild. A kaleidoscope of lines and colours splashing joyful life across the cityscape. Her style emerges from her neverending gleaning of inspiration. “I research constantly,” she says. “When I travel I collect lots of mundane things in the street, or the floor, or details of patterns. I’m obsessed with pattern.”

She continues: “I developed almost a lexicon of shapes. The shapes that I see and collect to then compose back at home on my computer or on paper.”

Certain shapes return, becoming signature forms, while others evolve. Square Eyes showcases new explorations of colours and curves not visible in her earlier work. “Now I’m getting a bit more curvy, whereas before everything was really angular. Maybe it’s getting older, I used to love very rigid geometry, but now I like the softness of shapes.”

Square Eyes

For this new site-specific piece, Walala combined her own style with inspiration from the Lowry and the view across the quays.

“The work was partly a response to the building itself. I love the architecture and the colours, I used a lot of the bold shapes. And also the view from here [she gestures out across the river towards Media City]. The landscape, the city. I love when there’s a lot of different layers in the view.”

If you’re reading this at the Lowry, turn away from the work now and look out of the windows, out towards the city. Examine the buildings opposite, their angles and lines, the blocks of colour. Look closer and really see the way the shapes and colours interact with each other. Now look back at the wall.

Throughout the work, carefully blended gradients are reflections of the windows staring back from across the water. Red and mint rub shoulders inside, and on a slither of a facade opposite. A rich burnt umber and royal purple mirror the colours streaking across the atrium below. This appearance of exuberant simplicity comes from a careful arrangement of form and minute attention to detail, down to the centimetre thickness of each line.

The name is another nod to the surroundings, and the invention of her girlfriend and creative partner, Julia Jomaa.

“She suggested it because we are facing all of the TV offices there,” explains Walala. “Apparently it’s a thing in England that kids when they watch too much TV their parents say ‘stop watching TV, you’re going to get square eyes’.”

The paint itself is also a carefully selected element. “For the colour, there was a brand that I really wanted to collaborate with called Bristol Paints. They specialise in theatre and cinema, which I thought was relevant…They are really vibrant paints, really matt, really chalky, it makes it look like you can jump in.”

That playful feeling of being able to leap into a newly coloured world is a hallmark of Walala’s work and an emotion she hopes to evoke in her viewers. “I feel like sometimes art takes itself too seriously. I think it’s nice to take joy whenever you can.” 

Walala started her career creating street art because it could be enjoyed by the world. Today, she continues to create public work whenever possible.

“I just love art being accessible to everyone. Depending on where you come from, your background, you don’t always have the opportunity to go to museums or maybe you feel a bit intimidated. So as much as I can, I do things publicly.” The Lowry, with its open ebb and flow of people, is a welcome canvas.

Despite the grand scale of her artworks, her aspirations for their effects are more modest. “What I’m aiming for when I do art is to touch people,” she grins. “That’s what I really love is when people give me the compliment ‘oh it makes me smile when I see your work’.”

Square Eyes is part of the Lowry’s 25th anniversary programme which will feature annual commissions from international artists responding to the space at the Promenade Gallery. Visit Walala’s work before autumn 2026 to put a smile on your face.

By Rowan Twine

Main image: Camille Walala by Michael Pollard

 

Camille Walala: Square Eyes is at Lowry in Salford. For more information, click here.