The year started off so well for illustrator Paul Watty from Tilburg. His gigantic ostrich for Brouwerij ‘t IJ on the Karrestraat in Tilburg was nominated for a prestigious street art prize. Still, he was unpleasantly surprised by someone else’s signature or ‘tag’ on his mural. It concerned the initials SWR. “It’s just really not cool.”
Paul Watty is well known in the graffiti scene. He is disappointed but knows that this is part of it. He thinks it concerns young people from Reeshof and Breda. “This is part of graffiti, but there are rules. You should not place tags on other people’s work.”
At the time when Paul Watty was into graffiti, there wasn’t much competition between other groups. “In the past, Brabant, Limburg and Zeeland were always one team. People from above the rivers didn’t understand that because it was very unique.”
He hopes that this is still the case and would like to get in touch with the perpetrators to talk. “There is no further hatred from me. I even think it would be fun to spray graffiti together. We have the same interests, so why not encourage and strengthen each other in that?”
After the nomination, his mural has received quite a bit of attention. Paul therefore thinks that the perpetrators want to take a piece of the cake. In any case, Paul’s positivity cannot be overshadowed. He is still very proud of the nomination and hopes to put Tilburg on the map in the field of murals.
“With my work I stand between greats from all over the world that I can’t really compete with. These are truly people who have made a name for themselves with their murals. Mine is in there now too. That is not normal.”
The search is still in progress. There was a lot of response to a call from PizzaBar Rijslust, which has the mural on it. “Unfortunately, we don’t know anymore at the moment. We get a lot of statements of support, but unfortunately no tips,” says Rosanne Janssen from the pizza bar. In the meantime, a declaration has been made and a jar of latex is ready to remove the initials.