Aqua’s room has an extremely low ceiling, no higher than 6ft.
They live in one of the warehouses in north London. It’s on the cosy side, with scents of home-cooked dinner filling the air. In the room it’s just us two.
Aqua switched off the music.
‘You try to talk to somebody, and you say something but you overthink everything you said and then you feel stupid and then you feel more stupid and it’s like a viscious cycle. You can’t even hear people at some point, ‘cause your mind becomes so loud and like I don’t understand what I’m thinking. It’s a big mess so you just need to shut down for a bit.’
There’s paintings and artworks scattered around the space. Aqua paints. A lot. The artworks tend to be dark and eerie.
‘I never wash my paint brushes, I always throw them out. I leave them to dry. Even if I’m painting anything, I don’t wash my brushes. After I finish one colour I dip in another colour, so it’s constant. It’s like textures and layers of colours, but then the colours are always quite dark or muted.’
‘I used to go out and do murals, I think that’s one of the nicest ways to actually relax. And I used to go, do you know where Nomadic Gardens used to be? (they’re gonna build fancy buildings there, that’s gone, gone, gone) so going there in the dark. I would always go alone, which would be scary as fuck when it’s dark. Loads of scary people walk past but that kind of helped me to get out of my head. And you just paint. You know when you spray you use your whole body, it’s so good. I prefer doing it in autumn. That’s when my anxiety worsens and that’s when I need more time alone so going out when it’s raining is beautiful. And the rain is like so ambient.’
London has a way of destroying the sacred spaces.
