Childhood not found II
Dawson Place, Notting Hill, London
Spray paint on wall (stencil)
Executed 7 June 2024
On 7 June 2024, in the quiet early hours of the morning, Miguel Fernández transposed his now-iconic stencil Childhood Not Found onto the walls of Dawson Place, Notting Hill. This intervention, while formally consistent with his inaugural graffiti in Leake Street Arches, carries a distinct significance: it marks the artist’s first deliberate placement of his work outside the context of a graffiti zone and into the everyday life of a residential London street.
Rendered once again in the bold, graphic language of stencil, the child’s figure in stark black silhouette, the eyes obscured by a searing red bar, the hands clasping a glowing red device, this version takes on an entirely different resonance in its new environment. Whereas Leake Street provided a saturated, layered backdrop of graffiti against which Fernández’s work conversed with street culture itself, Dawson Place offered a contrasting context: an elegant, residential enclave unaccustomed to visual interventions of this kind. The effect is striking. The stencil appears almost as an apparition, an interruption in the calm order of Notting Hill’s walls, inserting a direct provocation into the fabric of daily urban life.
As with its predecessor, the symbolism is both stark and immediate. The child, faceless and absorbed, is consumed by technology, their very vision redacted. The repetition of the red motif, eye-bar and device united in a shared glow, recalls Fernández’s earlier works from 2019, where children were rendered colourless and detached, with the only trace of life and presence confined to the devices that enthralled them. Then, the contrast between colourless figures and vivid backgrounds underscored the worlds of wonder and imagination that were being abandoned. In Childhood Not Found, however, the figures have gained strength and solidity: heavy silhouettes, bold lines, and shadows imparting weight. The message is delivered with a new urgency and clarity, one forged for the immediacy of the street.
The choice of location is central to the significance of this work. In Dawson Place, graffiti is not a common presence; its appearance disrupts, unsettles, and demands attention. This transposition from a celebrated graffiti arena (Leake Street) to a genteel residential quarter heightens the work’s impact, forcing viewers, residents, passersby, parents and children on their way to school, to confront its message unexpectedly. In so doing, Fernández achieves one of the fundamental aims of his practice: to generate dialogue in spaces where silence, complacency, or denial often prevail.
Significance
This iteration of Childhood Not Found is a landmark in Fernández’s portfolio. It marks the artist’s first deliberate departure from graffiti environments into the “unprepared” streetscape, testing not only the endurance of his stencil but also the reaction of a broader, unfiltered public. As such, it embodies his evolving mission: to bring into the open the uncomfortable reality that technology, while ubiquitous and normalized, often functions as a silent thief of childhood and a hidden contributor to mental health struggles among the young.
By embedding his art within the polished façades of Notting Hill, Fernández establishes a powerful juxtaposition: the innocence of a child eclipsed by a device, imposed upon the very walls of a neighbourhood where such issues might otherwise remain invisible. This piece, therefore, extends beyond aesthetic evolution into an act of cultural intervention, reminding society of what risks being lost, unseen or unspoken.