S’Estaca, a fishing village nestled between Valldemossa and Deià, becomes the backdrop for an exhibition where Paul Simonon, best known as The Clash’s bassist, steps into the role of visual artist. The show, titled Two Years in London and Mallorca, is currently on view at the John Martin Gallery in London.
Paul Simonon spends long stretches in Deià, a habit that stretches back years. In 2020, during the initial lockdown, he split his time between London and Mallorca, a search for rest and inspiration that shaped a new body of work. In his Paddington studio, he painted mostly at night, illuminated by streetlamps. The pieces capture the loneliness and quiet contemplation that defined those early weeks of isolation. Speaking about spring in London 2020, Simonon recalled how evening streetlights turned the narrow streets into a kind of theater set, as if time had shifted. This mood appears in works such as Line anyone Vermeer’s Daughter.
In the following summer, he chose Mallorca as his full-time studio, living in isolation in a room at s’Estaca. He carried the materials he had brought from London and settled in for over a year of painting, describing a life with nothing nearby but his own focus and the John Martin Gallery as his support. Simonon reflects on the daily routine, noting that solitude reveals a person’s inner landscape in surprising ways.
The early days were challenging. The beauty of s’Estaca made it hard to know what to paint until a walk along a rugged shore one afternoon revealed a rising moon that sparked a nocturnal painting streak. The nightscape began to thread a continuous dialogue with the daytime Paddington Street paintings, and late nights became a norm.
“Time felt endless, like another world,” he admits of those days in s’Estaca. The changing weather and rising rain clouds, the waves sweeping past houses, all fed a sense of life and immediacy that permeated the work.
The exhibition, opened on the 21st and running through October 6th, includes more than canvases. It also features carved figures fashioned from driftwood and trunks found along Mallorca’s north coast, lending a tactile, sculptural dimension to the show.
painter before musician
Across the globe, Simonon is most known for his tenure with The Clash, a pivotal punk band that defined an era. Yet painting was a passion long before his musical career. Born in Brixton, a working-class district in South London with deep Jamaican roots, he grew up surrounded by art. His father, a hobby painter, used the son’s bedroom as a studio, and young Simonon absorbed color and form amid books and pictures pinned to the walls. This early exposure helped seed a lifelong engagement with visual art.
He later studied at Byam Shaw School of Art in Kensington, an institution linked to the College of Art and Design at Central Saint Martins, where many notable artists trained. There he crossed paths with Mick Jones, who invited him to form a band. Initially, Simonon did not play bass and even tried singing, but the instrument soon became his defining outlet. The Clash would emerge as a landmark group, shaping punk history and earning enduring recognition in major exhibitions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 2013 Chaos and Couture.
Throughout his career, Simonon has pursued painting with the same fervor he brought to music. After The Clash dissolved in the mid-1980s, painting grew in importance alongside his musical pursuits. His childhood home, a workshop once used by his painter father, remains a touchstone for his work, a place where art possibilities seemed endless.
The artist’s first post-Clash exhibitions date back to 1996 at John Martin Gallery, followed by group shows in London and later solo presentations in venues such as Hammersmith and Greenwich. A notable 2002 solo showing in the capital further established his standing in British art circles. Later surveys included a selection at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, presenting pieces by British artists from 1990 onward, acquired by the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.
In 2008, he presented a series of oil paintings inspired by a bullfight at the Thomas Williams Fine Arts Center in London, a visit that linked his work to a real-world event he witnessed in May 2003 at Las Ventas, where matador Antonio Barrera was injured. Other major projects over the years included self-portraits, still lifes, and a range of personal effects such as jackets, boots, helmets, gloves, and thematic biker paraphernalia.
A recent album cover he contributed to, created by a former The Clash member and collaborators in related projects, sits alongside works that explore music and memory. The broader creative dialogue also includes collaborations with musicians and other artists, reflecting a cross-pollination of sound and image that has long fascinated him.
Simonon is also known for the name that christened The Clash, a choice said to have been inspired after a car accident that occurred during a period of deliberation about possible band names.
In a photograph that remains iconic for rock history, the image of London calling captures a moment in which Deià became a frequent residence for the musician and a hub for a circle of artists and stars who passed through. When not in the city, he has lingered in Deià, regularly visiting a local bar immortalized by the photographer Pennie Smith. Last year he moved his base from Deià to a project with Fundació Miró, signaling a new direction that blends music and art in a contemporary cultural exchange.