PHYSICAL GRAFFITI

During a rainstorm in London’s Hyde Park, standing beneath an umbrella that’s balanced on the low branches of a tree, Josh Peacock is rolling a cigarette and reflecting on the mortality of tattoo art.

“When you grow up with graffiti, you get used to the idea of art walking out of your life. But it’s horrible when people die on you. A friend died recently, and I’d done loads [of tattoos] on him. It’s like an extra layer of pain: you remember the tattoos and how much they meant to him. It kind of kicks you in the gonads a second time.”

Our paths first crossed in Cambridge in the late 1990s. I was an English undergrad; he was a local graffiti artist who had grown up