The Policeman

RECENT visitors to Holloway Road may have spotted the occasional yellow stick figure straddling a traffic light or looking down on pedestrians with a cyclopic surveillance-camera eye.

Made from the yellow foam tubes more commonly seen on scaffolding, these anthropomorphic troublemakers have been popping up overnight on north London streets for the past decade, from Islington to Brent Cross, Golders Green to Enfield.

“There were times when they were being destroyed or going missing faster than I could put them up,” said their creator, Kit, who prefers to remain anonymous.

“It seemed like Hornsey Road was the only place I could get away with it.”

Lorry driver by day, guerrilla artist by night, Kit was born in Hornsey Road and now lives in Holloway.

The stick men were born about 10 years ago, when Kit was helping to build a community carnival.

He decided that, when it came to the decorations, bunting wasn’t going to cut it. He made one stick man for the carnival before its funders ran out of money, but that was enough to get Kit, whose main artistic outlet at the time was painting, excited about the versatility of this new material.

The Thinker

He began making the stick men at home and going out late at night to put them up, which is still how he works today.

“I’m working full time, so I’m getting up at four in the morning, driving a lorry all day, then coming home, having a couple of hours’ kip, making something, and then, when I’ve got a few bits to put up, I go out, put them up, and then go back to bed for work the next morning,” he said,

In one of his biggest ever operations, Kit put up 30 of the squishy statues in Hornsey Road, from Crouch Hill all the way to Seven Sisters Road, which took him and his partner – known as “GG” – almost the entire night.

“If a police car drives past while we’re out with the ladder, they usually just shout ‘KIIIIIT!’ or give us a thumbs up,” he said.

There would be no stick men if it weren’t for GG, Kit added.

The mysterious Kit – ‘I start talking to them’

“When I first created them, I couldn’t go and put them out. I’ve got so much anxiety. She was like, ‘let’s just do it’. We always go out together.”

Most locals are familiar with Kit’s stick men, but very few would recognise the artist himself.

“The enthusiasm from the general public embarrasses me,” Kit said. “I’ve kind of lived in this silent little bubble for so long.”

Still, he does get occasional glimpses into just how much locals enjoy his work.

More and more people are finding his Facebook page, Kit Art, and he likes seeing tourists take selfies with the stick men, which sometimes move or change positions overnight.

But it’s not all heartfelt appreciation.

A 15ft pink and yellow stick man recently installed in Holloway and affectionately nicknamed Terry was violently ripped apart by two passersby just days after it had been put up.

Bubblegum Girl

“The savagery of that attack on my figure, I felt it. It was almost like a voodoo child,” he said.

“There really is no need for it. Personally, I think they’re rivals. To me, it’s only professional jealousy.”

Kit’s biggest nemesis, however, is one of the UK’s most prolific street artists.

“Banksy is terrified of me,” he said.

“Every time I start doing work, he comes out of hiding. Then he went and did that piece up on Hornsey Road. I’ve always been a fan of his, but not after that. Stick to your own patch.”

A lion adorns Islington Boxing Club

After creating stick men from home for so many years, Kit is itching to take his work to the next level.

“If I make 40 yellow people, I can’t move. And I start talking to them. And the scary thing is, they start talking back,” he said.

He wants to see his stick men climbing up the outside of the Shard, and to recreate the doodles he got in trouble for as a schoolboy, of stick figure battles between aliens and people.

“Imagine those kinds of scenes on a big scale,” he said. “With time, funding and a dedicated studio space, I could do something that’s out of this world.”

And his favourite stick man to date?

“I haven’t done it yet,” Kit said.