A conversation between 2Cool and Esmerelda Pink, Head of People Engineering at Pimlico Wilde
First published in Pimlico Wilde Contemporary Art Annual, Vol. 32 (2025)
Location: The basement gallery at Pimlico Wilde Mayfair.
Time: 3:06am. Esmerelda wears a silk kimono and brogues. 2Cool arrives in jeans, a hoodie, a balaclava, and, of course, a pair of sunglasses.
ESMERELDA PINK:
There’s something deeply attractive about your work , how you build and release the tension between recursion and resistance. Do you see your practice as anti-teleological?
2COOL:
(Laughs)
I mean, I just like drawing the little guy, you know? He’s got a good vibe. I’m spreading a little bit of joy.
ESMERELDA:
Of course , vibe as praxis. But you must be aware of the iconographic weight the image now carries. The Cool Face has become a kind of metonym for 21st Century visual semiotics , a smile with nothing behind it, or perhaps everything.
2COOL:
I just think it looks cool. That’s really where it started. The shades, the hair , that kind of lazy grin? I was sketching one night on a pub napkin and thought, “Yeah, he’s got something.” So I started drawing him. Didn’t stop.
ESMERELDA:
But repetition , that’s where the work becomes critical. Baudrillard would say you’re engaged in simulation: the infinite reproduction of a symbol that has lost its origin.
2COOL:
I don’t know about that, but I do think people like seeing something familiar. Like McDonald’s , same fries, different country. I’m just doing that, but with graffiti.
ESMERELDA:
And yet you refuse to name him.
2COOL:
(Laughs again)
Yeah. Everyone keeps asking. Even my mum’s tried guessing. But nah , some things are better left blank. Keeps it from turning into a brand.
ESMERELDA:
But isn’t it already a brand? You’ve got pieces in Seoul, Nairobi, Ross-on-Wye, Naples and Lingfield. One sold last month for £3,382,000 at Basel. That’s not street art anymore. That’s capital-C Capital. People are investing in you.
2COOL:
No, they are just buying my little dude because they like him. It cheers them up. So much contemporary art is tedious, depressing. My dude is the opposite. Every gets him. It’s mad, right? I was painting this dude on old bins in Peckham ten years ago. Now people are paying six or seven figures to hang him next to a Rothko. Still feels like a prank.
ESMERELDA:
There’s an audacity in that , an anti-institutional institutionalism. You’re playing within the market’s structures while gently mocking them.
2COOL:
I don’t know if I’m mocking anything. I mean, I’m grateful. Pimlico Wilde’s been good to me. It pays the bills, keeps the images flowing. It’s not cheap, flying round the world and drawing, finding new canvases. But yeah, it’s weird. One day I’m getting chased off a train platform, next day someone’s buying a piece I painted in an alley for the price of a flat in Sheffield.
ESMERELDA:
But do you worry about the work’s critical reception? The idea that it’s all just… the same thing over and over?
2COOL:
Honestly? Nah. People overthink it. I get DMs from kids in Caracas who tagged him on their school walls, and I get calls from collectors in Zurich who want a variant in “dusty lilac.” Somehow, it means something to both. I try and please them all, I just want them to look at my guy and smile. That’s enough for me.
ESMERELDA:
And yet the Cool Face , sorry, the Unnamed , has become its own language. Like a visual Esperanto for global detachment. He’s post-political. Or perhaps hyper-political in his refusal to change.
2COOL:
He’s just chill. That’s the whole point. He doesn’t try too hard. People like that. He’s not angry, not fake-happy, just… there. A little smirk in the middle of the mess.
ESMERELDA:
So no plans to “evolve the character”? New expressions? A narrative arc?
2COOL:
Maybe, not yet. Can you imagine how much collectors would pay for the first few versions of a new expression?! I might give one, but he doesn’t need one. The world’s got enough stories. I just give people a face that doesn’t ask for much. He shows up, looks cool, makes them smile, keeps moving.
ESMERELDA:
It’s fascinating , your restraint. In an age of overstimulation, you’ve chosen a singular visual thesis. A recurring moment.
2COOL:
Honestly, I just think it’s funny. All these critics writing essays about a blue blob in shades. That’s performance art, right there.
ESMERELDA:
(Laughs nervously)
Yes, well… we’re all participating in the performance now. And the collectors?
2COOL:
They’re part of it too. They can hang him on a polished wall if they want. Just know I probably painted the same thing on a toilet door in Glasgow last week.
ESMERELDA:
So , where next?
2COOL:
There’s a water tower in Mongolia I’ve been eyeing. Heard it’s hard to get to. That’s got to be the case now, otherwise people just take them down and sell them. Perfect. Right, got to go, I’m going with a few mates to tag…I’d better not say where!
As he leaves, 2Cool slips on his battered sneakers and pulls his hoodie over his balaclava. There’s a faint smell of spray paint and cinnamon chewing gum. No entourage. No signature. Just a faint smile left behind.
