Mural steams into view on a Chatteris garage wall

An amazing artwork has been grabbing the attention of passersby in one Fenland town after it was created by a specialist street artist.

The mural, which has been created on the side of a garage wall at the home of Paul and Linda Fuller in St Martins Road, Chatteris, has gathered a huge lot of interest on social media.

Depicting a steam train emerging from a tunnel the art piece is the work of street artist Nathan ‘Nyces’ Murdoch – a professional artist who has gathered a massive online following not only nationally but internationally too.

Nathan, who lives in Peterborough and launched his firm Street Artists for Hire six years ago, started wielding the spray paint in his early teens and his tag ‘Nyces’ became a regular sight around the city.

Now he has become a legitimate artist who is hired by people across the country to create one-off masterpieces and has found himself regularly featured on television and in newspapers.

He gave up his previous job working for Fairline Yachts as a health and safety manager when his art career began to take off and he has not looked back.

He was hired by the Fullers to create something magical for the garage wall after they got fed up with the blandness of the bricks.

Paul, who runs his own business supplying farmers with potato sacks, explained: “It is quite a large wall, and it is really boring. We tried putting up hanging baskets to make it more attractive, but they lasted only a few weeks because they kept getting blown about.

“We then introduced a large pair of lion statues and a mirror and it did look better, but I still thought more could be done.

“That’s when I saw Nathan and his work featured on the tele and I managed to track him down and get in touch.

“I don’t know where the idea of a steam train came from, I’m not a train spotter or anything like that, but I just thought having something look like it was coming out of the wall would look good.

“Nathan drew us a few pictures and asked us to choose the one we liked, I never imagined it would turn out as great as it has.

“I know there has been quite a lot of attention and most people seem to really like it. It is certainly eyecatching, and it has sadly put the lions out of work and looking for a new home.”

Nathan’s work starts at a few hundred pounds but can run into the £10,000s depending on what the customer wants. Each piece is individual.

The steam train mural took him about three days to complete and Nathan said it should stand the test of time as some of his earliest artwork has survived and he says is almost as good as new.

His audience on social media is currently estimated to be around 47 million and he hopes one day to emulate the world-renowned street artist Banksy with the value of his artwork, and Paul said he would be happy about that too.