'Eye can see you': What's behind the new graffiti craze in Glasgow?

They can be found down dark alleyways, underneath busy motorways and across large disused billboards.

In the past few years a series of graffiti murals have popped up across the west of Scotland, showing a pair of eyes looking outwards. Sometimes they're small and well hidden, at other points they're accompanied by a cheery smile.

Last week a car crash near the Clyde Tunnel prompted social media suggestions the driver got confused when seeing the eyes and tried to drive down them, mistaking the art for the tunnel itself. This theory was firmly dismissed by police.

The person behind them is mysterious Glasgow artist Psa, who asked BBC Scotland News to protect their anonymity by not even revealing their gender.

The artist has numerous other works across Glasgow, Lanarkshire and Paisley, but it is the eyes that are their most recognisable work.

They first started doing the designs properly in about 2022, and they have become a familiar sight to many since then.

"I dabbled in graffiti art a bit when young, but since Covid, or maybe around 2022, I've been doing it more seriously," said the artist, who is now in their 30s.

"The eyes started going up around then and there's been a lot of them since then. Sometimes it's just a wee one that'll go up when I'm out and about, then there's the bigger ones that take more work.

"It's just something I feel compelled to do. I used to skateboard a lot, and it's the same impulse as then, just interacting with the environment - though not in the way it's intended to be used."

As for why it's eyes that pop up, there is both a fun reason and a more serious point to the work.

The lighter aspect is straightforward, as the artist likes "the idea that people can spot them and think of it like a wee game, where you see another one, and another.

"It's like a trail for kids, like when you had the lions all around Paisley years ago."

That is a reference to the Pride of Paisley trail in 2016, where 25 large colourful lion sculptures, and a further 40 small ones, were dotted all around the area.

More complicated reasons are behind the art itself.

"We walk around cities and towns but most of our interaction these days is done online, and it's so visible what you do and say (on the internet)," the artist said.

"Companies see everything you do and can profit from it, so there is that undercurrent to the eyes as well.

"Having all those wee eyes everywhere is like 'I see you, do you see you'? We're all here and living our lives in public...

"People can whip out their phones and just capture anything that happens and put it on a digital space. There is a permanency to that."

There is also a personal point for the artist, who has a degree of Autism Spectrum Disorder - often called Asperger's - and says they find it hard sometimes to look other people in the eye.

"Having Asperger's can make me feel very visible within public spaces, and the eyes are a way of looking back – it's hard for me to make eye contact, and sometimes it can be hard for me to look back too."

The artist feels the recent incident on the Clyde Tunnel sums up the themes of the work itself - which often gets a positive reaction on their Instagram page - quite neatly.

Several social media posts speculated on the cause of the crash being the driver confusing the eyes mural for the tunnel entrance.

This brought up comparisons between the accident and a classic Looney Tunes cartoon, with Wile E Coyote's regular schemes to catch the Road Runner often involving painting a fake road.

Soon these posts were reported by media outlets at home and abroad, although Police Scotland swiftly insisted there was no truth to the claims.

"It doesn't look like a tunnel at all, they are clearly eyes. But people put things online, and then it becomes a visible thing in itself, and it is permanently there (online)."

Psa has no plans to stop with the eyes, but does have further work planned.

"I've got an exhibition planned for later in the year.

"For the eyes, I'm local to the west of Scotland, but I'll do them anywhere I go. I like the idea of a web of them, going as far as they can."