Jamie Reid has surmounted snowdrifts and foot-and-mouth disease to get here. Here is The Arches, Glasgow, where his exhibition Peace is Tough kicked off a UK tour. However, the nation's climatic and agricultural conditions have severely delayed hanging the artist's show which is a statement of rolled-up canvas on the floor. Glimpses of colourful new age shapes and the infamous No Fun luminous montages are just visible. The man who bequeathed punk rock its finest graphic - HRH with a safety pin through her lip - doesn't flinch facing adversity. He doesn't gob in disgust. Instead, he takes out a cigarette and suggests coffee.

For the 52-year-old Jamie McGregor Reid is a mellow man. Albeit with intense political and spiritual belief. The greying locks spilling out of his climber's hat (which matches his outdoor clothing) are at odds with his reputation - a reputation as creator of the iconic cover of The Sex Pistols' God Save the Queen record in jubilee year. This was an act that was also rewarded with a broken nose courtesy of offended monarchists. That was decades ago, and an indulgence in the nostalgia that Reid despises. ''We are obsessed with nostalgia. I'm going to get pretentious here,'' he warned me. ''It's a part of the cosmic quickening process. Nostalgia will catch up with itself eventually and we'll have to deal with reality.''

You see Reid has moved on. His spiritual heritage - depressed slightly during the punk rock era - has bloomed. Where punk was cynical humour and black and white cut and paste, Reid's recent work has been suffused by his Druidism. ''It's all about a respect and love of people and the planet and nature,'' he explains. ''It's acknowledging the seasons and specific rituals, which interestingly mainstream society is beginning to recognise again with the solstice and Beltane festivals here in Scotland.''

If this sounds suspiciously daisy chain and hippyish, Reid pleads not guilty. His Druid beliefs stem from the same staunchly held political and spiritual beliefs that attracted him to punk rock. ''It's all part of a continuous story for me,'' he explains. ''My grandfather and Scottish father were Druids and that was instilled in me alongside a socialist and anarchic background.'' Indeed, Reid and his brother were taken on CND and anti-apartheid rallies growing up in Croydon by their politically active parents. Inevitably, this led to Reid's involvement in everything from the sixties women's movement to the anti-poll tax, criminal justice bill, and Clause 28 protests.

''You can see the legacy of punk rock on the streets today,'' he argues, ''from Seattle to Reclaim the Streets and the No Logo movement.'' Where punk was defined by Anarchy in the UK, Reid believes that this younger generation of techno-protesters can be defined by the term Shamanarchy in the UK, a title used in the charity compilation record by The Orb and Prodigy among others.

As to the future, Reid has big plans - the rebirth of architecture. For the past 12 years he has been working on the interior of The Strongman Studios in London using astrology, Druidism, colour, and symbolism, ''to make a working environment that people can create and feel stimulated in.'' Then there's the Pellirocco Hotel in Brighton: ''A combination of all my styles from punk, pop art, esoteric, spiritual, and holiday tack.'' But what he really wants to design is ''a hospital where the architecture will help heal people''. The Arches just cannot contain this globally minded Druid artist.

Exhibiting alongside Reid is one of his ''students'', a 26-year-old called Banksy. Despite the footballer's name, this Bristol-born graffiti artist demonstrates more erudite powers than the tag suggests. His ''non-commissioned'' work has been springing up on cows, trains, walls, and records since the late eighties. Dodging and weaving past the anti-art-loving legal forces, Banksy has built up a reputation as a very talented visual and verbal artist. It is this winning combination that is about to propel him into the big league with forthcoming designs for the Ben Sherman clothing advertising campaign. These are still under wraps but there's a good chance his trademark stencilled images will feature largely.

Hung on The Arches' walls in this debut Scottish exhibition are some of the double-take works. Clean, smooth, and powerful, the graphics instantly dispel the spray-painted, blurry, hip-hop designs we have come to associate with the term graffiti. The monkey wearing a sandwich board proclaiming the words: ''Laugh now, but one day I'll be in charge.'' The monkey-fied Queen against a Union Jack, then there's the famous non-commissioned work that appeared in London Zoo's elephant and penguin enclosures: ''I want out, this place is too cold; keeper smells; boring, boring, boring.''

Just in case these subvertisments gave the impression that Banksy was an easygoing art revolutionary, check out the artist's statement. You can forget the ''New Andy Warhol'' tag and think artistic Travis Bickle instead.

Banksy writes: ''There is a side of my work that wants to crush the whole system, leaving a trail of the blue and lifeless corpses of judges and coppers in my wake, dragging the city to its knees as it screams my name. Then there is the other darker side.''

Check this anonymous man out before the police arrest him on the grounds of gross talent and sass.

l Jamie Reid and Banksy are exhibiting in Peace Is Tough at The Arches, Glasgow, till March 18.