The capital’s biggest celebration of street art, London Mural Festival (5 – 29 September 2024), today unveils a thrilling first wave of artists for 2024. Top street artists including Aches, eL Seed, D*Face, Marija Tiurina, Rosie Woods, Sebas Velasco, Seb Lester and many more will paint the city during a vibrant, month-long live painting event, themed around ‘connection’.
The colossal festival is set to inject fresh creativity into the capital’s streets, with organisers receiving over 2,000 artist applications from 88 countries worldwide. Adding to the 75 murals from the inaugural festival, this year’s diverse artist line-up will continue to reimagine London’s artistic landscape with 100 murals for visitors to explore.
From awe-inspiring to thought-provoking new artworks, visitors will discover themes and iconography that reflect not just London but the international street art scene – fostering a diverse cultural dialogue. Bringing together some of the best street artists from around the world, the festival will celebrate and connect street art scenes from New York and Denver to Berlin, Cape Town and Mexico. The assortment of cultures is reflected in the diversity of styles which will be on offer to Londoners, from abstract art to portraiture, graphics and typography to graffiti.
At the 2024 edition, visitors will be greeted by a contemporary line up of world-renowned names. From the impressionistic work of Spanish artist Sebas Velasco, who’s stunning murals capture the shifting relationship between urban environments and their socio-political context, to the unmistakeable acid bright style of Aches, and the other-worldly designs of Rosie Woods, street art fans are in for a treat.
Lithuanian multidisciplinary artist Marija Tiurina’s work emphasizes self-care and the environment, whilst artist eL Seed seeks to explore universal messages of peace and humanity in his murals, often using Arabic calligraphy to create impressive paintings and sculpture at monumental scale.
The line up also features plenty of London home grown talent, including the likes of multimedia street artist D*Face, known for his distinctive style and Seb Lester, one of the world’s foremost calligraphers, who has crafted logos and illustrations for prestigious clients including NASA, Apple, Nike, Intel, Montblanc, and The New York Times.
“London Mural Festival is welcoming some of the most inspiring artists working in the world today. It’s a privilege to be amongst such formidable talent for our 2024 edition. The festival is an expression of the deep love we carry for this city and the work of artists who help make it such a colourful metropolis. We’re really excited to announce more artists to the line up in due course.” Lee Bofkin, CEO of Global Street Art, the festival’s producers.
The festival offers a unique chance to see live art in action on London’s streets from some of the top artists working today. Adding to the 75 murals produced for its inaugural edition in 2020, London Mural Festival will offer 100 murals for street art fans to enjoy across 15 boroughs. The monumental project will be completed in just one month.
“London Mural Festival brings a mix of established and up-and-coming artists to London. They do a great job curating the line-up, so it represents a broad range of artistic styles. The results are enriching and celebratory, and I’m delighted to be part of it again.” – Seb Lester, featured artist
The festival will also feature a vibrant programme of live events, from parties to artist talks, tours, and workshops, bringing together a range of artists, communities, visitors, brands, and partners to celebrate the power of street art and its connections to the worlds of fashion, music, and design.
“London Mural Festival 2024 will help us build a better city for all. Murals breathe life and energy into our walls, turning the city into a gallery and bringing art to everyone, every day for free.” Justine Simons OBE, Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries
Featured artists:
Aches – Aches is a Dublin based, Irish artist, specialising in large scale murals and Graffiti. Born in 1992, he started drawing and painting at a young age and began to paint graffiti when he was 15 years old. After graduating from NCAD Dublin with a degree in Visual Communications, Aches began to fuse his knowledge of Graphic Design and Graffiti. Aches has been invited to design and create original artwork for projects around the world, in countries such as Denmark, Hungary, Spain, Sweden, Scotland, Austria, Switzerland, and England. After a decade of painting outdoors, Aches’ artistic practice is now shared in equal balance between contemporary murals and studio work.
eL Seed – eL Seed is a contemporary artist whose practice encompasses both painting and sculpture. Over many years, he has developed a distinctive visual language, influenced by the practice of calligraphy and urban art. His art is characterised by intricate layers of colour, symbols, and letters, universal messages and reflections on the issues of coexistence, peace and freedom eL Seed uses his art as an echo of the stories of the communities that he meets around the world and aims to amplify their voices.
His work has been shown in exhibitions and in public places all over the world including most notably on the facade of “l’institut du monde Arabe” in Paris, in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, on the DMZ between North and South Korea, in the slums of Cape Town and in the heart of Cairo’s garbage collector’s neighbourhood.
Bezt Etam – BEZT of Etam Cru is known primarily for large-scale murals painted with Sainer as part of the Etam Cru duo, BEZT’s work is resistant to the ascription of excessively assigned meaning, preferring to allow the imagery to speak for itself. BEZT juxtaposes saturated colours and loose brushstrokes with delicate, refined lines and patterns.
D*Face – British multimedia street artist who uses spray paint, stickers, posters, and stencils. D*Face’s unmistakable style has colonised the streets of the world, maintaining a genuine approach from when he first started to paste up simple stickers on British streetlamps in the early 2000s.
Marija Tiurina – Marija Tiurina is a multidisciplinary artist and illustrator from Lithuania, currently residing in the Netherlands. Having studied Multimedia Design in London she went on to work as a concept artist and illustrator, while juggling an array of personal projects ranging from surreal watercolour paintings and character design to moving image and visual storytelling. Mural art has been a fast-growing passion of the past seven years, with the outdoors works of various scales often focused on self-care or reflecting the surrounding environment.
Seb Lester – British artist Seb Lester, who lives and works in Lewes, was trained in Graphic Design at Central Saint Martins in London and is currently studying Heraldic Art at Reigate Art College. He is one of the world’s highest-profile calligraphers. He has created logos and illustrations for clients including NASA, Apple, Nike, Intel, Montblanc, The New York Times, and the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. Previously a Senior Type Designer at Monotype, he developed custom typefaces for many familiar brands, including British Airways, Intel, Waitrose, The Daily Telegraph, and H&M. Lester is the designer of the retail typefaces Neo Sans, Neo Tech, Soho, and Scene.
Gary Stranger – Gary Stranger is a UK-based artist who started out writing graffiti in 1996. He is now a world-renowned artist, famed for his well-executed typographic pieces. Over the past decade Gary has moved his wall paintings/murals away from the traditional graffiti aesthetic. Having always had a passion for type and having studied the subject, it was the inevitable conclusion to take his own work in that direction.
Rosie Woods – Rosie has spent the last decade creating captivating large-scale murals across the globe. Most recently, meta commissioned her to paint an augmented reality mural at their headquarters in silicon valley. In 2023, Rosie was recognised as one of 50 essential contemporary artists in Diego Lopez’s publication, ‘street art by women.’
Sebas Velasco – Spanish artist Sebas Velasco work explores the relationship between urban life and nature through oil painting and public projects. With his unique perspective on light and space, Sebas celebrates the present while contemplating the complexities of a nostalgic past.
Zabou – Born in France, Zabou dedicated much of her childhood to drawing and painting. Each year she participates in urban arts festivals and projects, having completed more than 250 murals across 23 countries worldwide, spanning from Indonesia to the U.S.A and throughout Europe.
Also just announced are:
David Shillinglaw, born and lives in the UK
Hixxy, born in the UK, lives across the UK and Ireland
Roids MSK, born and lives in the UK
Zoë Power, born and lives in the UK
Zomby, born and lives in the UK
