Last month Shepard Fairey painted a brand new mural in Shoreditch, actually the largest he has painted in Shoreditch.  We decided to celebrate by looking back at Shepard Fairey’s Shoreditch activity on 3 key historic occasions.  Those three occasions were when Shepard Fairey held major solo art shows in Shoreditch, hosted by his longstanding buddy D*Face.

In 2012 Shepard Fairey took time out from Sound and Vision preparations to paint several blockbuster murals.  It Takes The Sedation Of Millions To Hold Us Back was inspired by Public Enemy’s album setting an agenda against political somnambulism caused by “conspicuous consumption, social media, entertainment, and self-medication” and lasted a good few years.  

“This Decade Only” with its huge debt to Jamie Reid’s version endured till 2016.   Directly opposite Shepard’s Sound and Vision exhibition a ghetto blaster mural appeared visible over the Truman Brewery boundary wall.

In 2019 Shepard Fairey added yellow and blue to his classic black, red and gold for the first time.  Sue Webster had moved out of the famous “Dirty House” and Shepard gave the exterior a glorious multi colour collage of classic Obey elements while filling the interior ground floor with a chunk of his Facing The Giant 30^th anniversary show.  Shepard’s wife Amanda stood in as representative of powerful women and her eyes followed you wherever you went.

This 2024 visit saw Shepard paint a huge environmental mural which appears to come as a late addition to the London Mural Festival, though several agencies and producers have emerged to claim a share of the credit for Shepard’s visit.

As a major contributor of stickers, pasteups and murals to Shoreditch’s walls for two decades, sister blog Graffoto has done a much larger photo rich revisit of that Shepard Fairey history, including Fairey’s stickers and paste ups which are the key elements of his street art, read it now!

All photos Dave Stuart