On a narrow street in Shoreditch, just far enough from the polished edges of commercial galleries but still firmly within London’s gravitational centre of contemporary urban culture, a crowd gathers around a modest white-fronted space. Inside, the mood is unmistakably East London: a mix of collectors, curious passers-by, artists, designers, a few journalists, and the inevitable street art pilgrims who treat the neighbourhood almost as sacred ground. Wine glasses clink, phones rise to photograph walls, and conversations move easily between art theory and weekend plans in Dalston.
The reason everyone is here is Beast’s new exhibition, “And we hired a bloke to fix the wall.”
It’s a title that feels deliberately British—deadpan, ironic, almost throwaway. But like much of Beast’s work, the humour masks something more serious beneath the surface. The show is not just a presentation of images. It is a meditation on decay, memory, and the strange afterlife of cultural figures whose influence continues to shape the present long after their physical disappearance. It is also, perhaps most importantly, a quiet but pointed dialogue between the street and the gallery—between what survives outdoors and what gets preserved indoors. And in Shoreditch, a neighbourhood where that conversation has been going on for decades, Beast’s work lands with particular resonance.
A Show Rooted in the Wall
To understand the exhibition, you first have to understand Beast’s relationship with the wall itself. Unlike many artists who simply use the wall as a surface, Beast treats it almost like an archaeological site. The cracks, stains, flaking plaster, and exposed brick are not backgrounds—they are collaborators.
The works presented in “And we hired a bloke to fix the wall” originate from photographs of deteriorating urban surfaces. These are then reworked, layered, and recontextualised through portraiture. The figures appear to emerge directly from the architecture, as if the wall itself were remembering them.
In the exhibition space, these images are printed on large textile banners and suspended from leather straps fixed to metal rods, giving them the visual presence of urban billboards or temporary construction tarps. The installation immediately avoids the clinical neatness of conventional framing. The works hang slightly away from the wall, breathing in the room, almost like fragments of street interventions temporarily relocated indoors.
It is a clever gesture. Rather than attempting to “clean up” street art for gallery consumption, Beast imports a sense of urban impermanence into the space. The wall is still there. And it still looks like it might crumble.
Shoreditch: The Perfect Context
Choosing Shoreditch for this exhibition is not accidental. For over twenty years, the area has functioned as London’s unofficial street art laboratory. Artists such as Banksy, Stik, Ben Eine, ROA, and Invader have all left marks on these streets. Entire careers have been shaped here, often starting with illegal paste-ups or stencils before evolving into global recognition.
But Shoreditch has also undergone a transformation. What was once an industrial district filled with warehouses is now a hybrid ecosystem of galleries, creative studios, tech companies, cocktail bars, and luxury apartments.
Street art has played a paradoxical role in that transformation—both resisting and accelerating it. Beast’s exhibition quietly acknowledges that contradiction. His works, after all, originate from real walls—many of them likely belonging to forgotten corners of cities where decay still dominates. Yet here they are, carefully displayed in a gallery, under spotlights, with collectors discussing acquisition prices.
The tension is deliberate. The wall has been repaired. But the crack remains visible.
Portraits From the Cultural Underground
The exhibition’s subjects are not random figures. They are cultural icons whose influence often lies slightly outside mainstream canon. In the works displayed here, Beast brings forward writers, thinkers, and artists whose ideas still echo today.
One portrait depicts Jackson Pollock, emerging from a fractured brick surface, his head slightly bowed and one hand raised near his face in a moment of intense concentration. The image echoes the famous photographs taken by Hans Namuth in the early 1950s, when Pollock was documenting his revolutionary drip-painting process. Here, however, the painter is no longer standing in a studio surrounded by canvases. Instead, he appears embedded within a crumbling urban wall, as if the city itself had absorbed his restless energy. The bricks around him seem to decay and fracture, yet Pollock’s presence remains strangely grounded—suggesting that the radical break he introduced into modern painting still reverberates through contemporary visual culture. In Beast’s composition, the wall becomes both archive and stage, holding the ghost of an artist whose gestures once reshaped the very idea of what painting could be.
Another piece presents a solemn portrait of Philip Roth, his figure integrated into a decaying façade that resembles the remnants of an abandoned building. The composition suggests that literature itself may become architecture—structures built from language rather than stone.
A third work presents a figure standing between two barred windows, his body partially absorbed into the masonry. The effect is almost ghostlike, suggesting a historical presence that refuses to fully disappear. The portraits are not nostalgic tributes. They feel more like archaeological reconstructions—attempts to reinsert these figures into the urban environment that shaped them. And by doing so, Beast raises an interesting question: If cities constantly erase their own past through renovation and development, where do cultural memories go?
The Howard Zinn Thread
One of the most quietly powerful elements of the exhibition appears not in the artworks themselves but on the gallery wall.
Printed in elegant typography is a quote from historian Howard Zinn:
“If you don’t know history, it is as if you were born yesterday, and if you were born yesterday, anybody up there in a position of power can tell you anything, and you have no way of checking up on it.”
This quote acts as the conceptual backbone of the exhibition. Beast’s portraits become more than aesthetic exercises; they become reminders that cultural history is fragile. Without active engagement, it fades. The wall text surrounding the quote reinforces this idea. It explains that deterioration is not corrected or erased in these images but accepted as part of the visual language. Decay becomes a metaphor for historical amnesia. In this sense, the exhibition title suddenly takes on a deeper meaning.
Hiring “a bloke to fix the wall” might repair the surface. But it doesn’t restore what has been lost.
Installation as Urban Theatre
Walking through the exhibition feels less like visiting a traditional gallery and more like entering a carefully staged fragment of city space. The large hanging banners dominate the room, their scale echoing the monumental proportions of street murals. Because they are not tightly framed, their edges curl slightly and respond to air movement, reinforcing the sense that these images were meant for the outdoors.
Visitors naturally gather in front of them in small clusters. Conversations begin with casual remarks about texture or composition before drifting into broader discussions about literature, urban change, and the evolving role of street art.
At one point during the opening night, a group stands silently in front of the Chomsky portrait for several minutes. One visitor lifts a phone to photograph the work, then lowers it again, choosing instead to simply look.
Moments like that reveal something interesting. Despite the casual atmosphere, the works demand attention. They are not decorative. They are contemplative.
The Street Artist Who Rarely Shows His Face
Part of Beast’s intrigue lies in the fact that he remains largely anonymous.
Like several artists in the street art tradition, he has chosen to keep his identity secondary to the work itself. This approach inevitably invites comparisons with Banksy, although stylistically the two artists operate in very different territories. Where Banksy uses sharp satire and immediate visual impact, Beast works more slowly, almost archaeologically. His imagery is less about confrontation and more about persistence. Figures appear embedded within the urban fabric rather than imposed upon it.
And this distinction matters. Because it suggests that Beast is less interested in shocking viewers and more interested in reminding them.
Photography, Collage, and Urban Memory
Technically, the works sit at an intersection of photography, digital collage, and street aesthetics. Beast begins with photographs of deteriorating walls. These images are then manipulated to integrate portrait elements that appear physically embedded in the structure. The final compositions retain the imperfections of the original surfaces—cracks, stains, peeling paint—allowing the wall itself to remain visually dominant. Printed at large scale, the textures become almost tactile.
Standing close to the works, viewers often lean forward instinctively, as if trying to confirm whether the bricks and plaster are real. That illusion is intentional. It blurs the boundary between documentation and invention.
These walls exist. But the figures inside them do not—at least not physically. They are ghosts created through visual reconstruction.
The Crowd: London’s Cultural Mix
Opening night reveals a fascinating cross-section of London’s art audience. There are seasoned collectors discussing previous Beast pieces seen in European cities. Young creatives wander through the space with drinks in hand, debating whether the works count as street art or contemporary photography. A few older visitors study the wall text carefully before stepping back to compare the portraits. At the back of the room, a stack of exhibition catalogues sits near the window. Outside, dusk has fallen and the city lights reflect faintly in the glass. From the street, passers-by occasionally stop to look in. For a moment, the gallery itself becomes a display window—another kind of wall.
A Dialogue with London’s Street Legacy
What makes this exhibition particularly compelling is how it situates itself within London’s broader street art narrative. Shoreditch has seen countless street art shows over the past decade. Many have leaned heavily on spectacle—bright colours, oversized characters, Instagram-friendly installations. Beast goes in the opposite direction. His palette is subdued: browns, greys, faded whites. The works feel aged rather than freshly painted. Instead of visual noise, the exhibition offers quiet reflection. And that choice sets it apart. In a neighbourhood saturated with visual stimulation, Beast’s work slows the viewer down. It asks you to stand still. To read. To think.
Between Preservation and Disappearance
One of the recurring themes throughout the exhibition is the idea that preservation can sometimes erase authenticity. Street art is inherently temporary. Walls get painted over. Buildings get demolished. Entire neighbourhoods change. By transferring wall-based imagery into the gallery, Beast inevitably participates in a process of preservation. Yet he refuses to disguise that contradiction. The works still look fragile. They still carry the marks of time. Even indoors, they feel temporary. It is almost as if the artist is acknowledging that no matter how carefully we preserve cultural artefacts, their original context can never be fully restored.
Why This Show Matters Now
In an era when street art increasingly moves from illegal interventions to institutional recognition, exhibitions like this play an important role. They remind us that the movement did not begin in galleries. It began on walls that nobody cared about. Beast’s work reconnects viewers with that origin. By presenting images that look as though they could collapse at any moment, he subtly resists the polished aesthetic that often accompanies gallery-sanctioned street art. The result is a show that feels both contemporary and historically aware.
“And we hired a bloke to fix the wall” is not a loud exhibition. There are no neon colours or viral gimmicks. No interactive installations designed for social media. Instead, Beast offers something rarer: a thoughtful meditation on how culture survives. The portraits embedded in these crumbling walls remind us that influence does not disappear simply because a generation passes. Ideas persist. Voices echo. And sometimes, if you look closely enough, the wall itself starts speaking.
In Shoreditch—where new murals appear weekly and old ones vanish just as quickly—that message feels particularly relevant. Because even when the wall gets repaired, the story underneath it never fully disappears. And Beast, quietly but effectively, has found a way to show us exactly where to look.
For more information, visit beaststreetart.com and follow on Instagram @beastwalls.
