I was born here and grew up in Hythe, attending Applemore School and then going on to A-levels at Totton College.
I loved going to the college; I dropped out of my Business Studies course but enjoyed doing Art and Product Design.
I was already obsessed with graffiti art by this point, having got a copy of the legendary ‘Spraycan Art’ book when I was around 11 years old, and developed a passion for illustration and typography from that, which I was able to explore further at college.
After college and a fair few dead-end jobs, I managed to get an apprenticeship with a small graphic design studio in Bournemouth and from there ended up in London (via Australia and Southeast Asia) and a career working in many different design and advertising studios across the city.
Throughout my career in graphic design, I kept my love for graffiti and Hip-Hop culture and was painting regularly in and around London over this time.
I was lucky to be part of the scene in Shoreditch in the mid-2000s when graffiti merged and morphed into the street art movement and stopped being such a dirty word.
It was an incredible time, with the careers of people like Banksy and Ben Eine taking off. There was so much creativity and energy that anything felt possible.
In 2007, I decided to combine my two passions for graffiti and design to start a new creative studio called Paintshop, along with my partner Sandra Ramos.
Sandra initially helped me set up the company and as the studio grew, she moved from working in advertising to help run the client handling and logistics side of the studio full time, while I am the artist and creative director.
We apply the creative ethos of graffiti and the power of art to connect brands to their audience through live art events, hand-painted billboards, interior murals, films and apparel design.
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As one of the first studios to do this we quickly gained a reputation for our work.
Many years later we have now moved the studio and our family out of London and back to the south coast to Bournemouth, where we continue to produce a broad range of large-scale murals throughout the UK.
Some of our recent local projects include murals for Southampton FC‘s new FanZone and the yearly Multi-Stories Live Art event for Westquay in collaboration with Southampton Forward.
Multi-Stories is a unique take on a street art weekend festival because the art stays in place long after the weekend’s event.
What we love about the work we do is being able to transform spaces – taking what can be a neglected space and bringing colour, energy and warmth; adding a human feel and something people can connect with.
We are proud that over ten levels of Westquay’s multi-storey car park can boast a world-class mural gallery, showcasing some of the UK’s most respected artists as well as new and up-and-coming talent to both inspire and engage the local community.
Our job as creative partners and curators is to bring together a mix of mural artists with different styles and approaches to their art, levels of skills and experience, backgrounds and influences.
We want to encourage up and coming artists and young creatives in the field, which is why we have a ‘design a mural competition’ for Under 18s and assign six art boards that can let creatives without a street art background have a platform to show their work.
Now in its third year, the event has gone from strength to strength and has become a key feature in the UK’s street art scene, bringing together local collaborators with an amazing line up of DJs, a breakin’ arena, skateboarding, makers’ market, street food, creative workshops, life-drawing groups and more.
To see how Southampton has got behind the event over the years, its energy and the depth of talent has been truly inspiring and it’s a project we are very proud to be a part of.
Multi-Stories Chapter 3 takes place on the 17th and 18th May 2025, from 12pm to 6pm each day. To find out more about the weekend, follow insta @so.multistories and visit west-quay.co.uk/events.
For details of some of our other projects, visit https://paintshopstudio.com
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