Stik's Stick Figures, Hungerford Bridge

Stik's extensive 2013 mural beneath Hungerford Bridge in London depicts colourful stick figures growing from a fetus to adulthood using just six lines and two dots. Created for a Southbank Centre weekend on a service road, the artwork reflects the street artist's former homelessness and teenage time studying kanji in Japan. Prints of the sleeping figure later raised Β£50,000 for Homerton Hospital in 2015.

London Β· from the walk β€œThe Artist's Thames” Β· audio ~4 min Β· Generated

Hungerford Bridge, South Bank, London SE1 8XZ

What does Stik's mural beneath Hungerford Bridge in London depict?

This extensive mural was created as part of the "Celebrating Street Art Culture" weekend hosted by the Southbank Centre in twenty thirteen, and it remains one of Stik's most ambitious projects. Easily missed on a service road beneath Hungerford Bridge, this lengthy mural shows his trademark stick figure growing from a foetus through childhood into an adult, with their own kids. The figures are more colourful than Stik's other major works, designed with expressive faces and bright, patterned clothes.......... Now... here's what makes this especially powerful as a visual artist yourself. Think about how Little is used here. Stik was born in nineteen seventy-nine, has no formal art school training, and is known for painting figures made of just six lines and two dots. That's it. How do you convey joy, grief, protest, and tenderness... with Six lines?......... Stik once explained it himself: "Six lines and two dots was the quickest way to draw a human figure without getting caught." And that speed was essential β€” because his art draws from his own experience of homelessness as a young man. In twenty twelve, the London Evening Standard reported he was living in a Saint Mungo's hostel for the homeless as he prepared for his first gallery show. He went from cleaning toilets at an East London music venue... to having his collectors include Brian May and Bono.......... What's remarkable is that Stik was deeply inspired by something you might not expect. His famous six-line, two-dot figures are partly based on Japanese calligraphy characters known as Kanji. As a teenager, he lived in Japan for nearly a year and took to the style of drawing that characterises kanji β€” a form of script related to shorthand for conveying emotion.......... And this mural you're standing under? It became More than decoration. The image of his sleeping figure became a widespread symbol of support for the Nhs, and in twenty fifteen Stik produced limited edition prints that raised fifty thousand pounds for Homerton Hospital's art therapy room. Junior doctors even held placards emblazoned with the image during a twenty sixteen strike protesting changes to their contracts.......... So take a moment. Study the faces above you β€” each one slightly different, each one somehow Alive despite being nothing more than circles, lines, and dots against yellow paint on grey concrete. That tension... between radical simplicity and deep emotion... That is the lesson of Stik. And you're standing inside one of his greatest classrooms.

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