Shakespeare Globe Mural, Clink Street

A spray-painted mural of William Shakespeare on Clink Street in London, created by Australian artist James Cochran (Jimmy C), celebrates the playwright's historic ties to the Bankside neighbourhood. Painted on a Network Rail brick wall using an aerosol pointillist technique, the artwork sits yards from where Shakespeare lived around 1599 and worked near the Rose Theatre, built in 1587.

London Β· from the walk β€œThe Artist's Thames” Β· audio ~3 min Β· Generated

Clink Street, London SE1 9DG

Why is there a mural of William Shakespeare on Clink Street in London?

Stop here. Look at the wall in front of you... and really Look. Because this isn't just graffiti. This is four hundred years of theatre history colliding with twenty-first century aerosol art.......... An Australian street artist painted this portrait of William Shake-speare on a brick wall in Clink Street, just yards from the site of the Bankside playhouses where the Bard worked. The artist's name is James Cochran, known as Jim-my C. And if you're a visual artist, his technique should make your pulse quicken.......... His signature style involves portraits painted entirely with dots and dashes of spray paint, a technique he calls "aerosol pointillist." Think about that for a moment. He's essentially doing what Georges Seurat did with tiny brushstrokes on canvas... but with spray cans on raw brick. Step closer and the face dissolves into thousands of individual drips and colour bursts. Step back... and Shake-speare stares right through you.......... His trademark style is influenced by pointillism and the aboriginal culture of his native Australia. That fusion of Indigenous Australian dot painting and European post-impressionism is what gives his work that shimmering, almost hallucinatory energy.......... Now, you might already know Jim-my C's most famous piece. He completed a portrait of David Bow-ie in twenty thirteen, featuring Bow-ie as he appeared on the cover of his nineteen seventy-three album, Aladdin Sane. Following Bow-ie's death, that Brixton mural was transformed into a shrine by grieving fans who turned out in their thousands to lay flowers and candles at its base.......... But here's what makes This wall so special. The mural of Shake-speare was done as a personal project, with permission from Network Rail to use the wall. No corporate commission. No festival brief. Jim-my C chose this spot himself... and the reason is pure genius.......... Around fifteen ninety-nine, Shake-speare was living in Bankside, in the Liberty of the Clink β€” the area named for the notorious prison that is now a tourist attraction. You're standing in his Neighbourhood. The Rose, the first purpose-built theatre on Bankside, was built in fifteen eighty-seven and stood in the Liberty of the Clink. Shake-speare himself acted at The Rose, and his earliest tragedy, Titus Andronicus, was first performed there.......... So when Jim-my C said, "We're in the heart of Shake-speare territory right here β€” the Globe is nearby, the Rose Theatre was nearby, and his brother is buried in Southwark Cathedral," he wasn't exaggerating.......... As a visual artist, notice the backdrop... a psychedelic swirling pattern that seemingly projects from the colours the main subject is wearing, creating a sense of energy flowing from the central figure. That's not decoration. That's a visual argument β€” that creative energy radiates outward, whether from a sixteenth-century playwright or a twenty-first century muralist... that art doesn't sit quietly on a wall. It Moves.

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