Best Street Art in CHELTENHAM

Cheltenham is the proverbial Cultural Heart of the Cotswolds for a reason. And a trip through the Cotswolds was actually the main reason for my stay in the city. However, since Cheltenham, in addition to its magnificent architecture and lush parks, boasts a considerable number of fantastic murals, I’ve taken my stay as an opportunity to compile the best street art the city has to offer.

Cheltenham

Located on the western edge of the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire, Cheltenham is one of those quintessentially English towns. It’s known for its elegant Regency architecture and, above all, its world-famous horse racing. Often called the cultural capital of the Cotswolds, Cheltenham offers a pleasant blend of history and modern flair. Whether you’re traveling to or from the fascinating Cotswolds, Cheltenham is the perfect stopover.

Cheltenham also prides itself on its numerous festivals throughout the year. For us street art enthusiasts, the Cheltenham Paint Festival is, of course, a top attraction. It’s one of the most vibrant street art events in the United Kingdom, transforming the elegant SPA town into a vast open-air gallery.

The Cheltenham Paint Festival

The Cheltenham Paint Festival was first launched in 2017 and has since become a staple in every street art enthusiast’s cultural calendar.

The annual festival attracts top street artists from around the world to paint at over 90 locations across the city, creating an eight-kilometer street art trail showcasing everything from large-scale murals to hidden gems in quieter corners. The art remains open year-round, allowing visitors to follow the trail on foot or by bike outside of festival times and explore Cheltenham through bold, creative works of art.

Over the years, the festival has hosted an impressive lineup of artists from the UK and far beyond.

Although the main 2025 edition was postponed due to the loss of a key painting venue, a scaled-down jam session still took place, supported by local crowdfunding initiatives. The organizers and Cheltenham Borough Council have since worked closely together to ensure the sustainability of the event. A return with a full program is planned for 2026. This is highly desirable, as the Cheltenham Paint Festival offers a unique and colorful way to experience the city’s creative spirit.

The Artists

Here’s an overview of the amazing artists who left their creative mark on Cheltenham. As always, you’ll find their Instagram accounts at the end of the post, where you can see more of the work of your favorites.

Johnman

Let’s start with Johnman, whose oversized ticket images are the cover image of this post.

Johnman is a British street artist now based in Dublin. He began experimenting with spray paint in 2011.

Entirely self-taught, he became a professional artist around 2019 and is now a member of Visual Artists Ireland. His work is shown in galleries across Europe and even in Japan.

Johnman stands out in the urban art scene through his innovative use of recycled railway tickets, combining graffiti-inspired stencil work with romantic, narrative-driven imagery.

He meticulously sprays transparent paint through hand-cut stencils onto real railway tickets. By leaving the printed ticket details visible beneath, he creates images rich with narrative and emotion. In fact, each train ticket mural represents a personal narrative, allowing viewers to imagine the travel story behind it.

Inkie

Tom Bingle aka Inkie is originally from Bristol, however, today, he lives in London. Along with Banksy, 3D, and Nick Walker, he is one of the fathers of urban art in Bristol. Because of his style, which is based on Art Nouveau, you can quickly assign his works to him.

Inkie began working as part of the Crime Incorporated Crew in 1983, along with FLX and Joe Braun. With Banksy, he organized the Walls on Fire Event on the Site of the Future in the Bristol Center in 1998. In August 2011 and 2012, he was appointed organizer of the See No Evil Festival. He also took part in the annual Upfest in Bristol, the largest urban painting festival in Europe.

After working in the video game industry, including as head of creative design at Sega, Inkie now teaches art and graphic design to youngsters.

I introduced more murals by Inkie in my posts Best Street Art in BRISTOL – Part I: From Nelson Street to Stokes Croft, Best Street Art in BRISTOL – Part II: North Street, as well as Best Street Art in BIRMINGHAM.

POGO

POGO is a French-born street artist now based in the English city of Southampton. Specializing in stencil portraits, POGO has developed his distinctive style, combining realism with rich blue tones and floral motifs. He uses a complex stencil technique, with some works consisting of up to nine layered stencils.

His portraits often feature women, rendered with a precision that, in his more recent works, recalls elements of Art Nouveau.

POGO regularly participates in major street art festivals, including Upfest in Bristol, Cheltenham Paint Festival, and Southsea Paint Jam. He has received numerous Stencil Art Awards.

Many of POGO’s works can be seen in Portsmouth and Southsea, where they have become cultural landmarks.

Outside of street art, POGO also works in studio art, creating fine art prints and accepting commissions.

KOE ONE

KOEONE is an English street artist from North Devon who now lives in Cornwall. He began tagging at school. Over time, he developed more complex works on canvas and walls.

He combines mostly monochrome, photorealistic portraits with vibrant, clear typographic elements. Through collaborations, group exhibitions, and participation in art festivals, he has secured a permanent place in the street art scene. That’s why you can now find his murals in Berlin, Paris, and even the Vietnamese city of Ninh Binh.

SNIK

SNIK is a male-female artist duo from the English city of Stamford who specialize in stencil art. Despite today’s digital possibilities, SNIK has remained true to the origins of their craft with complex, hand-cut stencils. This makes their work distinctive. With the help of precisely cut stencils, they create moments of stillness.

In their choice of motifs, they focus on the everyday. Their figures remain in mid-motion, still and steady. Each work is a collaboration between two individuals who share trust in each other and a love of detail. They don’t strive for perfection, as small errors are what give their works a fascinating vibrancy.

TRUST.iCON

TRUST.iCON is an enigmatic street artist from Thamesmead in southeast London. He channels his urban upbringing into compelling stencil-based works that blend photorealism with pop culture references and have a sharp wit and powerful social commentary. TRUST.iCON often juxtaposes familiar cartoon or film characters with sobering, politically charged scenarios.

Though TRUST.iCON keeps his identity strictly hidden, his work can be found in Cape Town, Dubai, London, and Los Angeles, to name just a few. Also, he has been exhibited in London galleries. Yet, he remains mostly committed to the street as his canvas, where he can make art accessible to the public in an uncommercialized fashion.

For fans of politically engaged street art, TRUST.iCON is a standout voice in the urban art scene.

EPOD3000

EPOD3000, often referred to simply as Epod, is a London-based street and mural artist. He grew up on a London council estate, surrounded by industrial brutalist architecture. This inspired him to draw futuristic landscapes at a young age.

EPOD3000 invests its creativity in studio canvases and large-scale murals. He sees walls as inspiring challenges. There, he can try out new techniques that he later uses in his studio work.

Epod3000 is a preeminent voice in British street art, a visionary urban portraitist whose bold, science fiction-inspired murals combine emotional realism with futuristic abstraction. His works enliven public spaces across the United Kingdom, for example in Bristol, London, Portsmouth, and here in Cheltenham.

Liam Bononi

Liam Bononi is a Brazilian-born street artist currently based in Liverpool. Since 2007, he has been creating large-scale murals.
Bononi’s work is characterized by photorealistic depictions of faces and hands, often fragmented or distorted.

Bononi’s murals can be found in various countries, including Kosovo, Sweden, and England, obviously. Some of his most notable works were created on the occasion of the annual street art festival Upfest in Bristol.

SAM ART

SAM ART, also known by the Instagram handle @sam_art_34, is another street artist known for photorealistic murals. His artistic journey began later in life. Inspired by the documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop, he learned self-taught mural painting. Using a grid method, he enlarges images and achieves a high level of detail.

His political and social commentary gained widespread attention with musician and artist Billy Childish’s mural in Rochester in 2016, when someone added the provocative slogan Brexit is Childish. In this way, this painting gave SAM ART an unexpected career boost.

At the Museum of London, murals by SAM ART were transformed into animated projections for the Beasts of London exhibition.

Zabou

Zabou was born in the Loire region of France. Already in her childhood, she spent a lot of time drawing and painting. After moving to Great Britain to study, she began painting on the streets in 2012. Since then, she has taken part in many urban art festivals and numerous projects. She has created over 250 murals in 22 countries around the world.

The basis for Zabou’s hyperrealistic portraits is photos, which she then re-interprets with an emphasis on their expression and emotions. She mainly works with spray paint and transforms them into expressive black-and-white portraits.
She is interested in stories and is inspired by both everyday life as well as the places where she paints, obviously.

In addition to her murals, Zabou also spends time honing her skills in her studio. She has exhibited her work in France and the United Kingdom, including several exhibitions at the Saatchi Gallery in London. In March 2022, the gallery presented the artist’s first solo exhibition.

I’ve introduced Zabou in my posts Best Street Art in LONDON – Part II: Shoreditch, Best Street Art in BRISTOL – Part II: North Street, as well as Best Street Art in VIENNA.

PHILTH

Phil Blake aka PHILTH is a graphic designer turned multidisciplinary muralist.

His style straddles the line between sophisticated illustration and expressive street art. In fact, classic, lush floral motifs, often full of faded vintage hues, are his trademark.

As he frequently collaborates with fellow muralist N4T4, the two artists combine PHILTH’s floral backgrounds with N4T4’s patterned portraits. In this way, coherent, multi-layered wall pieces are created.

PHILTH has taken part in the street art festival Upfest in Bristol several times and took part in the famous exhibition 75 Walls in 75 Days.

I introduced more murals by PHILTH in my post Best Street Art in BIRMINGHAM.

Curtis Hylton

Curtis Hylton was born in 1992 and grew up in a rural environment surrounded by forests. In this way, he developed a deep connection to nature early on.

This connection continues to inspire his artistic vision, and he is known for his large-scale depictions of plant and animal life. This has earned Hylton a prominent place in the contemporary street art scene. Especially since his murals are visually more than appealing. In fact, they are multi-faceted and often aim to highlight the importance of biodiversity and nature conservation.

His murals transform urban spaces into lush, imaginative ecosystems. His work is widely admired and increasingly recognized as some of the most powerful nature-themed street art.

Therefore, he not only contributed a series of images to the street art festival Upfest in Bristol. His work has also found its way outside England, for example, in the Swedish Artscape Saga project in 2019. Another mural in the Swedish city of Nykvarn shows an osprey in floral shapes, created as part of a housing initiative to integrate art into community life.

My Dog Sighs

Paul Stone aka My Dog Sighs is a Portsmouth-based muralist, sculptor, and filmmaker. Just like his fellow street artist Dice67, he is a former elementary school teacher. In the early 2000s, while still teaching, he created Free Art Fridays, leaving small works made from found materials publicly for everyone to discover. This movement then developed into a global phenomenon.

Around 2019, he embarked on a monumental project transforming an abandoned ballroom in Southsea into an immersive sculptural installation. What started as a project for a few months turned into a two-year, pandemic-delayed endeavor. Ultimately, the project attracted over 10,000 visitors and inspired the documentary film We Shelter Here Sometime.

My Dog Sighs is widely recognized in the UK, Japan, the USA, and Israel. In 2024, he auctioned off works for charity, underlining his social mission. He founded the Look Up Portsmouth street art festival in his hometown.

The Guardian recognizes My Dog Sighs as one of Britain’s preeminent street artists, alongside artists such as Stik, Inkie, and Banksy, and highlights his role in the evolution of British street art from guerrilla tactics to community storytelling.

Jim Vision

Jim Vision grew up in the Welsh town of Barry. However, on his creative journey, he anchored in Shoreditch in the early 2000s. Here, he found the perfect grounds to leave his thought-provoking marks dealing with political and environmental issues.

He often works together with other street artists. Also, he and his partner Matilda Tickner-Du founded EndoftheLine, a platform for commissioning and promoting urban art on a less commercial level than, for instance, the Global Street Art agency.

Jim Vision has painted the walls in Amsterdam, Buenos Aires, Los Angeles, and Miami, to name just a few, as well as on airplanes. Yes, that’s correct: He’s also decorating airplanes.

I’ve introduced more murals by Jim Vision in my posts Best Street Art in LONDON – Part II: Shoreditch, as well as Best Street Art in BIRMINGHAM.

Dice67

Andy Dice Davies aka Dice67 is a celebrated UK-based street artist, muralist, and in fact the founder of the Cheltenham Paint Festival. Originally a primary school teacher, he taught stencil art to his students, which then sparked his own passion for mural-making. Starting as a stencil artist, he has slowly evolved into a freehand painter, tackling large-scale murals across the UK. Today, he’s known for striking portraiture.

His works adorn public spaces he created on the occasion of the Upfest in Bristol, in Cheltenham, and beyond.

Rocket01

Chris Butcher aka Rocket01 is a visionary street artist and muralist originally from Sheffield. He now lives in the Portuguese city of Porto.
He began writing graffiti in 1994 and has now looked back on two decades of beautifying the world with a stunning mix of sci-fi surrealism and organic portraiture.

Creating paintings on abandoned buildings early in his career and sophisticated public commissions, he beautifies urban spaces. His participation in festivals such as Upfest in Bristol, Urban Nation in Berlin, and exhibitions in Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, and Greece made him known as an internationally recognized street artist.

I introduced another truly amazing mural by Rocket01 in my post Best Street Art in LISBON – Part III: Moscavide.

Faunagraphic

Sarah Yates aka Faunagraphic was born in Blackburn in 1987. She started spraying at the age of 19 while studying graphic design.

In her large-format murals she brings images of nature into urban spaces.
Her signature style combines hyper-realistic wildlife with bold, graphic elements. Faunagraphic sees their art as more than just decoration. It is her call to reconnect with nature. She is supported by charity and environmental groups.

With more than 100 murals, Faunagraphic is considered one of the world’s leading environmental painters. Like this mural in Cheltenham, she often collaborates with Rocket01.

Kitsune Jolene

Jolien De Waele aka Kitsune Jolene was born in 1992 and is a Belgian street artist based in Ghent. A self-taught artist, Kitsune Jolene spent time assisting established street artists before finding her own voice. Drawing on her background in fine art and architecture, she creates vibrant, dreamy images full of cultural references and is famous for her enigmatic, inspired murals that delicately blend portraits of women, animals, and nature.

Kitsune Jolene represents a specific group of muralists who bring visual poetry to public spaces. In her nuanced images, she tells touching stories on city walls.

Her characteristic images can be found on walls in Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Ireland, but even in Dubai, Thailand, and the USA.

Sophy Tuttle

Muralist and installation artist Sophy Tuttle was born in England, but is now based in Boston. Her large-scale, vibrant murals combine nature, science, and environmental storytelling and are often commissioned by universities, innovation campuses, and community projects. A botanist at heart, she cites influence from her grandmother’s botanical illustrations, the Mexican mural movement, and ecological activism.

Tuttle participated in various street art festivals, and her work was published in prestigious publications. Institutions such as Harvard, UMass Lowell, PangeaSeed, NPR’s WBUR, Google, and LIFEWTR have commissioned her murals.

On Instagram

To dig deeper into the subject and see more of the amazing art the above-featured artists have created, you can just check out their Instagram accounts:

How to Get Around

First of all, Cheltenham’s city center really isn’t that large, hence, you can explore the city’s street art easily by walking. However, Cheltenham also has an excellent public transport system consisting of buses. Stagecoach West is the primary bus operator, providing extensive coverage within Cheltenham and surrounding areas. There are various ticket types, including Dayrider, EveningRider, and single as well as return tickets. Contactless payments are accepted on all coaches.

There are also intercity coach services like National Express connecting Cheltenham to major UK cities like London, Birmingham, and Manchester, as well as most of the villages around the Cotswolds. That’s actually how I visited this mesmerizing region, and you can read all about my amazing trip in the post Enchanting COTSWOLDS: Self-guided Day Tour by Public Bus.

Map

This map should help you find the murals I’m introducing in this post. Clicking on the slider symbol at the top left or the full-screen icon at the top right will display the whole map, including the legend.

Looking for urban art was only one of the awesome things I got to do during my visit to Cheltenham. In my post Cheltenham in a Day: Parks, Promenades, and Paintings, I take you on a comprehensive city tour.

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