French artist Nerone's Shoreditch Street Art Mural

As London street artists begin to emerge from their studios and return to the city streets, London-based French street artist Nerone has taken over one of Shoreditch's large billboard walls, transforming the canvas with a work of art to celebrate the end of the UK lockdown.

Shoreditch Street Art Mural

For several years this large art wall located on Chance Street, opposite Shoreditch High Street Overground Station has featured the work of Belgian street Artist Roa.

First painted in 2012 it featured one of the artists' signature black-and-white animal artworks. Over the years the lower section was heavily tagged over by graffiti artists and the artwork was eventually painted over and the wall location was lost to the street art and graffiti agencies who offered the former art wall for commercial use replacing the art with hand-painted billboards.

With footfall and tourist numbers in the area down as a result of the Covid-19 crisis, many of the commercial billboards went blank for several weeks as advertisers cut their outdoor media spending.

French Street artist Nerone Shoreditch Street Art Mural on Chance Street

French Street artist Nerone in action working on his Shoreditch mural in London.

Located directly opposite Shoreditch Overground Station, artist Nerone at work on his mural on Chance Street, London.

Street artist Nerone brings colour back to Shoreditch
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With the walls remaining blacked for a number of months and with the easing of the restrictions, London-based French street artist Nerone took the opportunity to bring back a splash of colour to Shoreditch with his colourful flowers taking over the blank wall on Chance Street.

"Since lockdown, and with all the tourists gone, the walls of Shoreditch have been left desperately blank", says Nerone. "Every wall in Shoreditch was painted black and it all looked very gloomy and sad. I was walking down Chance Street and I thought, "Why should we wait for the next big ad to be released to see those walls full of life and colours again?"

Working in partnership with Montana cans, artist Nerone spent a number of days working on a 24ft high and 62ft long wall on Chance Street, East London.

We caught up with the French street artist at work on his new mural, stopping by over two days to check in on the progress.

Speaking about his new mural Nerone has said; "I really wanted to bring a message of hope and positivity with this painting, in order to bring back some life to the area.

When seeing my colourful, dreamlike flowers up on this wall, I want passers-by to smile and be cheerful. It felt so good to be able to paint such a huge wall again after 5 months of lockdown, even though I was still painting outlaw-style here and there."

Take a look at our series of images below of the artists' new mural. and should you want to see the mural in person - Nerone's colourful dreamlike flowers mural will stay up on Chance Street until the 16th of August.

French street artist Nerone added the finishing touches to his Shoreditch mural on Chance Street.

The completed mural on Chance Street, East London by street artist Nerone.

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