Slawn and Opake Popeye Tee

SLAWN & OPAKE are a London-based collaborative duo whose work brings together graffiti, pop culture, satire, and an intentionally raw approach to contemporary art. Their partnership combines two distinct visual languages while embracing humor, disorder, repetition, and the unexpected.

Nigerian-born SLAWN (Olaolu Akeredolu-Ale) emerged from Lagos’ skate and street culture before moving to London, where he began painting during the 2020 lockdown. His work combines the energy of graffiti and street art with expressive, cartoon-like figures, irreverent humor, and references to his Yoruba heritage and contemporary culture. His rapid rise has taken his work from the streets and independent exhibitions to major cultural projects, including designing the 2023 BRIT Awards statuette and set.

OPAKE (Ed Worley) is a London-based artist with roots in graffiti whose work reimagines familiar cartoon characters through dense layers, repetition, bold color, and distortion. Drawing from his personal experiences with addiction and recovery, OPAKE describes his practice as the “disintegration of pop culture,” using recognizable imagery to explore cycles of repetition, chaos, transformation, and the darker sides of familiar cultural icons.