It’s no surprise an Olympics that used a graffiti tag logo has left a mark on London’s walls. The London 2012 logo was a nod to street art’s role in making the city edgy and modern.
Charlie Edwards, a 43-year-old artist also known as Pure Evil painted a hooded thief running away with the Olympic logo’s red ring on the side of a fish-and-chips shop in an area shaken by riots a year ago. He called it “The New Logo for the Hackney Looting Team.”
“It felt like the working person was getting excluded from the whole thing, so it seemed there was the potential for a clash,” he said.
But as the Games played out, to Pure Evil’s surprise, he started enjoying them. “To be honest, when we started winning loads of gold medals, I got quite excited about it, as other people did.”
“I wanted to leave my tribute to the Olympics, something that will kind of last beyond the Olympics when the athletes pack up and go home,” Cochran said. “I would like to have said I created a kind of iconic image for this time.”
He began by speaking to people in the street and asking what they thought of when it came to the Olympics. Usain Bolt kept coming up. Cochran decided Bolt was the perfect symbol of the summer of 2012. Bolt was defending his title as the world’s fastest man, plus he is a hero in Jamaica, which is celebrating 50 years of independence.
The result was a nearly two-storey-tall portrait with a spectrum of colours radiating from Bolt’s face. The work is just off Brick Lane, where Londoners go for curry dinners.
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