![\"Left](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0_escenic-46.jpg\")
Left – Birmingham ‘sticker street artist’ Sgt Wilko. Right, some of the aftermath of his blitz on East Street, Bedminster(Image: Bristol Post)<\/p>\n“They\u2019re nice images but they are now covering so many properties without permission it needs to be talked about”Left – Birmingham ‘sticker street artist’ Sgt Wilko. Right, some of the aftermath of his blitz on East Street, Bedminster(Image: Bristol Post)<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve been turning heads and causing quite a reaction across the city centre and in Bedminster<\/a> – a new kind of particularly niche form of street art has sparked controversy in Bristol – a city which was last week named among the top places in the world to visit, mainly because of its street art<\/a>.<\/p>\n Last weekend, mystery Birmingham artist Sgt Wilko arrived and spent the weekend pasting his unique artwork on shop fronts, phone boxes, walls and signs down East Street and North Street in Bedminster, along with various locations around the city centre.<\/p>\n The artworks are effectively large stickers, but are handmade relief or screen prints that are then pasted up on walls as a rapid way to display art. Sgt Wilko – who goes by \u2018Wilko Official\u2019 on Instagram – is contributing one half to a pop-up exhibition, alongside fellow artist Boxi, at That Art Gallery, at the top of the Christmas Steps in Colston Street next month.<\/p>\n \u201cYou may have seen these prolific Birmingham based artists’ work pasted up on the streets?\u201d That Art Gallery posted on Instagram. \u201cBut you probably don\u2019t realise that these artworks aren\u2019t produced with the press of a button ~ they\u2019re hand made relief\/screen prints which That Art Gallery are now proud to present in a one off pop up exhibition in the former Lone Rambler store at the top of Christmas Steps in Bristol.\u201d<\/p>\n The exhibition opens on November 18 and runs until November 23 with a late-night event on Thursday, November 20.<\/p>\n But to publicise this exhibition, Sgt Wilko came to Bristol last weekend, and pasted scores of examples of his artwork all over Bristol – and that has sparked a bit of controversy.<\/p>\n Content cannot be displayed without consent<\/p>\n Some Bristol residents, including street artist Gemma Compton, commented on Instagram that they loved the new additions to the Bedminster street art scene.<\/p>\n But one resident of East Street said the street was already full of the work of graffiti taggers and didn\u2019t need stickers to add to it.<\/p>\n \u201cThis has become a weird new scourge in the Bedminster area – East street businesses, town centre businesses have been covered In these repetitive large pasted graffiti pieces,\u201d said the resident, who declined to be named.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re nice images but they are now covering so many properties without permission it needs to be talked about – unlike normal taggers tagging shutters he\u2019s covering businesses actual signs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n READ MORE: ‘Bristol crocodile’ makes a triumphant return on dry land<\/a>READ MORE: Lonely Planet names Bristol among world’s best places to visit in 2026<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cBusinesses have complained about it. He\u2019s also flyering it over phone boxes and so on, on North Street,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \u201cStreet art is important to Bristol, but it\u2019s a fine balance when it starts to affect already struggling local businesses who then have the extra expense of clearing them. It\u2019s disrespectful covering business\u2019 shop signage in my opinion,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n One of the shopkeepers in East Street said he didn\u2019t want to be named in case it attracted more stickers and tagging to his shop front. \u201cGraffiti is a part of life in Bedminster, everyone knows that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut generally, most of the time, if you have your shutters painted properly they leave it alone. This is worrying though. My neighbour\u2019s shop has been covered with these stickers, and it\u2019s on the signs too.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had to remove a few of these things, and it\u2019s out of order – he\u2019s coming down from Birmingham and it looks like he\u2019s at least tried to target empty shops, like the old HSBC bank building at the end of East Street, but some of them weren\u2019t. We\u2019ve got a kind of unspoken agreement with graffiti artists – they sort of know the line people will tolerate, and this is over that line,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Bristol Live has contacted Sgt Wilko, and a response is awaited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“They\u2019re nice images but they are now covering so many properties without permission it needs to be talked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,34826,11048,1120,96,74490,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-228608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-bedminster","tag-bristol-live","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-south-bristol","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Printed](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0_TCB241025stickersBRI_02jpeg.jpg\")
Printed stickers from Birmingham-based street artist Sgt Wilko have filled East Street in Bedminster.(Image: Bristol Post)<\/p>\n![\"Printed](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0_TCB241025stickersBRIjpeg.jpg\")
Printed stickers from Birmingham-based street artist Sgt Wilko have filled East Street in Bedminster.(Image: Bristol Post)<\/p>\n![\"Printed](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0_TCB241025stickersBRI_04jpeg.jpg\")
Printed stickers from Birmingham-based street artist Sgt Wilko have filled East Street in Bedminster.(Image: Bristol Post)<\/p>\n