Art / Street Art

Well-known Big Issue seller immortalised in street art

By Martin Booth  Monday Sep 21, 2020

One of Bristol’s most well-known Big Issue sellers has been immortalised in spray paint by a graffiti artist.

Jeff Knight has sold the magazine for two decades and greets hundreds of people on Stokes Croft every day with his infectious joie de vivre.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFVPDFqJf0a/

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Jeff came to Bristol from Jamaica when he was 32 and was begging in Castle Park when a policeman suggested he start selling the Big Issue.

A successful recent crowdfunding campaign bought Jeff a campervan, where he currently lives.

The piece by Harriet Wood, aka Hazard, is on John Street in the Old City alongside more than half a dozen other works.

Scroll from left to right in the photo below to see all of the nine pieces:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFULkxHpK7P/

The developers of the NatWest Court site, McAleer & Rushe, teamed up with Bristol street artist Inkie, new art supply store Molotow, and Observer Food Monthly Award winners, the Bank Tavern, to host the competition in aid of Creative Youth Network.

It was the second piece painted in the same spot on John Street by Hazard, with her painting of the Edward Colston statue covered in red paint deemed to be “too political”, according to the artist.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFCgOgfJWa0/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFFwJXapg8x/

Main photo by Martin Booth

Read more: Four people could be charged with criminal damage to Colston statue

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