Slawn Stares at His New Painting, Made Suspended in London

Slawn is staring at the painting he made while suspended from a crane in London, the newest work from his project with Saatchi Yates. The artist worked on October 13, 2026 at the Doon Street car park on the South Bank, in a live session listed for 2 to 6pm. He ties the finished piece to a line of his own: "A Whole Lot Of Hogwash."

Doon Street, October 13, 2 to 6pm

The session was listed as Slawn Crane Painting, organised by Saatchi Yates, at Doon Street car park, postcode SE1 9EY. Hypebeast flagged it on October 12 with the line "What is Slawn up to this time? Painting from a crane of course," and followed with "Slawn and Saatchi Yates just took crane painting to new heights."

A preview of the session described large scale works made through a live painting performance in a makeshift studio on an industrial site, in place of his usual studio. The car park gave him a public floor and a crane gave him a ceiling. The coverage available gives no size, medium or title for the finished painting, and none of it is invented here.

Suspended, Then Standing Back

Painting suspended from a crane means the canvas and the painter are both off the ground, and the only way to judge the result is to come down and look. That is the moment the new footage and photograph hold: Slawn facing the finished painting, studying it.

The work was made in partnership with Saatchi Yates, the London gallery that has shown him since his first solo exhibition there in 2024. That show hung 1,000 A4 canvases, and Afromixx reported that more than 177 of them had sold by the second day.

January Put the Studio in the Gallery. October Put It in the Air

Each of Slawn's Saatchi Yates projects has moved the making of the work closer to the public. In the 2024 debut the paintings were finished objects on a wall. In January 2026 the gallery became a working studio for a month, running from January 22 to February 22 according to Artlyst, with new paintings made in front of visitors. In October the studio became a crane over a car park, and the session lasted four hours.

Each step trades a controlled room for a more exposed one. The January residency still had walls and a door. The crane session had a car park, a public pavement and a 2 to 6pm window, with the weather as a collaborator nobody booked.

Ronaldinho, KidSuper, Rolex: A Year of Other People's Objects

Most of Slawn's 2026 headlines came from painting on objects that belonged to someone else. In September he reworked ten Ravenna FC by Cipriani jerseys and two pairs of Nike R10 boots, each jersey signed by both the artist and Ronaldinho, in a capsule headed to charity auction. Finally Offline reported earlier that his loose figures had already covered a Rolex case and a suitcase this year.

At ComplexCon on October 3 and 4 he was one of three names on an official collaboration with KidSuper and the 13 year old designer Leaf, sold only at the show. A crane painting is the opposite brief: no jersey, no case, no partner's silhouette, only a canvas and his own figures. Sport, watchmaking and fashion all borrowed his hand this year. This is the first project in the run where nothing but the painting is on offer.

The Critics Have Not Moved

Slawn's recurring face, with exaggerated features and oversized red lips, still divides commentators, who argue over whether it critiques a caricature or revives one. Artsy headlined its profile "London Artist Slawn Couldn't Care Less If You Hate His Art," and the Brit Awards statuette he designed, along with a full British Grand Prix car wrap, did nothing to settle the argument.

The phrase he attached to the new painting lands inside that argument. He has not said whether "A Whole Lot Of Hogwash" is aimed at the critics, at the crowd or at the painting itself, and nothing in the coverage found says which.

Saatchi Yates has now run two public Slawn projects this year. The January studio show ran for a month. The crane session ran for four hours.