Brighton-based printmaker John Parkinson, known as Parky, brings colour and community spirit to a new junction in East Brighton, incorporating Edward Bawden-influenced angular forms and the graphic plant language of Angie Lewin into a spray-painted celebration of local life.
Where Whitehawk and Kemptown meet, the road layout has changed. Through-traffic gone, new planters installed, a community group raising funds to green up the junction and take ownership of a corner of the city that has often been looked down upon. Parky was brought in to paint the mural that would anchor it all.
The brief was clear in spirit: colourful, positive, celebratory of the city with a focus on gardening and the new planters. Beyond that, Parky spent time with the plants the community group had chosen, wandered the area picking out visual elements that could work, and listened to what the neighbourhood itself offered. A few quotes chosen by the group went into the composition. So did a butterfly that landed on the wall mid-painting, seemingly approving of the colour choices, and was promptly painted in.
The stylistic approach reflected where Parky’s practice has been heading. After a hiatus from spray paint, he wanted to incorporate elements from the paper cuts he has been making in recent years, introducing angular shapes to outlines and embracing short, sharp lines rather than the smooth flowing marks he had previously relied on. He had also been reading a book on Edward Bawden, taking note of Bawden’s collaged approach to lino and his designer’s mindset of treating each project as a new challenge rather than a repeat of familiar territory. The graphic plant forms of Angie Lewin fed into the visual language too. The result sits somewhere between mural, cut paper and botanical illustration.
Working just up the road from the site, Parky found the experience as social as it was artistic. Passers-by stopped to chat, locals without gardens came to look after the new planters and each other, and the city felt close in the way that only outdoor work in familiar streets can make it feel. Brighton councillor Gary Wilkinson, writing after the completion celebration, described the transformation as “truly something special, turning it into a welcoming, vibrant space for everyone to enjoy.”
Parky has been a Brighton local for fifteen years, working across murals, sign writing and tattoos. Printmaking is fundamental to his practice and he is a regular face and keyholder at Inkspot Press in Hove.
Instagram: @parkydoodles
Greening up the Junction mural, 2025. Spray paint. Bristol Gardens junction, East Brighton. Community initiative by the Kemptown Gardening and Community Group.
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