Excluded from school in London due to his early experiments in graffiti, Cyclops moved to Manchester and plunged into a fringe existence coloured by addiction.
Funding this lifestyle via forgery, he spent time in prison and was generally of no fixed abode. Emerging ten years later, he found himself energised by the growing street art network, and founded London’s Burning Candy crew. His work appeared at Tate Modern in 2008. An appearance in Exit Through the Gift Shop, at Banksy’s request, ended in an arrest that can be seen in the Oscar-nominated documentary.
Cyclops’s work earned him a coveted position at the Royal College of Art (other graduates include Lucian Freud and Chris Ofili), where he completed a master’s degree. He now works from his studio in east London.
