Huge new water wildlife mural completed in Sheffield

© Steel City Snapper

Sheffield street artist Peachzz has now completed a new large-scale wildlife mural on the side of the Cubo building, overlooking Pound’s Park in Sheffield City Centre.

Believed to be the city's tallest piece of street art and Peachzz's own biggest piece of work to date, the mural scales the full five storeys of the building, standing 25.5 metres high and covering 225 square metres.    

Depicting a vibrant water scene showing a heron and kingfisher, this striking new street art was originally commissioned to celebrate Sheffield’s Festival of the Outdoors, which takes place throughout March each year, yet the work was delayed due to bad weather.  

As the Festival promotes the strength of Sheffield’s greenspaces and the abundance of nature in close proximity to our city culture, the new mural has been designed as a representation of this for all to see. 

A graduate of Sheffield Hallam University, Peachzz (who's real name is Megan Russell) is a street artist that has worked on commissions across the world and built a reputation for applying her expressive style, with hints of realism and bold colour palettes, to large scale murals.  

Her work typically looks at nature and life contrasting with the concrete structures of urban spaces, so this was a perfect match for taking some of the nature visible along Sheffield's waterways and bringing it to life in the city centre.

The mural has been collaboratively funded by the Festival of the Outdoors, Sheffield City Council's Heart of the City development, and from a hugely appreciated philanthropic donation by Alexis Krachai, President of the Sheffield Chamber of Commerce, and owner of Counter Context and Altitude PR.

Special thanks go to artist, Enso, who helped Peachzz paint the mural and to a number of businesses who also supported the installation, including Apollo Cradles Ltd, Rowland Scaffold Co Ltd and Spray Plant UK Ltd. 

While Sheffield is well-known for its hilly topography, not everyone is aware that the city is built across a unique confluence of five rivers, something which has been acknowledged prominently recently by Sheffield Museum's 'City of Rivers' exhibition at Weston Park'. 

As a result, Sheffield is also home to many organisations, community charities and voluntary groups, such as the River Stewardship Company, Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust, Sheaf and Porter Rivers Trust, Rivelin Valley Conservation Group, Friends of The Blue Loop, Friends of the Loxley Valley, Friends of the Porter Valley and Don Catchment Rivers Trust, who all proudly help maintain the wildlife of our waterways. 

 Artists Peachzz and Enso on the day they started the mural.

© Steel City Snapper