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Sheffield street art named 2nd best in the World for 2024

A large mural of two herons and a kingfisher in a vibrant wetland scene painted on the side of a tall modern building. In the foreground, a landscaped urban park with trees, benches, and pathways is visible, where several people, including a family with two children, are walking and enjoying the space under a bright blue sky with scattered clouds.
credit Pete Hill

Sheffield's tallest piece of street art has been voted Street Art Cities' 2nd Best in the World, 2024. 

The now iconic mural painted by artist Peachzz, adorns the side of the Cubo building, overlooking Pound's Park in Sheffield City Centre and was unveiled back in June last year to much praise by Sheffielders. 

The artwork itself, inspired by the local Sheffield canal systems and waterways, is named 'Reverie' - a daydream, becoming lost in the beauty of your surroundings -a fitting tribute as the mural was originally  commissioned to celebrate Sheffield's Festival of the Outdoors, which actually returns for the 2025 edition in March.  

Featuring a kingfisher and a heron, the mural remains Peachzz's largest to date, measuring 25.5 x 9 meters (225 square meters) as well as being Sheffield's tallest piece of street art. 

Painted back in June 2024, the mural took 10 straight days of work to complete, and was created with support from street artist ENSO.

Close-up of a painted brick wall featuring part of a mural with blue and green water-like patterns. The word ‘PEACHZZ’ is written vertically in white letters on the right side. At the bottom, a yellow and green block of text reads ‘Sheffield Festival of the Outdoors .’
Photo credit Steel City Snapper


The world's largest urban art community, Street Art Cities celebrates the most popular street art across the world. They host both a dedicated website and app, that have been designed for avid street art hunters, encouraging users to explore both their own cities, as well as those they visit.

The mural clinched the top spot for June 2024, which meant it was automatically entered into Street Art Cities' 'Best Global Street Art of Year 2024'. 

Voting was open to the public throughout the whole of January 2025 and Peachzz was originally placed 4th in the world, however the ranking was updated on 5 February as Street Art Cities reported instances where "users have engaged in methods to inflate vote counts for certain candidates". As a result, Peachzz's artwork was rightfully re-ranked as 2nd Best in the World. See Street Art Cities official statement here. 

On creating the mural in Sheffield, Peachzz (who's real name is Megan Rusell) said: "It was an incredible feeling painting something so tall in my town. I absolutely adore creating large-scale artwork its when I’m at my happiest.


"Sheffield holds a special place in my heart, and I will forever cherish the moments shared with passersby who stopped to say hello. The overwhelming support from the city has been incredibly uplifting, the people here are wonderful.


Colourful mural of a kingfisher in flight painted on a brick wall, with text overlay reading ‘Best Murals of the World,’ ‘Peachzz Reverie,’ and ‘Sheffield, United Kingdom.’ Additional text at the top says ‘Best of 2024 Peoples’ Choice #2.’






Artist wearing a cap and dark hoodie working on a colorful mural of a bird on a brick wall, using spray paint while standing on a metal platform.
photo credit Street Art Atlas

Photo credit Street Art Atlas

Sheffield street art inspiration 

A graduate of Sheffield Hallam University, Peachzz 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. 

Describing 'Reverie' she said: "The themes around this wall are of nature and home. Sheffield has one of the highest numbers of students coming to university and then settling here, I always found that a profound fact about this city and I am one of those people.

"The city is so full of nature being one of the greenest cities in Europe holding 4.5 million trees and with the peaks 5 minutes down the road it's easy to see why I painted this familiar garden bird nesting with the national park peaking in the background".

Reverie' isn't the only mural Peachzz has painted in Sheffield, with her work visible in sveral prominent places, such as Walkley, London Road and next to Sheffield Interchange and Sheffield Hallam University. 

To see more of Peachzz's work in Sheffield, you can view a gallery of her murals over on the Street Art Sheffield website here and if you're interested in which other Sheffield artists and pieces of artwork inspire her, she's mapped her favourites on Google Maps here. 

Large colorful mural on a brick wall depicting a vibrant scene with flowers, birds, a snail shell, and architectural elements under a twilight sky. A street sign reading ‘London Road’ is visible at the bottom right, and a tree partially frames the mural on the left.
Photo credit Steel City Snapper

Lick of Paint Fest is coming

Aside to lending her talents to many amazing mural projects in Sheffield and beyond, Megan is also one of the co-founders of Lick of Paint, alongside fellow Sheffield artist Alastair Flindall (Neck of Wood Studios).

A brand-new street art festival for Sheffield, they plan to launch fully in 2025, with local and international creating art installations across the city.  They're currently busy working behind the scenes to put plans in place. Follow them for more info on their social channels @LickofPaintFest. 

Cartoon-style illustration on a yellow background showing a green paint can with arms, legs, and eyes, spilling a long pink tongue-like stream of paint. Black text beside it reads ‘LICK OF PAINT 25.

 

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