Places people remember being in
I make large-scale public artworks for places in the middle of change. New developments, high streets under regeneration, routes people avoid, buildings nobody looks at twice.
The work starts from local research and lived history, and what goes on the wall is an authored artwork rather than a summary of a consultation. The aim is a landmark: something people navigate by, photograph, argue about, and come back to.
Accepting commissions for 2027.
Commissioned by councils, developers and cultural partners across the UK, Ireland and Internationally.
Places & Spaces
Regeneration & Civic Identity
Projects supporting town centres, estates and civic spaces going through renewal. Story-led artworks act as visible markers of identity, helping communities recognise themselves within change and feel invested in what comes next.
Relevant for: councils, regeneration teams, long-term development schemes
Infrastructure Change & Public Understanding
Places going through visible change, from new infrastructure to environmental intervention. Story-led artworks help explain what is happening, reduce resistance, and build public care for shared assets.
Relevant for: councils, infrastructure partners, developers
Routes, Gateways & Wayfinding
Projects about movement through space: stairways, passages, thresholds, arrival points. Reframing how a route feels and reads turns art into a tool for safety, orientation and renewed use.
Relevant for: public realm teams, transport-adjacent sites, access improvements
Activation & Footfall
Targeted artworks designed to shift behaviour, increasing visitation, dwell time and visibility for underused areas. Often used where modest intervention unlocks significant social or economic impact.
Relevant for: developers, local businesses, BIDs, cultural programmes
A place can look finished, and still feel like nowhere
When a development completes or an established place gets a reset, the thing most likely to go missing is its sense of story. Without that, even an ambitious project can feel rootless. People move through it without feeling any ownership over it.
Public art is supposed to close that gap. Often it widens it. A mural arrives that could have been painted in any town in the country, or a brief gets processed through so many stakeholders that the final image becomes a list of everyone's contributions, legible to the people who supplied them and to almost nobody else.
What a place needs is one confident image with enough authority to become the thing people mean when they name the area.
About Shauna Anseo
I help places tell the truth about themselves.
I'm an Irish mural artist based in London, working across the UK, Ireland, Europe and the US. I came to murals from a previous career in arts management, at Tate and across museums, galleries and community festivals, which is why I'm comfortable inside a procurement process, a stakeholder group and a planning constraint.
Mythmaking is how I work. I find the story a place already holds, in local history, folklore, or the life of someone who lives there, and I paint it at a scale that makes it difficult to walk past.
Fully insured and certified for work at height, experienced with highway licences and parking suspensions, and used to delivering on live public sites on time and on budget.
Photo © StreetArtAtlas
How a Commission Works
1. Project conversation You tell me what you're building or reviving, who it's for, the constraints you're working inside, and what you need the space to do. I'll tell you honestly whether it's a fit.
2. Research and story development Local research, archives, stakeholder insight, and community participation where it genuinely serves the work. I'm looking for the one detail or story that opens the whole site up.
3. Design and direction Concepts developed with clear checkpoints, so stakeholders can review and refine direction before anything is locked in.
4. Delivery Produced on site with professional materials and specialist finishes, with the access, licensing and logistics managed.
5. Legacy A landmark that keeps working: recognised, used, navigated by, photographed, and part of how the place describes itself.
Selected Case Studies & Testimonials
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Westcliff on Sea, Shore & Sky
A neglected public route transformed into a bright, navigable landmark rooted in local nature.
Outcome: A neglected and avoided stairway was transformed into a safe, recognisable route reconnecting the town with the seafront.Key Takeaway: A story-led intervention reactivated a neglected pedestrian route, improving safety, wayfinding, and community ownership without relying on physical redevelopment.
Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, UK -
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The Weaver
A story-led landmark celebrating women, diversity, and local textile heritage.
Outcome: The end of Ilford Lane became a destination, with a landmark mural celebrating South Asian women, cultural diversity and community cohesion and repositioned a neglected space as a place of pride, visibility, and belonging.Key Takeaway: Deep, site-specific storytelling can build community buy-in and civic pride in complex, diverse neighbourhoods: even under political sensitivity and tight timelines.
Ilford Lane, London. -
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Berba: Goddess of the Barrow
A transformation myth used to mirror a town’s moment of change and renewal.
Outcome: A landmark mural marking Athy’s moment of transformation, honouring the town’s river heritage while looking confidently toward its future.Key Takeaway: Aligning regeneration with local myth created a symbolic marker for change, reinforcing continuity and identity during a town-centre transformation.
Athy, Co. Kildare, Ireland -
![A woman skateboards by a Mural in Camberwell]()
Wellspring
A mural marking entry to Camberwell celebrating the areas connection with healing waters & sacred springs.
Camberwell, London
“Ealing Beaver Project”
”Shauna’s work played a crucial role in helping the public understand and accept a complex change to a well-used local space. The murals were delivered within tight constraints, with clear communication throughout, and have significantly improved how people engage with the site.”
How I work
Research-led, authored outcome. Communities and stakeholders shape the work through what they tell me. The result is a single authored image, which is what gives it the authority to survive a stakeholder meeting and still mean something on the street.
Nothing generic. No stock multicultural imagery. No concept that could be relocated to another site without anyone noticing.
Clear checkpoints. You see and sign off the direction before paint touches the wall.
Delivered properly. Insured, licensed, certified, on time, on budget.
The practice behind the commissions
Alongside commissioned work I paint self-directed murals and exhibit and paint at festivals across Europe and beyond: Upfest, Waterford Walls, Yardworks, Weston Wallz, MOS France, Greece, Kosovo and Finland, Off the Wall, Prague, Juntas Hacemos Más in Lisbon and Mexico.
I'm a member of WOM Collective and teach spray painting at the London School of Muralism.
This is where the ideas get tested before they reach a commissioned wall.
Commissioners get a practice that's still developing rather than a style being repeated.
Festival directors, curators and collaborators: I'm open to invitations, collaborations, residencies and shows.
Start a Conversation
Whether you're at pre-planning on a regeneration scheme, tightening a brief, launching a new development, or looking at a wall you've walked past for years and known could be more, let's talk.
Press, festivals, and art enquiries are welcome too.