Slawn brings three monumental 5 x 5-metre paintings to New York—including the work behind Nike’s Nigerian national team kit—as the World Cup reaches its final weekend.
Opening on 16th July 2026 at 456 West 18th Street in Chelsea, Slawn on W18th will be Saatchi Yates‘s inaugural exhibition in New York, developed in partnership with Nike, timed to coincide with the final weekend of the FIFA World Cup.
At the centre of the exhibition are three vast 5 x 5 metre paintings that push Slawn’s signature crowd-of-faces motif to architectural scale. Rendered in acid green, black-on-white, and smoky charcoal greyscale, the densely layered compositions swarm with overlapping cartoon faces, eyes, and looping lines.
One of those paintings has already travelled far beyond the gallery. Earlier this year, Nike commissioned Slawn to design the official Nigerian national team football kit for the World Cup, taking the design directly from a work included in the exhibition.
Transferring Slawn’s visual language onto the shirts of the Super Eagles places the artist’s work at the centre of one of the world’s biggest sporting events. Visitors to the New York exhibition will now be able to see the original source work as the tournament reaches its conclusion.
Born in Lagos in 2000 and based in London, Slawn has rapidly built a practice that moves between contemporary art, fashion, music and sport. Combining Yoruba heritage, youth culture and satirical social commentary, his paintings are known for their raw energy, bold colour and instantly recognisable frowning caricatures.
That world has increasingly expanded beyond the canvas. Slawn has built a global following through irreverent interventions into luxury culture, creating reimagined versions of brands including Rolex, Louis Vuitton and Rimowa as a playful critique of consumerism.
His growing presence in British culture has also included designing the 2023 BRIT Awards trophy—becoming the youngest artist to do so—and redesigning the FA Cup in 2024, the first artist commissioned for the role. More recently, his work appeared on 21 Savage’s 2025 album What Happened to the Streets?
Championed by figures including Skepta, Central Cee, Dave, A$AP Rocky and Wizkid, Slawn has developed a following that cuts across the traditional divisions between art, music, fashion and sport.
Slawn on W18th brings those worlds together at their largest scale yet. The timing may place the exhibition alongside football’s biggest event, but the three monumental paintings reveal the source of the imagery before it became a kit, a global image and part of the spectacle of the World Cup.
Slawn on W18th, opening 16th July 2026
at 456 West 18th Street, New York.
Presented by Saatchi Yates
and developed in partnership with Nike.
About the artist
Slawn (b. 2000, Lagos) is a London-based artist whose work fuses his Nigerian heritage with contemporary youth culture, operating deliberately outside the conventions of the traditional art world. Known for bold, primary-coloured portraits and his iconic frowning caricatures, Slawn creates instinctive, raw paintings that blend psychedelic, jazz-like patterns with satirical observations of modern society. Alongside his paintings, he has built a devoted global following through irreverent interventions into luxury culture, releasing defaced versions of brands such as Rolex, Louis Vuitton and Rimowa as a wry commentary on consumer culture. His practice quickly gained international attention, leading to a series of high-profile commissions, including designing the 2023 Brit Awards statuette, redesigning the English FA Cup, and lending artwork to 21 Savage’s 2025 album What Happened to the Streets?. Slawn has attracted a global, cult-like following across art, music, fashion and sport, cementing his status as a pivotal and provocative figure in contemporary visual culture.
