Purchase the Slawn cover of Hypebeast Magazine #37: The Architects Issue.

Ed Worley, better known as Opake, is sitting on a couch in the studio while the sharp hiss of a spray can cuts through. We are talking about the new Hypebeast Magazine #37 cover. Slawn made it clear from the jump that he wasn’t doing it unless Opake was part of the process. It was a move born purely from brotherhood. For Slawn, there was no version of this cover that didn’t feature the man he calls his twin.

Opake started writing graffiti at 13, but his life became a decade-long blur of heavy addiction. He spent eight years living on the streets, consumed by drugs, and was by his own admission unemployable until he hit 30 and stepped in to be a father. That responsibility changed everything. He started working 19-hour days in the studio because painting was the only tool he had left to survive. He found a meditative state in the tight symmetrical linework that allowed him to manage his ADHD and stay present for the first time in his life.

Opake’s entry into the London scene really kicked off with a trip to Slawn’s studio. He brought a painting along as a gift, but the two of them ended up just talking for hours about life and the fact that they were both sober. That one meeting turned into a daily routine. Now they are boxing on a Brick Lane rooftop every morning and the art is just a byproduct of that friendship.

Back then, Opake’s work was built on what he calls the theory of insanity: repeating the same image over and over while looking for a different result. He used characters like Mickey Mouse and Elmer Fudd because he wanted the work to be something his son or his grandmother could understand. His style was originally all about tight, symmetrical lines, but Slawn eventually pushed him to ditch the perfectionism and try a needle cap. It is a messy, unpredictable tool that forced Opake to move away from his usual discipline.

You can see that change in his 2024 takeover of The Big Issue. He redesigned the cover and used the pages to talk about his own history with homelessness, turning the same magazine he once used to survive into a personal canvas. By the time he got to Miami Art Week in 2025, he was showing “Heroes, Villains & Violence” in Wynwood. He was mixing hand-painted boxing gloves with massive portraits of Iron Man and Snow White, using those childhood icons to map out his own struggle with recovery. It showed he could keep his mental focus while letting the actual paint get a lot more chaotic.

Now the stakes are shifting again. We talk about the upcoming SAI Gallery show in Shibuya where they are taking over the space with 500 hand-painted skateboards and a quarter pipe and a car they plan to smash up. It’s a full-scale invasion of the Tokyo scene in collaboration with Beams including a photo book to document the whole journey — a natural next step after the Hypebeast cover where clean lines meet the riot of the needle cap. Hypebeast sat down with Opake to discuss his brotherhood with Slawn, the reality of his recovery, and why he still needs to run 100 miles a week to keep the noise at bay.

“[Slawn] was the person who enabled me to take the risk.” – Opake

Hypebeast: Tell me about your creative background, your artist journey and how you ended up where you are now.

Opake: I started writing graffiti at about the age of 13. I’m a firm believer that I was born an addict, and when I find things I like, that’s it, I obsess over it. I found graffiti at such a young age and didn’t want to do anything else. Luckily, I got sent to a really good school in the UK with an amazing art department. But then, from about 16 to 30, it was just a chaotic mess of heavy drug use. I ended up homeless on and off for eight years, smoking crack every day for about 10 years. One thing I tried to maintain was painting, but it fell off because my mental health was so bad. When I got to 30, I met my partner. She had a one year old, and I essentially stepped in to be that kid’s dad. I wanted to be a decent father and I needed that responsibility. I had nothing to fall back on, I was unemployable. The only thing I knew how to do was paint and draw. I threw myself into it the same way I pursued addiction—18, 19 hour days in my studio just painting. It was built through desperation.

Art can be a form of therapy. Would you say it saved your life?

100%. I’d be dead without it. When I first got clean, meditation was a big part of recovery. I have bad ADHD, so sitting still is hard. But with the work I became known for — tight linework, pursuit of perfection, symmetrical images it put me in a meditative state. I’d be completely present. My issue with my addiction was that I could never ever be present, I’d always try to escape. The process outweighed the outcome because it was so beneficial to me getting better. Then I met Slawn. We became close, and he pushed the idea of loosening up the style. [Slawn] was the person who enabled me to take the risk. I’d gotten so set in my ways of “this is what I’m known for.” He’s like my twin brother; I respect him so much. I needed someone of that caliber to tell me I could do it.

How did you and Slawn meet?

I got invited to his studio. I took a painting for him as a gift. We sat down and just talked for three hours about all sorts of shit. He realized I’d been sober for nearly nine years and that I boxed. We built a relationship on positive shit — boxing on the rooftop of his house in Brick Lane every morning. The artwork we make together is just a byproduct of our friendship.

You both use cartoon characters. Where does your reference point differ from his?

My work is based on Einstein’s theory of insanity—repeating the same action over and over expecting a different outcome. That’s how a drug addict lives. I take cartoon characters and repeat the same image over and over but creating a different outcome. When I was homeless, I felt incredibly lonely and outside of society. I wanted my art to be accessible to everyone—my two year old has to understand it and my grandmother has to be allowed to look at it. Iconic cartoon characters are the best way to achieve that. Slawn’s work is more about who he is. He is the forefront of his product. I was always about “work facing forward.” Recently, I’ve started painting with a needle cap—smallest amount of pressure, freehand. It explodes with drips and blemishes. It’s freeing. I’ve moved so far away from the chaos and the madness that I lived for so long that I felt I was going to stagnate. I still need to grow. That growth still needs to be there. And for me, that comes from suffering. I run 100 miles a week, I box—I try to find that suffering in a controlled manner.

“The collaboration is actually what gave me the balls to start doing the needle cap stuff on my own. It taught me that the ‘mistakes’ are usually the most interesting part of the painting.”

Tell me about the Japan show.

We’re going to launch it later this year. We have a collaboration with Beams. We’re doing 500 hand-painted skateboards. It’s based around skating culture. We have a space in Shibuya at the SAI Gallery. We’re going to put a quarter pipe in the middle of the exhibition, maybe buy a car and smash it up and have people skate off it. We’re going to make a photo book of the whole journey. We want to do all of Asia—Taipei, Hong Kong, Seoul, China.

When you look at the collaboration boards or the pieces you’ve done with Slawn for things like the Hypebeast cover, how does that change your personal “perfectionist” mindset?

It forces me to let go. When it’s just me, I can spend hours obsessing over a single line. When I’m working with him, it’s more like a conversation. He’ll do something that completely breaks the “rules” I’ve set for myself, and at first, I’ll panic, but then I realize that’s where the energy is. That’s what’s been missing. The collaboration is actually what gave me the balls to start doing the needle cap stuff on my own. It taught me that the “mistakes” are usually the most interesting part of the painting.

You mentioned the needle cap quite a bit. For people who aren’t familiar with the technical side of spray painting, why is that such a big shift for you?

A needle cap is essentially the opposite of what most people want when they’re trying to do “clean” art. It’s unpredictable. It leaks, it spatters, and it puts out a very thin, pressurized stream of paint that’s hard to control. For years, I used the most precise caps I could find because I wanted to prove I had total control. Using a needle cap is an admission that I don’t have control. It’s like the paint is doing its own thing and I’m just trying to keep up. It’s messy, it’s vulnerable, and it mirrors the reality of life much better than a perfect line ever could.

“If I don’t move my body and push myself until it hurts, my brain gets too loud. I start overthinking every brushstroke.” – Opake

You talk about running 100 miles a week and boxing. How does that physical intensity translate back into the studio?

It clears the static. If I don’t move my body and push myself until it hurts, my brain gets too loud. I start overthinking every brushstroke. When I come into the studio after a 20-mile run or a heavy sparring session, I’m physically tired, which actually helps me paint more instinctively. I don’t have the energy to be a perfectionist anymore. I just paint. It’s about maintaining that discipline. Addiction is a full-time job, it takes up every second of your day. Recovery has to be the same way. If I’m not pushing myself in the gym or on the road, I feel that old restless energy coming back, and I have to put that somewhere positive.

What do you want people to take away from the Japan show and the photo book you’re putting together?

I want them to see the journey. Not just the shiny finished boards in the gallery, but the sweat, the travel, the arguments, the failures. I want it to feel real. Skating culture is perfect for that because it’s built on falling down and getting back up. That’s been my whole life. If someone looks at my work and just thinks, “Oh, that’s a cool Mickey Mouse,” that’s fine. But if they see the repetition and the drips and they feel the struggle behind it, then I’ve really done my job.

If you were to give advice to your younger self or an aspiring artist, what would it be?

Don’t smoke crack! But seriously, just keep working. Small bits of progression every day. And experiment. Don’t take it too seriously. As soon as you start taking that shit too seriously, you’re fucked. Just have fun. If you’re not enjoying the process, the outcome doesn’t matter. Find people who push you, like Slawn pushed me and don’t be afraid to break your own rules.

Read our full cover story on the art provocateurs here, and purchase Slawn’s cover of Hypebeast Magazine #37: The Architects Issue on HBX.