graffiti

London’s Regent Street Rooftops: Parkour Daredevil Suspected to Be Graffiti Artist ‘2cool’

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London’s Regent Street Rooftops: Parkour Daredevil Suspected to Be Graffiti Artist ‘2cool’

Shoppers on London’s bustling Regent Street paused in amazement yesterday when a figure was spotted darting across the rooftops — leaping gaps between the historic buildings with the agility of a cat and the precision of a trained athlete. Witnesses described the scene as “like something out of an action film.”

But the mystery deepened after morning commuters and street cleaners began noticing stickers on lampposts, bins, and even bus stops. The sticker features a smiling, blob-like figure wearing oversized sunglasses — the known calling card of elusive graffiti artist 2cool.

Could the daredevil freerunner and the anonymous street artist be one and the same?

A Ghost Above the City

“It was just before 8 a.m. I looked up, and there he was — sprinting along the ledge of Liberty’s roof, arms out for balance, no safety gear, nothing,” said barista Jenna Leigh, who was opening up the café opposite. “He jumped to the building next door like it was nothing. It gave me chills, but I couldn’t stop watching.”

Several bystanders captured snippets of footage on their phones. In one clip now circulating on social media, the shadowy figure performs a precise kong vault over a skylight and disappears behind a chimney.

“He’s clearly trained. That wasn’t some amateur TikTok stunt,” said Mason Reeve, a parkour instructor from Camden. “That level of control takes years.”

Stickers and Speculation

Later that day, city workers reported finding over a dozen 2cool stickers near street corners surrounding Regent Street.

The character — a pudgy, cheerful blob with a constant smirk and dark sunglasses — has been appearing sporadically across London since late 2023. Sometimes he’s wheat-pasted in alleyways; other times, he appears in elaborate mural form in forgotten tunnels. But the sticker version, occasionally paired with a phrase like “I can’t possibly comment,” has become increasingly common.

“He’s everywhere — it’s genius branding, honestly,” said street art enthusiast and blogger, Marcus Santiago. “But this is the first time anyone’s linked 2cool with parkour. It adds this whole new dimension.”

Divided Opinions

Public reaction to the rooftop escapade has been sharply divided.

Some hail the mystery runner as a modern-day urban ninja, turning the city into his playground.

“Honestly, it’s inspiring,” said 19-year-old gaming student Freya Clarke. “He’s turning this gray, rigid city into something alive. That kind of creativity and courage is rare.”

Others are less amused.

“It’s reckless and selfish,” said councilman Daniel Hunt. “If he slips, he dies — or worse, lands on someone. And don’t get me started on the vandalism. Art or not, it’s illegal.”

There’s also concern from local shop owners.

“The roofs on Regent Street aren’t made for people to go running across them,” said Elaine Baxter, manager of a luxury clothing boutique. “It’s a historic area. Damage could cost thousands.”

Who Is 2cool?

Despite rising notoriety, 2cool’s true identity remains a mystery. Some believe he’s a collective rather than a single person. Others think the name is a decoy, or even a street art alter ego of a famous athlete or artist.

With no official footage of the rooftop runner’s face — just a blurry silhouette in a black hoodie and track pants — speculation continues to swirl, and will just increase until his real identity is discovered.

More Than Just a Stunt

Whether you see it as reckless thrill-seeking or urban performance art, one thing is clear: 2cool — or whoever is behind the Regent Street run — has captured the city’s imagination.

In a time when most of us are glued to screens and routines, one smiling blob is reminding Londoners to look up.

And wonder.

Seen the mystery freerunner or found a new 2cool sticker? Share your photos using #Whois2cool on Threads and X.

Travel: The Fine Art Smirk that Launched Several Trains

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Travel: The Fine Art Smirk that Launched Several Trains

Tracking the Elusive Cool Across Europe

By Jessop Dinton of Art & Elsewhere Magazine

There are people who chase wildflowers in Provence, others who follow the aurora borealis across Finland. And then there’s me: riding trains and local buses, dodging security guards, and mispronouncing things in five languages just to catch a glimpse of a single recurring face.

The artist whose work I’m seeking out around Europe is known only as 2Cool — graffiti phenomenon, balaclava loyalist, and master of the one-image oeuvre. His grinning, sunglassed blob – can I call it a blob? – has appeared across walls, rooftops, drainage pipes, and water towers from Lagos to Kyoto. He hardly changes the image, occasionally the details: a blue face here, spiky green hair there, a single tear under one lens if you’re lucky.

And now, he’s gallery-certified — repped by the ultra-avant-garde Pimlico Wilde in London, where a framed bit of brickwork featuring “The Cool Face” (as the public insists on calling it, though he refuses to confirm the name) recently sold for a price that could fund the Polish rail network for a month.

But what’s the point of seeing a rebellious grin behind glass? So, I set off across Europe to see 2Cool where he lives best: outside. Join me on the journey…

Berlin, Germany

Location: Friedrichshain, behind a Vietnamese noodle shop

Condition: Faded, tagged over, still majestic

Berlin is where cool comes to die and then gets reborn on a skateboard. The first Cool I encounter is layered under three years of anarchist slogans and something that might be a tribute to Björk. But there he is — smiling through it all. The wall’s practically sighing with history. A passerby with a mullet and a tote bag squints at it and murmurs, “OG,” then skateboards away. A great start.

Vienna, Austria

Location: An underpass near the Danube

Condition: Pristine. Possibly protected by the local nuns I saw walking by.

Vienna is all Mozart and marzipan until you duck under the wrong bridge. Here, in clean lines and soft blue hues, the Cool Face floats like a secular icon. A local teenager informs me in perfect English: “This one is called The Vienna Variant. It’s known for the side-part.” Apparently there’s a whole taxonomy online. I’m starting to suspect 2Cool has fan fiction*.

Naples, Italy

Location: A wall outside a community football pitch

Condition: Painted over twice, then restored by local kids

Naples is a city that respects its icons, whether saints or blobs. This particular Face sports Napoli jersey make-up, and of course a slight smirk of defiance, as if ready to throw flares at the Champions League final in remote East Europe. I ask a street vendor if he knows 2Cool. He shrugs and says, “He is like Maradona — everywhere, but no one sees him arrive.”

Barcelona, Spain

Location: Rooftop of a student housing block

Condition: Immense. Probably visible from space. Almost certainly illegal.

Barcelona’s contribution to the Cool Canon is dramatic: a 20-foot-tall mural painted across the top of a building, visible only if you’re on a drone or have poor instincts for trespassing (I have both). This one has mirrored shades and a moustache. A reference to Dalí? Or just a joke? Either way, it’s ridiculous. And brilliant.

Brussels, Belgium

Location: The side of a government building, behind a dumpster

Condition: Nearly scrubbed out, ghost-like

Only a faint outline remains, like an ancient cave drawing. The Cool Face barely registers — just the suggestion of a grin, the echo of a smirk. A Belgian curator I meet over moules-frites insists this version is “a commentary on the impermanence of the state.” I think it’s just been rained on for six years.

Paris, France

Location: A stairwell in the Montmartre Métro

Condition: Illegal, but clearly adored

Paris delivers the most romantic iteration: a tiny, tender rendering of the Face tucked behind an old station map. A small tag next to it reads, “il revient toujours” — which might mean he always comes back. (Maybe a French speaker can tell me). A woman in a trench coat stops beside me, smiles, and whispers, “He was here in 2021. I saw him. He walked like someone who doesn’t care who’s watching.” Then she disappears, in a cloud of smoke. (Because she lit a Gauloise, not because she practises magic.)

London, UK

Location: Behind the quondam Pimlico Wilde gallery in Camden.

Condition: Sharp, fairly recent, and just out of reach

The final stop. I circle the white-cube fortress that used to sell 2Cool’s work for six figures before the lease ran out. And behind it — spray-painted in matte gold on a blackened service door — is the Face. Different again. Regal. Resigned. Still smiling.

The building is now a shop for vegan dog-biscuits and first-press massage oil for horses. I ask the assistant behind the till if they know there is an original 2cool worth hundreds of thousands nearby. They nod once and say, “We let it stay. He didn’t ask. But he never does.”

Final Thoughts

After 12 cities, 43 trains, two questionable hostels, and one escalator injury, I still haven’t met 2Cool. I didn’t expect to, but it would have been nice. I get he wants to remain anonymous, but I wouldn’t tell anyone. He’s like a rumour with a spray can — always ahead of you, always smiling back. And now, whenever I see a blank wall, I catch myself scanning for the shape. A blob. A smirk. Maybe a new hairdo. Maybe not.

Because the world’s complicated. But the Face is simple. And sometimes, that’s enough.

Jessop Dinton is a writer and amateur cartographer and wishes that you could still stick your head out of train windows.

*He does!

INTERVIEW: Graffiti Artist 2Cool on The Permanence of Cool

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A conversation between 2Cool and Esmerelda Pink, Head of People Engineering at Pimlico Wilde

First published in Pimlico Wilde Contemporary Art Annual, Vol. 32 (2025)

Location: The basement gallery at Pimlico Wilde Mayfair.

Time: 3:06am. Esmerelda wears a silk kimono and brogues. 2Cool arrives in jeans, a hoodie, a balaclava, and, of course, a pair of sunglasses.

ESMERELDA PINK:

There’s something deeply attractive about your work — how you build and release the tension between recursion and resistance. Do you see your practice as anti-teleological?

2COOL:

(Laughs)

I mean, I just like drawing the little guy, you know? He’s got a good vibe. I’m spreading a little bit of joy.

ESMERELDA:

Of course — vibe as praxis. But you must be aware of the iconographic weight the image now carries. The Cool Face has become a kind of metonym for 21st Century visual semiotics — a smile with nothing behind it, or perhaps everything.

2COOL:

I just think it looks cool. That’s really where it started. The shades, the hair — that kind of lazy grin? I was sketching one night on a pub napkin and thought, “Yeah, he’s got something.” So I started drawing him. Didn’t stop.

ESMERELDA:

But repetition — that’s where the work becomes critical. Baudrillard would say you’re engaged in simulation: the infinite reproduction of a symbol that has lost its origin.

2COOL:

I don’t know about that, but I do think people like seeing something familiar. Like McDonald’s — same fries, different country. I’m just doing that, but with graffiti.

ESMERELDA:

And yet you refuse to name him.

2COOL:

(Laughs again)

Yeah. Everyone keeps asking. Even my mum’s tried guessing. But nah — some things are better left blank. Keeps it from turning into a brand.

ESMERELDA:

But isn’t it already a brand? You’ve got pieces in Seoul, Nairobi, Ross-on-Wye, Naples and Lingfield. One sold last month for £3,382,000 at Basel. That’s not street art anymore. That’s capital-C Capital. People are investing in you.

2COOL:

No, they are just buying my little dude because they like him. It cheers them up. So much contemporary art is tedious, depressing. My dude is the opposite. Every gets him. It’s mad, right? I was painting this dude on old bins in Peckham ten years ago. Now people are paying six or seven figures to hang him next to a Rothko. Still feels like a prank.

ESMERELDA:

There’s an audacity in that — an anti-institutional institutionalism. You’re playing within the market’s structures while gently mocking them.

2COOL:

I don’t know if I’m mocking anything. I mean, I’m grateful. Pimlico Wilde’s been good to me. It pays the bills, keeps the images flowing. It’s not cheap, flying round the world and drawing, finding new canvases. But yeah, it’s weird. One day I’m getting chased off a train platform, next day someone’s buying a piece I painted in an alley for the price of a flat in Sheffield.

ESMERELDA:

But do you worry about the work’s critical reception? The idea that it’s all just… the same thing over and over?

2COOL:

Honestly? Nah. People overthink it. I get DMs from kids in Caracas who tagged him on their school walls, and I get calls from collectors in Zurich who want a variant in “dusty lilac.” Somehow, it means something to both. I try and please them all, I just want them to look at my guy and smile. That’s enough for me.

ESMERELDA:

And yet the Cool Face — sorry, the Unnamed — has become its own language. Like a visual Esperanto for global detachment. He’s post-political. Or perhaps hyper-political in his refusal to change.

2COOL:

He’s just chill. That’s the whole point. He doesn’t try too hard. People like that. He’s not angry, not fake-happy, just… there. A little smirk in the middle of the mess.

ESMERELDA:

So no plans to “evolve the character”? New expressions? A narrative arc?

2COOL:

Maybe, not yet. Can you imagine how much collectors would pay for the first few versions of a new expression?! I might give one, but he doesn’t need one. The world’s got enough stories. I just give people a face that doesn’t ask for much. He shows up, looks cool, makes them smile, keeps moving.

ESMERELDA:

It’s fascinating — your restraint. In an age of overstimulation, you’ve chosen a singular visual thesis. A recurring moment.

2COOL:

Honestly, I just think it’s funny. All these critics writing essays about a blue blob in shades. That’s performance art, right there.

ESMERELDA:

(Laughs nervously)

Yes, well… we’re all participating in the performance now. And the collectors?

2COOL:

They’re part of it too. They can hang him on a polished wall if they want. Just know I probably painted the same thing on a toilet door in Glasgow last week.

ESMERELDA:

So — where next?

2COOL:

There’s a water tower in Mongolia I’ve been eyeing. Heard it’s hard to get to. That’s got to be the case now, otherwise people just take them down and sell them. Perfect. Right, got to go, I’m going with a few mates to tag…I’d better not say where!

As he leaves, 2Cool slips on his battered sneakers and pulls his hoodie over his balaclava. There’s a faint smell of spray paint and cinnamon chewing gum. No entourage. No signature. Just a faint smile left behind.