Deadly Knitshade (a.k.a Lauren O’Farrell) is a colourful-haired comics creator, writer, crafty street artist and author from London, UK. She lives and works in Crystal Palace, where she is butler to a small black cat. She has absolutely no formal art school training, and stumbled into her street art career during a three-year battle with cancer, countering medical needles with her own needles, scissors, and pointy writing implements. She claims the radiotherapy gave her eerie arty superpowers. Deadly Knitshade apologises in advance if any of her art tries to eat you.
Comics and other scribblings
A great lover of comics since she was a tiny urchin, when she could be found happily buried in a pile of Beanos, Oinks, and Snoopy books, Knitshade only started comics in earnest when the lockdown life of 2020 forced everyone indoors. She has self published mini comics, sneaked into anthologies, and is a member of the WIP Comics Collective. She is also co-organising an LGBT+ Comics Fair in London soon (details TBC). More about her comics stuff here.
Street Art and Other Artiness
Knitshade’s weird, and often woolly, tactile art ranges from giant knitted squid, to button-based mosaics, to fuzzy felt monster murals. Alongside her street art pieces, she has also created commissions for big brands such as London’s Natural History and Science museums, Nintendo, John Lewis, and Saatchi and Saatchi, as well as several celebrity clients, and many charities including Save the Children, the NSPCC, Cancer Research, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, and Comic Relief. She was also part of the team that created Chewbacca’s costume for Star Wars: The Force Awakens and will never get over how cool that is. Never ever. *insert Wookiee noise here*
Private Commissions
Knitshade has worked on private commissions for the likes of Richard Curtis and Emma Freud, Emma Thompson, and Emma Kennedy. She does work for people who aren’t called Emma too. This is just a weird coincidence, which possibly has a deeper meaning no one will fathom for 10000 years. When asked for an endorsement, British screenwriter, producer and film director Richard Curtis said of Knitshade’s work “I like Deadly Knitshade’s art more than I like my own children.” Please be assured, he likes his own children very much indeed.
Deadly on the Tellybox
A 2021 BBC Craftivist documentary featured Knitshade’s street art and saw her sneaking about Crystal Palace Park with Jenny Eclair, installing fuzzy felt monsters while giggling wildly. Her art is playful and unexpectedly lovable in her bid to help change the world with a grin rather than a grimace.
(Scroll down for BBC video on Knitshade’s craftivism and street art)
Knitshade likes to write about herself in the third person. It pleases the horrifying beast that is her imposter syndrome.