On turning curiosity, community and street culture into a global movement Lee Bofkin CEO, Global Street Art

Lee Bofkin is the CEO and co-founder of Global Street Art, Europe’s leading painting company who’s produced over 3000 public artworks for global brands, working with world class artists – and on a mission to live in painted cities.

But what makes Lee interesting isn’t just the company he's built. It’s the way he thinks. 

For context, Lee is a former UK breakdancer with a PhD in Evolutionary Mathematics and passionate documentarian, turned co founder - oh and his dog is called Paintbrush. Love it!

This episode isn’t just about street art, it’s about heart, craft and the sheer determination of what it takes to build and sustain a business slap bang at the intersection of art and commerce. 

Lee shares the happenstance of meeting his co-founder, how in the early days he was scaling iconic buildings with street artists come rain, sleet and shine, as well as supporting the now recognisable names in culture before they got famous, like Sam, AKA Mr Doodle, Gary Stranger & Marija Tiurina - to now, needing to take a more birds-eye view on the business and its P+L… a familiar story to founders ;)

At GSA, Lee has built the system that connects artists, cities and organisations - turning something that once existed on the fringes into a recognised part of the cultural economy. For the last 12 years GSA has grown globally in size and stature to be commissioned by the who’s who in brand land from Valentino to Spotify, Burberry to Netflix, we’re talking Don Julio x Peggy Gou murals, to Fendi takeovers in the Miami Design District. 

On GSA channels, they describe themselves as “Human-powered and handmade"– and in this conversation with Lee, we know you’ll hear and feel the humanity all over it!

So, hit the play button and meet the incomparable Dr. Lee Bofkin.

Follow @globalstreetart & @leebofkininspo

Thoughts on the episode? DM us @creativebloodworld