Gold Star by Andy Leek. All images courtesy of Andy Leek.Artist Andy Leek never got a gold star in school, so in adulthood, he’s made it a personal mission to share his lost approval with the works of others. Suspecting that others might seek the gratitude he does through art, for his Gold Star Project, he’s finding the best of East London’s street art and marking it with giant, shiny gold stars and the exclamation “Well done!”
One great thing about street art is it enables, even requires, dialogue between artists, some commissioned, and some, like Leek's, technically vandalism. But by cheekily taking the aesthetics of the kindergarten classroom into the street, Leek has nothing but positive intentions. He tells The Creators Project the work “is inspired by my experience of the inadequacies in the school system for handling creative children.”How did Leek choose which works to award gold stars? He explains that he was drawn to the skill of photorealism, the beauty of self-expression of abstractions, and the uniqueness of tags that stand out among layers and layers of multiple hands. “I guess the one common thing about all of the art was that they made me feel something when I saw them. I spent days walking around scouting for pieces I loved, and must have looked at hundreds of pieces,” he says.So, if you’re heading to the Shoreditch, Brixton, or Waterloo neighborhoods of London anytime soon, keep an eye out for Leek’s gold stars. Check out images of the Gold Star Project and some incredible public murals below.
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