Liverpool-based mural artist John Culshaw has become one of the most recognisable figures in the city’s thriving street art scene. Known for his large-scale public artworks, Culshaw has created many of the football murals that have become landmarks around Anfield and across Liverpool.
His work celebrates players, managers, musicians and community heroes, combining striking realism with a strong connection to local culture. Among his most notable Liverpool FC-related pieces are murals dedicated to figures such as Mohamed Salah, Steven Gerrard, Jürgen Klopp and several other Reds icons, helping to transform the streets surrounding Anfield into an open-air gallery of football history.
Born and raised in Liverpool, Culshaw is a self-taught artist whose determination has inspired many. Despite losing the use of his right arm following a childhood accident, he developed a distinctive artistic style and has gone on to produce some of the city’s best-known public artworks.
Beyond football, his portfolio includes murals celebrating cultural figures such as Ringo Starr and Nelson Mandela, as well as community projects commissioned throughout Liverpool. His work continues to play an important role in preserving local stories, celebrating achievements and adding colour and identity to the city’s streets.
LFChistory.net bumped into him by chance as he was spray painting Andy Robertson to go with Mo Salah's and the image of Liverpool's 20th title on a small wall on Houlding Road.
Image copyright - Arnie Baldursson
How did you first get into mural arts and was that always something you wanted to pursue, professionally?
I didn't understand that anybody could do it professionally. I didn't really know that that was a career option when I was growing up. It was never on my radar, really. I'd like the younger kids to understand now, is that it is a viable career option. I do this full-time now.
How did your journey start?
My little lad was about five or six and I painted Spider-Man and stuff on his bedroom walls. A friend asked him about the wall painting then, another friend. I'd been painting kids' bedrooms and stuff for about a year. It was getting to the point where they were getting really popular and whether to chase my dream or stick. I was a painter and decorator at the time, so I decided that I was going to quit my job. I'd give it one year and see if it takes off. Luckily for me, after about two months, it was sort of clear that it was going to work out for me.
Did you study art or design at school?
I didn't really study anything at school, to be honest with you. The one thing I always enjoyed was drawing, so it's the only thing I ever done when I was at school. I didn't really do Maths or English or Science or anything like that. I was always just doodling at the back of my workbooks. Art was always something that I loved.
Your Klopp mural by the Sandon was a catalyst for you
When I made the decision to quit my job and to try and make a go of it, I thought I'm going to get out, find some walls and sort of paint whatever I want to paint. Obviously, being a Liverpool fan, the only one thing that I wanted to paint was Jürgen Klopp, so I got myself down to Anfield and found a wall. It's gone now, the Klopp mural. The building that it was on fell down. It's being rebuilt again now but obviously they couldn't put the mural back together.
As soon as I painted Jürgen Klopp, the work source just exploded from there. I was starting to get a lot of interest in what I was doing. I remember even Liverpool Football Club getting in touch with me, which to me was insane. I couldn't believe the way it was going. I'd only been doing it for almost a year, so I didn't know it was going to take off as well as it did. I think it was just a bit of good luck and good timing, sort of come together and boost my career in ways I couldn't imagine.
The building was branded "Klopp's Guest House" and Klopp's Boot Room. One listed address for it was 184 Oakfield Road, Liverpool L4 0UH, a short walk from the stadium.
Did Liverpool commission you to do something?
About a year later, they commissioned me to come and do some work in the AXA Training Centre. John Achterberg got in touch with me after I painted Steven Gerrard on the other side of the Sandon. Achterberg asked me to do something in the AXA Training Centre, which I was made up with. It just became a bit of a run-on job because it was all the keepers who had won trophies, got put on the wall. Every time they won another trophy, they'd put another keeper on it. It's a silly place to paint because they have all the sprinklers, so it's constantly ruining it all the time, but they like it, so every couple of years they get me back and I go back in and I touch it up and make sure it all looks fresh and stuff. I love getting back there.
After Culshaw finished painting the Luis Diaz mural on the Sandon in 2023 he revealed that he wanted to refresh the walls on the Sandon every year with the "Signing of the Season", "Player of the Season" and "the Fan’s Choice". Diaz was Culshaw's Signing of the Season. Diaz has disappeared as the plaster was falling off the wall so it had to be replastered.
That was sort of a project that didn't quite get off the ground. I wanted to do three murals every year by the Sandon. I would use the same three walls and paint over it again. I don't like the idea of people getting bored of my work. When I was starting this, I'd not been painting very long. I mean, it's been about eight years now, but I still consider myself learning. So every time I'm learning, getting better and I've got new techniques that I can use. I want to try them out and want to paint something else.
Luis Diaz on the Sandon (now gone) with LFChistory.net's offspring in front
You don't really get to try out your own stuff when you're painting for somebody else, for clients. So the only way to paint what you want is to do it off your own back. You find your own walls, you buy your own paints, you get your own scaffold and stuff like this. It costs a lot of money to do this. I've done about six of them through Anfield off my own back. I've done the Klopp one, I've done the Luis Diaz one, Alisson Becker. We've done the Bobby Firmino one, that was just a gift for Bobby. Also on the same wall that the Diaz one was on, I painted Kenny Daglish, but that's also gone as well. The fans wouldn't let us paint over the Bobby one.
I didn't anticipate when I started this project that once you finish a mural, it's a public piece of artwork. It doesn't really belong to me anymore. It's sort of for the fans. They're not too happy if you try and paint over it. It might be somebody's favourite mural.
I would kick your ass if you would paint over Bobby.
Haha... It's not just me. It's the whole fanbase of Liverpool that you have to think of.
Yeah, because it's become part of the Anfield experience. You come up Anfield Road and you'll see Salah and then you'll see Bobby. You want them to be there for future generations.
The Bobby Firmino one, I painted that with a friend of mine. He's Brazilian. His mum does children's parties and things like this and they used to do Bobby's. They knew Bobby. That's how we got him to come down and sign the wall and make an appearance like that. I got to take my son to meet one of his heroes. That was a special time for me. I think that's what stayed with me a lot longer than any of the others. That was one of my favourite ones to do, to be honest with you.
Is Bobby your most famous one, or Salah or Gerrard?
Gerrard on the Sandon. That sort of made my work explode. My followers trebled or quadrupled overnight. Which, in my business, means more work. That was amazing. The only player who has got in contact with me and praised me is Steven Gerrard. I couldn't believe that he did. I live In Huyton where he grew up. I have friends in common with him. I assume some of them got in touch with him and said to him to 'Give John a message'. He is a nice fella.
The Gerrard mural was painted by John on Hawkesworth Street after a vote by Liverpool fans. It could have been Fowler, Dudek or even Paisley as you can see in the accompanying video below.
You were working as a decorator. You made like 300 quid a week and for Gerrard for example you got 3,500 pounds for a three days' work. You're probably thinking: "That will do me."
I get paid really, really well now for the days that I'm on site, but you've got to remember you're not working five days a week. I'm certainly better off now than I was then, but people hear how much you're earning per job and they sort of think they apply that to their own work where they're working five days a week. It doesn't work like that. You're not earning mega money. You're earning good money. You're earning okay, but you're doing something that you love and you have a lot more time with your family as well.
So if you're only working three days a week, it means you've got four days at home. Most of those four days you're working on designs or you're going to meetings and things like that as well, but it's still the work-life balance that I've got now is a lot better than it was when I was a decorator.
Culshaw's Mo Salah's mural is his most famous one
I didn't understand how big a star Mo Salah was until I realised how global he is. Everywhere in the world, I was getting messages from every country. We were on the news in Egypt, we were on the news in Dubai. It was just madness. I didn't realise that he was just a global megastar. Everyone all over the world, he's just massive.
I did have four designs. That wasn't the design I wanted to paint, I wanted to paint a different design. We took it to all the fan clubs. We let everybody out there say what they thought the most important Mo Salah moments were. The sort of images that people wanted to see. I always do like to let the fans out there have their say, see if I can bring them into the artwork as much as I can.
I like to paint portraits, just head and shoulders. I had a big portrait of Mo Salah, in side perspective. I can send the design over to you, I've still got the designs. So you can see the ones that I prefer, the ones that I thought I was going to paint. It's like that on a lot of murals that you paint, especially when you're working for clients. There's always things that you want to paint yourself, but ultimately you don't get the same because the client is paying for the wall, the client gets to pick whatever they want on there. I do make the designs, but you have to give them options. There's never anything that I'm unhappy with because I'm the designer. Everything I paint I'm happy with, but you always have your preferred one. They never pick it. [laughs]. You always go with something else.
The designs for Mo that Culshaw himself preferred to use but didn't get chosen
Peter Schriewersmann at Hotel Anfield from the Anfield Road Traders’ Association explains here the origin of the Salah mural.
How long as the process for the Salah mural?
I've had projects that took two years, and I've had projects that took four days, so some people are ready to go, but the Salah one, because we had to go to the fan groups and stuff like that, but it was still a pretty quick decision because the funding was ready, we had the wall ready before anything. Start to finish, Salah was completed in like two weeks, and that's securing the wall, securing funding, getting the designs together, letting everybody have their say, and actually doing the work. That was a pretty quick turnaround, but there are other companies that you work for, sometimes you don't hear from them for six months, and then they pop up out of the blue and you're back on.
I noticed when I saw you at work, you paint only using your left arm.
I lost the use of my right arm when I was nine. I was hit by a car. So a lot of people see the work that I do, say, 'Oh my God, you painted that with one arm,' and I usually say, 'Well, everybody paints with one arm.'
Well I'm useless with my left. Were you right-handed?
I was right-handed.
Did you have to train your left arm?
Drawing and writing are two completely different things. So drawing is all in your eyes, and it's all about spotting the mistakes that you've made and understanding how to correct the mistakes. If you saw my handwriting now, I write like a five-year-old. I write like somebody who's right-handed with me left, because I never learnt to use it. My left hand still feels foreign to me. It's not my preferred hand, but it's the one that I have to use. I think that's more in your eyes, the painting and the drawing and things like that. It's more about understanding where things go and how to correct your mistakes. That's how you get better at it.
Image copyright: Branko Vukoslavovic
Oh, that's so fascinating. So how do you work? With grids, or is it like a mixture of methods?
Yes, I use a grid. Sometimes I'll use a projector, but they don't come in as handy as you'd think they do. I mean, if you're indoors, you're too close to the wall, you can't use it. If you're outdoors and it's daytime, you can't use it. Nine times out of ten, I'll use a grid, what's called a doodle grid.
I think you've probably seen them when we bumped into each other and I was painting. It's lots of numbers and letters and shapes on the wall. I take a picture of that, overlay my image on top of it, and that gets all my measurements for me. I know where the eye should land, I know where the nose should land. Once you've got all your lines on, you can forget about the letters. It sounds silly to say, but it's just all coloring in.
So what do the numbers stand for? They don't stand for anything. They can be completely random. They don't even have to be numbers, they can be anything you want. They can be letters, shapes. Some people just use lots of dots of tape on a wall. If I overlay my image on top of the alphabet, I know that somebody's eye will start on the C and it'll curve over to the top of the D and it'll land on the E.
Doodle Grid explained
It'll make you understand. And it's silly to say, but anybody can do it. It's really simple once you understand. Everybody shakes their head, but trust me, anybody can do it. Getting your tones in might be a different story, but you're able to get your lines in, you're able to get everything. If your measurements are right, your work will look good, even if everything else is wrong. If your colours are wrong, if your tone's wrong, if your shadow's wrong, it'll still look good because your measurements are right. Everybody will still be able to tell who it is. So it gives you a lot more freedom of your work. It means you can get things done a lot quicker as well.
Are you always happy with your work, or do you sometimes go like, oh, it doesn't look righ...
I don't think I've ever been happy with a piece yet. Never. It's just one of those things, every artist I speak to, nobody's ever happy with their work. But you have to realise that I'm being a lot more critical of myself than anybody else.
I think the fans are also very critical, oh, it doesn't look like the player, it doesn't look like him, or...
Yeah, they can be, yeah. They've been quite kind to me. I think everybody's a lot more critical of themselves than anybody else is. When you see a piece of artwork, you don't know what's wrong, if anything is. But when you've done it yourself, you know what mistake you've made.
Especially if you've painted it 25 foot up. You can't get up there and fix it. You sort of have to live with it, or realise that you're making too big a deal out of it. So I've sort of come to terms with that now.
if you go onto YouTube after this and type in Doodle Grid, it'll talk you through it, it'll show you, and you'll understand exactly what I mean. So what, grid, do... Doodle Grid. Doodle.
The texture of the wall impacts a lot on how it always does. If you find yourself a nice flat wall that's been plastered you're over the moon, because that's how your work will look the best.
I have a connection with one of your murals, the Howard Gayle one? The photograph you used of him as an older man is my photograph.
Did you take that photograph?
Yeah, in front of the Shankly Hotel.
What did you think of it? Did you like it?
Yeah, yeah... You could have said, you know, asked. I would have definitely said yes, no problem.
If I would have known who the photographer was, I certainly would have. I had the same conversation with the guy who took the Mo Salah picture. I didn't know who took it. It's just from the people who send them to us. It doesn't come with the names, you know what I mean?
I was over the moon when I saw it.
Thank you, thanks a lot. I love the image.
It's been eternalised. So, I'm very proud of that.
Image copyright: Branko Vukoslavovic
The image I took of Howie in front of the Shankly Hotel that Culshaw used for the mural.
Image copyright - Arnie Baldursson
Every time I finish one of these projects, I can't believe that I'm doing this as a job, so they're all pretty special to me.
You don't only do football.
No, no, I do a lot of things, so I've sort of become known to doing football, because that's sort of how it started, you know, with the Jurgen Klopp one, and that's how it exploded. I have a lot of interests, and obviously, with this being my full-time job now, you get to expand a lot more into a lot of different areas, and challenge yourself in all sorts of things. I've painted, I don't know how many murals now, in the past eight years, and covered all sorts of subjects.
So, people want to experience your work to the fullest. Where should they go outside of Anfield?
Around town, around the Baltic. I've got seven or eight in Toxteth where the Howard Gayle mural is. I've got them in Manchester, and London, and all sorts of places. Manchester is where the journey started for me. When I was decorating, I was working in Manchester. All my earliest murals were all in Manchester.
Who would you like to paint that you haven't painted yet?
I've been waiting to paint Sadio Mane. I think he deserves one. Because Bobby and Mo both got one, and we did want to paint Sadio, but the opportunity never came up. I still don't think it's too late. I still think he deserves a mural around Anfield. I've got a few over the summer. I think there's two or three that will be getting painted, but I don't know what they are yet. I've got people who want to put murals up. I might be doing just one for myself as well. At the minute, I think it's going to be Terry McDermott. He's actually my dad's cousin. I know all the family and everything. I think I'm probably going to do it on the Park. These projects do not always come true because work gets in the way or life gets in the way but It's something I'm planning on.