Rebel Romeo
Words I never said, sprayed where she might find them. Contemporary art from the walls of Worthing.
The premise
Memories of a perfectly imperfect love. These are the words that remain — poetry that began as an anonymous diary, became stencilled graffiti on the walls of a seaside town, and now lives on as collector-grade canvas and fine-art print.
The originals
Original — mixed media
“Find love that is wild, sets your soul on fire.” A quiet declaration posted to an anonymous Instagram account, later cut into stencils and sprayed across Worthing — reborn on canvas in Venetian plaster and aerosol.
📜 Instagram origin — “Search for her”, 25 July 2017
🧱 Graffiti form — the walls of Worthing, post-2017
🖼 Canvas rework — Worthing Art Festival, July 2024
Original — mixed media
“I saw her pain, and felt it too… so I wished for her to be happy, so I could feel that too.” The earliest seed in the archive — a written wish that waited nine years to take physical form in plaster, fading pigment and rain-washed texture.
📜 Instagram origin — “A wish”, 12 December 2016
🖼 Original canvas — CTRL ALT CREATE, June 2025
Original — the emotional core
“She did not know that the sky loved her so, for when it rained, it rained for her…” A poem, a wall, a memory made visible. The street version disappeared; the message endured.
📜 Instagram origin — “🌼 and the rain”, 8 January 2017
🧱 Graffiti form — April 2017, since lost
🖼 Canvas rework — CTRL ALT CREATE, June 2025
Heaven will hate me, for I have dared to steal the heart of an Angel.@wordsmith.a.r — 21 February 2017
The origin
Opposite the Rose & Crown, on a small unassuming section of wall, someone began spray-painting love letters to a person who might never read them. The town gave the work its name: a Montague, rebelling for love.
People photographed the stencils and shared them under #rebelromeo — and an anonymous heartbreak quietly became a public art trail.
The collections
Bodies of work spanning digital painting, altered art, meditations and letters never posted.
From the archive — @wordsmith.a.r
18 Dec 2016 — “Bad”She was the kind of bad you’d take a bullet for.
11 Feb 2017 — “An infinity”An infinity created so that within it I could meet you.
9 Jul 2017 — “Kiss me when it rains”My skies are dark, so don’t say a word. Just kiss me when the time is right, kiss me when it rains…
Collect
Museum-grade giclée prints, produced in Brighton on Hahnemühle German Etching — signed editions available.
