Shisoka, for Acton Unframed, 2019
Shisoka by Fin DAC, Acton Unframed
Completed · August 2019
Shisoka was the mural that started it all. In August 2019, the internationally renowned street artist Fin DAC launched Acton Unframed with this large-scale portrait on the corner of Churchfield Road and Myrtle Road, painting it from a cherry picker over seven sweltering summer days.
Fin wanted the work to belong to Acton. Knowing the area is home to a large Japanese community, he drew on that influence for his portrait, and he brought in a personal touch too: Where the Wild Things Are, his favourite book as a child. The site sits in Acton’s Poet’s Corner, so Fin turned the street sign into a stack of books. When residents told him that Lionel Bart, the writer of Oliver!, had lived just across the road, Oliver Twist went into the stack, with Where the Wild Things Are on top. A new restaurant, Fed & Watered, was about to open on the site, and the mural gave it a landmark from day one.
The painting itself became an event. Every day neighbours stopped by to check on progress, and visitors came from all over Acton, and as far as France, to watch a world-class street artist at work. Once it was finished, the mural found its way into people’s lives in ways no one had planned. A woman who grew up in the house opposite told us she had been raised by a Japanese nanny she loved dearly, and seeing Shisoka brought those childhood memories flooding back.
The mural also changes after dark. When the light comes on in the top-floor flat, it glows like a night lamp within the painting, a small piece of everyday magic that Fin’s composition and the building share.
Shisoka quickly became one of Acton’s best-loved landmarks, and a symbol of the area itself. Estate agents put it on the covers of their brochures, and the Financial Times featured it in an article on the neighbourhood. It was exactly what Acton Unframed had set out to do: give Acton a reason to be noticed, and give the people who live there something to be proud of.
Shisoka changed things for us too. Painting it was when we fell in love with Acton’s community and with Churchfield Road, and that is why, a few months later in December 2019, we opened the JG Contemporary gallery on the same street. Fin DAC later came back to paint the top of the gallery in 2021 (Anjago), so the artist who first brought us to Churchfield Road left his mark on our own front. The gallery closed in June 2025, but both of Fin’s murals are still there on Churchfield Road, and still much loved.
Part of Acton Unframed, a community-funded public art programme delivered by West London Art Factory, now JG Contemporary.
Artist: Fin DAC
Programme: Acton Unframed
Produced by: West London Art Factory (now JG Contemporary)
Location: Corner of Churchfield Road and Myrtle Road, Poet’s Corner, Acton W3
Painted: August 2019, over seven days