Creed Gallery in Ascot, Berkshire, offers Stik prints for sale to collectors across Berkshire, Surrey and London, including signed, framed Holding Hands editions. Stik (also written STIK) is the Hackney street artist whose figures are drawn with just six lines and two dots. Current works run from £495 to £3,000, with one piece available on application. Our team will talk you through edition, signature and framing on any work.
About Stik: The Hackney Street Artist Behind the Six-Line Figures
Stik works under a pseudonym and has painted in Hackney and East London since the early 2000s. His figures began as the quickest way to paint a person without getting caught. He has said the style traces back to a kanji-like shorthand he picked up living in Japan as a teenager. He was homeless for a period, staying in a Hackney hostel, and has credited the local community, squatting and eventually social housing with getting him back on his feet. His work has kept faith with that: in 2014 his mural Big Mother covered 125 feet of Charles Hocking House, a condemned council block in Acton, West London, then the tallest mural in Britain. The block was demolished in 2018.
The Technique: Six Lines, Two Dots
The simplicity is the point. With a fixed set of marks, Stik gives his figures vulnerability, defiance, tenderness and solidarity, and lets the viewer fill in the rest. A single standing figure and a pair holding hands are built from exactly the same vocabulary, which is why his images read instantly on a wall or a gallery print.
Holding Hands and the Story Behind It
Holding Hands began in 2016, when Hackney Council asked Stik to design its London Pride banner: two figures without a specified gender, facing opposite directions and holding hands. It became a 4-metre bronze sculpture in Hoxton Square in 2020, his first public sculpture, funded by the artist. A quarter-size bronze maquette sold at Christie's that October for £287,500, then an auction record for Stik, with the proceeds donated to Hackney Council to fund public sculpture across East London. That record is for a unique bronze, and prints are priced very differently. Sleeping Baby has a local story too: the image began as a mural at the entrance to Homerton Hospital in Hackney, painted to support the doctors campaigning there.
Collecting Stik at Creed Gallery
Our Stik works cover several forms: signed, framed Holding Hands offset lithographs on wove paper, a framed Standing Figure lithograph, the Sleeping Baby signed print, a unique Stik Stamp rubber-ink print on hemp paper, the signed Deep (Don't Panic) lithograph, and a Hip screenprint. Prices run from £495 to £3,000, and Hip is available on application. Turquoise Holding Hands has sold, so register your interest for future colourways. Stik has a long record of putting his work to charitable use. In 2018 his sculpture Up on the Roof raised £150,000 for Cardboard Citizens, the theatre company working with people affected by homelessness. You're welcome to visit the gallery in Ascot to see the works in person.
Why Collect Stik
Stik's work is instantly recognisable and rooted in a real community, and his prints are the accessible way to own it. As with any artist, individual pieces vary in demand and value, so our team is happy to talk you through the specifics of any work you're considering.
