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King Charles mural is defaced within hours of it appearing

09 May 2023 4 minute read
King Charles mural images (Credit: Jill Davies)

A mural to mark the coronation of King Charles III was defaced within hours of it being unveiled.

The artwork by renowned Welsh street artist Tee2Sugars was created ahead of the coronation of the monarch on Saturday.

However, less than 24 hours after it appeared in Merthyr it had been marked with explicit graffiti.

“I created the piece in light of the recent coronation,” said Tee. “I’m not a royalist but the celebration of a new King or Queen in the UK is the first for so many years.

“The piece was created Wednesday night and defaced Thursday afternoon,” he added.” The whole thing took two hours to create.

“The piece was finally taken down by the council Friday morning, due to some miscommunication as the piece was due to be fixed Friday afternoon.”

Despite his creation being blighted and then ultimately removed the leading street artist remained philosophical.

“Street art is often at the forefront for discussion as it’s public and open to being defaced or vandalised – and the monarchy has always been a sensitive subject in the UK,” he said.

“It’s always interesting to me, to see the different perspectives of others, and the dialogues art creates.”

King Charles mural before and after images (Credit: Jill Davies)

The defacing of the King Charles mural comes as a specially decorated coronation post box in Cardiff has continually been plastered with various Welsh independence stickers over the last few days.

Originally stickers were applied to the postbox within hours of it being unveiled outside the Owain Glyndŵr pub in Cardiff last Wednesday.

The Royal Mail post box in Cardiff city centre was one of four across the UK to be repainted in celebration of the King’s crowning.

Members of the public criticised the decision to place the post box decorated with a Union Jack flag and the coronation’s official emblem nearby a pub named after a Welsh hero who led a fifteen year revolt to end English rule in Wales.

During his fight for Welsh independence, Owain Glyndŵr seized a number of walled towns and castles built by the English and was the last man, born and raised in Wales, to have the title of Prince of Wales.

Post box outside the Owain Glyndŵr pub in Cardiff

While some commentators on social media appeared to predict and support the vandalism of the box, others, including Welsh Conservative councillor for Radyr and Morgantown Calum Davies, reported it to Royal Mail and Cardiff Council and by mid-morning on Thursday the stickers had been ripped off, but their outline remained visible.

However, this only increased the number of stickers being added and by the time of the coronation on Saturday morning, the postbox had been covered by even more stickers.

Cardiff was one of the centres of coronation celebrations across the UK on the weekend, with a public screening of the ceremony being held in Cardiff Castle and a screening of the coronation concert taking place at Roald Dahl Plass.

Post box outside Owain Glyndŵr pub in Cardiff

A “Not My King” protest also took place on the city’s streets, with protesters gathering by the statue of Aneurin Bevan on Queen Street ahead of the march.

It was followed by a “Big Republican Lunch” in Bute Park – a play on the name of the Big Coronation Lunches that communities have been encouraged to hold to mark the occasion.


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Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
1 year ago

I thought it was a picture of a Toby Jug…

GW Atkinson
GW Atkinson
1 year ago
Reply to  Mab Meirion

More like a n***e cup

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
1 year ago
Reply to  GW Atkinson

N***e ?

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
1 year ago
Reply to  Mab Meirion

Seriously though, how high off the ground was/is this caricature? I expect the culprit has an elderly male relative, some wicked uncle who has been filling his head with nasty rubbish since the day he was born, the internet of the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s…

Lyn Thomas
Lyn Thomas
1 year ago

The post box became something of an attraction with people taking photos of the stickers…..

Frank
Frank
1 year ago

Putting up art of this kind is provocation and should be banned. Imposing one’s politics and beliefs on others is wrong.

Stuart Cane
Stuart Cane
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank

Trying to work out if this is satire or genuine?
Putting a picture of the king should be banned? Holding up a Not My King placard should be banned? This art is not “imposing” any views on you, me or anyone else (it was not even painted with a political view to impose). I was at the Not My King demo but I have no problem with the Union Jack wavers celebrating their big day, whatever I think of the monarchy or their king.

Malcolm Jones
Malcolm Jones
1 year ago
Reply to  Stuart Cane

We in Wales are not on the union jack yet thousands of Welsh people have died fighting under the union flag thinking Wales is represented on it and we’re not on the Royal Standard we must be all mad in Wales to Wave the union flag

Chris H
Chris H
1 year ago
Reply to  Malcolm Jones

We have such a beautiful, distinct and unique flag that it is very difficult to see how we could be symbolically represented on the union jack. If you find this a problem maybe you can suggest a redesign of the flag that would allow you to serve under it?

Karla
Karla
1 year ago
Reply to  Stuart Cane

It’s a little different in Wales, it’s not just a matter of being anti monarchy, it’s 1000 years of operssion. That’s why images of English monarchs should be banned in Wales. Let the English wave their union flags, we didn’t join the Union, we got colonised. It’s highly political on every level to paint a picture of KC3 on a Welsh wall.

Rhosddu
Rhosddu
1 year ago
Reply to  Karla

I wouldn’t go so far as to ban them, but I wouldn’t expect them to survive more than a day in Wales without being trashed. Putting up things like royal murals or coronation post boxes in Wales is either deliberately confrontational and presumptious, or incredibly naive.

Gareth plas
Gareth plas
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank

I don’t know what the artist thought was going to happen to his work, a bit naïve in my opinion.

Richard Thomas
Richard Thomas
1 year ago
Reply to  Gareth plas

It was rather naive; there are anti monarchists in every town in Britain, never mind Wales, he was taking a risk doing that. I was quite surprised by just how much support for the Coronation there was in Brynmawr though, a lot of Union Flags up in windows. I expected very little.
Relative levels of support are hard to gauge, the postbox could have been stickered by a tiny number of people but create a disproportionate impact in terms of publicity.

Phil
Phil
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank

So an image of a lady of colour wearing a Cardiff City soccer shirt went on display to the delight of many city dwellers but street art by tee2sugars is defaced? Double standards, surely?

Karla
Karla
1 year ago
Reply to  Phil

Did the Black woman colonise and opress Wales for 1000 years? Is the Black woman an unelected head of state? Is the Black woman sitting on a huge pile of money and land stolen from the Welsh, Scots, Irish, English, Indian, So many African countries, USA, New Zealand, Canada, Australia etc etc etc? There is no double standard, KC3 image is a legitimate target for protest, where as a Black woman wearing a Cardiff shirt isn’t a matter to protest at all.

Phil
Phil
1 year ago
Reply to  Karla

Did she ever play soccer for Cardiff City?

Gareth plas
Gareth plas
1 year ago

It’s bloody awful, that’s before you consider the subject matter.

Last edited 1 year ago by Gareth plas
Marc
Marc
1 year ago
Reply to  Gareth plas

You took the words out of my mouth
‘Bloody awful’

Y Cymro
Y Cymro
1 year ago

Am I surprised? Not really. Do I care that this hideous mural was daubed? No again., but I do care about Wales & Welsh democracy. Although i’m surprised the thought police using their newly given powers by Whitehall Stasi like in the movie Minority Report where the police arrest & neutralise would-be future criminals even before any crime has been committed.. Yes, it’s getting that bad in this passive aggressive dictocracy. Saying that. It’s the longest old adulterer Charles has ever stayed in Wales. Usually he visits with his leathery lover Camilla, mumbles a few scripted words, then he &… Read more »

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
1 year ago
Reply to  Y Cymro

He has not been welcome in Powys for the last 25 years at least…

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
1 year ago
Reply to  Mab Meirion

I heard it from his one-time host 24 years ago as we sat discussing Hanes Cymru over tea and biscuits, …

Nowadays the political leaning of the county has radically changed and he might find a bed with a common or garden landed commoner I suppose…

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
1 year ago
Reply to  Mab Meirion

I don’t give a sh*t where he goes, but my original reply may appear or not at the discretion of the moderator…

I do remember that he had the same fed-up expression on his boat race when he stopped off at the county sports day in Dolgellau in 1969 on his way to become a POW…

They rounded up all the likely suspects then if I remember correctly…

greg
greg
1 year ago

The only defacing here is taking a perfectly nice wall and painting Charles Mountbatten-Windsor’s inbred mug on it.

Karla
Karla
1 year ago

If you’re Welsh and not a royalist, why the hell would you paint that in Wales? Learn some history and hang your head in shame.

Riki
Riki
1 year ago
Reply to  Karla

Populism! They want to fit in, trying to fill the big void inside them that they clearly have. As you said, they should hang their head in shame.

Peter Cuthbert
Peter Cuthbert
1 year ago

Having looked at the pictures above, it strikes me that the person defacing the mural was rather lacking in imagination. It would have been much better to have ‘edited’ it to include say a Clown red nose and all the other clown make up, or some other effect thus making it political humour. I find it hard to understand why anybody would paint a picture of Big Ears on a wall without giving it some context. Banksy manages to do that and so should Tee2Sugars if painting in a public street.

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter Cuthbert

His historical dig at the Royals went beyond the new King obviously, crude but sufficiently evidenced as to avoid the Libel Courts I would argue…as for red noses they are the preserve of the Beeb…red nose jam in other words…

Glen
Glen
1 year ago

‘Hours’.

What took them so long?

Glen
Glen
1 year ago

Tee2Sugars  don’t give up the day job.

Mike
Mike
1 year ago

It makes me absolutely ashamed to be born in this part of Great Britain.

Riki
Riki
1 year ago
Reply to  Mike

As are my… we are an absolute laughing stock to the world. We are a living lesson on how everything can be taken from you should you let it. Our language, our resources, our very identity! We revel in the abuse that England give us.

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