This September, Woodbury House proudly presents ‘WILD STYLE’ by Charlie Ahearn, the first UK solo exhibition by the New York artist and filmmaker behind the most influential film in hip hop history. On view in Mayfair from 26th September – 10th October 2025, the exhibition marks a defining cultural moment for London — one that unites art, film, and history under a single roof.

When Charlie Ahearn released Wild Style in 1983, few could have anticipated the seismic impact it would have. More than a film, it became a blueprint for hip hop culture, capturing graffiti, MCing, DJing, and breakdancing on the streets of New York City in their earliest forms.

Working entirely outside the Hollywood studio system, Ahearn collaborated directly with those living the culture. Fab 5 Freddy, Lee Quiñones, the Fantastic Five, Lady Pink, Crash, Daze, and Grandmaster Flash all played central roles. What emerged was not a scripted spectacle but an authentic snapshot of a movement about to go global.

From Tokyo to London, the film travelled the world, igniting audiences and giving international visibility to artists and communities who had, until then, been overlooked. For many, Wild Style was the first encounter with hip hop in any form. Four decades later, it remains an essential cultural touchstone.

Although Ahearn is widely celebrated as a filmmaker, painting has been a constant in his life and practice. His canvases, silkscreens, and mixed-media works return to the imagery and energy of Wild Style, but also move beyond it, reflecting a broader career rooted in collaboration, documentation, and storytelling.

At Woodbury House, audiences will encounter large-scale canvases that channel the spirit of New York’s graffiti pioneers, alongside silkscreens and works on paper spanning from the late 1970s to today, many of which are being publicly shown for the first time. The exhibition also includes portraits of pivotal cultural figures such as Patti Astor, Fab 5 Freddy, and Lee Quiñones, as well as collaborative works like Times Square Show (Charlie Ahearn and Jane Dickson) – Violet, 1980, which revisits the landmark Colab exhibition that first brought downtown art to a wider public.

These works are not illustrations of the film but rather extensions of Ahearn’s lifelong dialogue with hip hop history. As the artist reflects:

“Most people know me as a filmmaker, but I’ve been a painter all along. Seeing this body of work together for the first time is moving for me. The paintings carry my commitment to hip-hop history and to the originators of this culture.”

The origins of Wild Style can be traced to the Times Square Show of 1980, where Ahearn first encountered Fab 5 Freddy. That introduction led him to the elusive subway painter Lee Quiñones. Within twenty-four hours, Freddy and Quiñones had painted a “FAB 5” mural in Times Square — a moment Ahearn would later revisit in his painting FAB5 Times Sq Show (w Lee and Fred) (1980), included in this exhibition.

From that collaboration, a film began to take shape. Quiñones, already legendary for his Bronx handball court murals, became the inspiration for the character “Zoro,” the mysterious graffiti writer at the centre of Wild Style. This exhibition reconnects those early threads, bridging the raw murals of the 1980s with canvases painted in 2025, and showing the continuity of spirit across decades.

More than forty years on, the influence of Wild Style can be felt across music, fashion, visual art, and design. Screened to packed houses worldwide, its imagery and energy became synonymous with the DNA of hip hop itself.

By translating this legacy into paintings, Ahearn now offers both collectors and audiences an extraordinary opportunity: the chance to acquire works that are not only significant within art history but also inseparable from cultural history. For collectors of street and graffiti art, these works are far more than acquisitions — they are fragments of a global story that continues to resonate.

Born in 1951 in Binghamton, New York, Charlie Ahearn’s creative career began well before Wild Style. In 1978, he directed the Super 8 kung fu film Deadly Art of Survival. Two years later, he co-organised the Times Square Show with Colab, a groundbreaking exhibition that fused art, politics, and street culture.

Beyond filmmaking, Ahearn co-authored the definitive oral history Yes Yes Y’all (2001), which documented the first decade of hip hop. His films and artworks have since been exhibited at institutions including MoMA in New York, Tate in London, and as part of Beyond the Streets in Los Angeles, New York, London, and China.

Today, Ahearn continues to live and work in New York City, producing paintings, silkscreens, and mixed-media works that preserve the formative years of hip hop while speaking powerfully to contemporary audiences.

‘WILD STYLE’ by Charlie Ahearn
26 September – 10 October 2025
Woodbury House, 29 Sackville Street, Mayfair, London, W1S 3DX. 

We invite you to register your interest today to arrange a private viewing of the exhibition, enquire about available works, or learn more about Charlie Ahearn’s lifelong artistic practice.

Register your interest here.

This is more than an exhibition. It is a cultural landmark — bridging the birth of hip hop in 1983 with its global legacy in 2025.