For this year’s British Grand Prix™, HUGO joined forces with Slawn, one of the UK’s most in-demand young artists, to reimagine the Formula One™ universe. At Flannels X, against the backdrop of roaring anticipation for the British Grand Prix™, Slawn revealed his bold new livery design for the Visa Cash App Racing Bulls Formula One™ Team (VCARB). With his signature spray-painted motifs splashed across the VCARB 02 car, the artist transformed the precision of motorsport into a canvas of playful rebellion.
He’s simply following what feels right to him as an artist—a process that, to everyone else, reads as disruption. From spray-painted blazers to a graffiti-covered race car, his work is less about rebellion and more about making peace with the parts of himself others once told him to reject. We caught up with him to talk about self-healing through art, his laid-back approach to creativity, and why, at the end of the day, he’s just a dad who loves cartoons.
How did you bring together the precise, polished world of Formula One™ with the spirit of self-expression that’s central to both HUGO as a brand and the contemporary art team you’re part of?
I don’t think I had to bridge it. The people I worked with made it super easy for me. The team at HUGO and the team at VCARB made the transition smooth. I just gave a little bit of guidance, but aside from that, the collaboration is a touch of me and plenty of them. They did a lot of work and helped me along the path. Shout-out to them, honestly.
What energy were you trying to inject into the car and the driver’s gear through your own artistic aesthetic?
I wasn’t really trying to inject any energy, to be honest. I don’t like to tweak things unnecessarily. I gave them one or two sketches, let them pick, and they did their thing with it. It was more of a collaborative process rather than me saying, “Do this, do that.” I enjoyed myself. I’m a lazy person, honestly—less work is better for me.
How did you translate the raw, bold, destructive, yet playful rebellion of your own art into the HUGO x RB capsule collection?
The translation was really the bridge between me, HUGO and VCARB. I had a bunch of stuff, gave it to them, they played around with it and sent it back. I’d tweak it a little and send it back to them. It was very much ear-to-ear, eye-to-eye, mouth-to-mouth—just merging. It wasn’t too much on my side, and I hope it wasn’t too much on theirs either.
Can you talk about the symbolism behind the recurring motifs, especially the face and the eyes that feature prominently in this collection and your work generally?
With the mouth symbolism that’s in my art a lot, it’s because I grew up hating how my lips looked. I kept putting it in my art, and now I’m happy with it. Same with my teeth—I’d put the teeth in my work, and now I’m happy with my teeth, so I smile all the time. It’s really a form of self-healing for me. I didn’t hate these things at first, but people kept pointing them out, making me feel like I should. I grew up in Nigeria, so I’m just happy my art has helped me heal.
How do you translate your own insecurities into such a confident expression?
You know that guy from Jackass—Stevo-O? He said that before he did anything crazy, he’d count one, two, three, and on three he’d always go for it. For me, whenever I’ve been scared or insecure about something, I force myself to face it. If I hated how my ears looked, I’d make them really defined in my art so I’d have to see them every day—and then I’d get comfortable with it. It’s my way of healing without burdening others. People ask, “Why’d you put that in your art?” And I’m like, “Because you lot told me it looked crazy.” Now I’m comfortable because I see it so much. I think everyone has their way of self-healing. This is mine. Same with other fears—like I was scared of having kids, and now I have kids. I’m not scared anymore.
The mantra #HUGOYourWay champions fearless individuality. How does disrupting the norms—like we see in this collab—play into that mindset for you?
The word disruption always felt weird to me, because I don’t see myself as a disrupter. I’m super boring, honestly. I wake up, watch cartoons, go to my studio, paint, go home, kiss my kids goodnight, and watch more cartoons until I fall asleep. People think I’m this wild person—I used to be, but I’ve got kids now. I’m not disrupting anything. Everyone else disrupts it. I give the content, and people come up with the concepts and narratives—“He did this because of that…” I just wanted to do it. That’s where I’m at.
