Relativity for Acton Unframed, 2022

Relativity by Remi Rough, Acton Unframed
Completed · Summer 2022

Relativity is a spray-painted mural by Remi Rough on Goldsmith House in Acton, painted in the summer of 2022 with the help of New York artist Carlos Mare.

This one started with a knock on the door, or close to it. The freehold residents of Goldsmith House approached Acton Unframed and asked whether we could paint their wall. It was not long after Covid, and people wanted something bold and bright to come home to. We asked Remi Rough, whose abstract, geometric work is built on colour, and the brief suited him.

The wall did not make it easy. The brick had a rough, heavily textured surface that swallowed paint and made every straight edge a fight. Remi and Carlos worked through it with spray paint and finished in less than a week.

The residents were part of it from the start. They brought drinks out to the artists, got involved along the way, and even loaned a speaker so Remi and Carlos could play music while they worked.

It has become part of the street. The Financial Times picked Relativity out in a 2025 feature on homes that have become artists’ canvases, where one resident described it as “a dynamic splash of colour in the community” and said people often stop to take photographs of it. It is exactly what Acton Unframed set out to do: a mural commissioned by the people who live with it every day.

Part of Acton Unframed, a community-funded public art programme delivered by West London Art Factory, now JG Contemporary.

Artist: Remi Rough
Assisted by: Carlos Mare, New York
Commissioned by: The freehold residents of Goldsmith House
Programme: Acton Unframed
Produced by: West London Art Factory (now JG Contemporary)
Location: Goldsmith House, Acton
Painted: Summer 2022, in under a week
Medium: Spray paint