Public conversations of social value: Martin Firrell is a British contemporary artist known for public artworks on billboards around the world. He uses the poster form to campaign for greater social equality. His bold and simple texts address LGBTQIA+ equality, the women’s movement, feminism and gender equality; and universal human rights. The artist's aim is 'to make the world more humane'. Firrell's billboards often resemble advertising because he hijacks advertising's techniques to achieve artistic-activist ends. This co-opting of commercial techniques and his wholesale colonisation of advertising’s oldest and boldest medium - the billboard - makes Firrell one of the most apposite and significant artists of the 21st Century. ~ Dr Robert Shelton.

Martin Firrell

British, born 1963

Martin Firrell is a British contemporary artist known for public artworks on billboards around the world. He uses the poster form to campaign for greater social equality. His bold and simple works address LGBTQIA+ equality, the women’s movement, feminism and gender equality; and universal human rights. The artist's aim is 'to make the world more humane'. Firrell's billboards often resemble advertising because he hijacks advertising's techniques to achieve artistic-activist ends. This co-opting of commercial techniques and his wholesale colonisation of advertising’s oldest and boldest medium - the billboard - makes Firrell one of the most apposite and significant artists of the 21st Century. ~ Dr Robert Shelton.

wikipedia entry

catalogue raisonné

The One Irreducible Truth

London UK, 2005

The One Irreducible Truth

paraphrases sexologist, Alfred Kinsey (1894–1956). Displayed in the mass transit environments of London's railway stations, the artwork socialises Kinsey's view that variousness is the one characteristic applicable to all human beings.

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The Question Mark Inside

Public artist in residence, St Paul's Cathedral London UK, 2008

For the 300th anniversary of the topping out of Sir Christopher Wren's architectural masterpiece,

The Question Mark Inside

deployed light and text to address the question, 'what makes life meaningful and purposeful?'

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Appréciez avant tout la beauté de la justice

International Day of Democracy Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Latvia, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, UK, 2023

‘What could be more beautiful than trying to say something about the world being more just or fairer? I can’t think of anything more exquisitely wondrous - the immense and vast beauty of justice - it’s better than all the coloured paint in the world.’ ~ Martin Firrell

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They/Them

UK-wide, 2024

Pronouns like ‘they/them’ and 'ze/zir', and labels like ‘bi', 'gay', and 'non-binary', celebrated in public space, champion the visibility and validity of all LGBTQIA+ identities.

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Complete Hero

Artist in residence, Guards' Chapel London UK, 2009

For the Household Division of the British Army,

Complete Hero

presents a contemporary definition of heroism better suited to modern society (detail / with philosopher A.C. Grayling).

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Embrace Lesbianism / Reject Male Supremacy / Overthrow the Social Order / Renounce the Monster Male

50th anniversary of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, UK-wide, 2017

Embrace Lesbianism / Reject Male Supremacy / Overthrow the Social Order / Renounce the Monster Male

restates demands made originally by 1960s activists. Both the gay liberation and women’s movements agreed that liberation of the sexes could only be achieved by ‘eliminating the social pressures on men and women to conform to narrowly defined gender roles’.

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All Men Are Dangerous

Tate Britain London UK, 2006

'I was jealous of the painters where everything is available in a single field. I wanted to make words work like a picture. When I wrote

All Men Are Dangerous

, I wrote something of immense truthfulness and importance with all of its meaning entirely available in a single field.' ~ Martin Firrell

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Power Is Always Temporary

Royal Opera House London UK, 2022

Anyone in any position of power, regardless of their gender or intentions, should be mindful of the inherent and ultimate precariousness of their position.

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Schwarz Ist Die Schwerkraft, Die Diese Strahlende Welt Zusammenhält

Basel & Zurich Switzerland, 2021

‘Ich vergleiche das Schwarz mit der intensiven Schwerkraft einer «Sonderbarkeit» oder eines schwarzen Lochs. Ich sehe Schwarz als tiefste Wahrheit in der unfassbaren Grenzenlosigkeit des Universums. Ohne Schwarz gäbe es keine Schwerkraft, keine Dunkelheit und nichts worin unsere lichterfüllte, farbige Welt ankern könnte. Was könnte sonst die sichtbare Welt davon abhalten ins Vergessen zu taumeln?’ ~ Martin Firrell

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Daytime TV Made Me Lesbian

50th anniversary of Gay Pride in the UK, nationwide, 2022

New legislation, allowing TV companies to broadcast in the daytime, was passed in 1972 – the same year the first Gay Pride march took place in the UK.

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Butt Shot

Found footage, 2025

Regarding men as objects of sexual desire is a political, as much as an aesthetic, choice. Women have been similarly objectified for years. This is what gender equality looks like (in an imperfect world).

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Glad You Came (Gothenburg Pride, Sweden)

Pride Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brighton, Copenhagen, Dublin, Helsinki, London, Manchester, Oslo, Riga, Stockholm, Utrecht, 2025

As LGBTQIA+ rights are challenged or rolled back in some parts of the world, the LGBTQIA+ community gathers at Pride marches across Europe. Coming together, especially in challenging times, is an act of political resistance.

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Cod Wars Turned Me Gay

50th anniversary of Gay Pride in the UK, nationwide, 2022

'Cod Wars' broke out between Iceland and the UK in 1972 – the year of the UK's first Gay Pride march. Television news flooded UK homes with homoerotic images of burly trawlermen in conflict over fishing rights.

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Beware of Boys

Re-edited found footage, 2021

Anti LGBTQIA+ propaganda of the 1960s often presented homosexuality as a mental illness. It was also not unusual for homosexuality to be conflated with sadism and paedophilia. Found footage, titled

Boys Beware,

is re-edited so it is the young hitchhiker who is predatory, taking advantage of a wholly reasonable and friendly older driver.

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Non Binary

London UK, 2024

Non-binary identities have been recognised for millennia by cultures around the world. Throughout Mesopotamia, temples and shrines to the goddess Inanna were numerous. 'Though I am a woman, I am also a noble young man.' Her clergy were both male and female, and a third gender which could be described in modern parlance as

non-binary

.

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Kobieta=Mężczyzna (Warsaw, Poland)

International Women's Day Finland, Ireland, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, UK, 2025

International Women's Day calls for equality regardless of gender; at its simplest, a world where woman=man. The gender of the 'woman' in this poster is deliberately ambiguous: 'If you cannot be sure of the gender of the individual, you cannot be sure whether your prejudices should apply or not.' ~ Martin Firrell

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Trans Inclusive Feminism Loves You (Riga Pride, Latvia)

Pride Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brighton, Copenhagen, Dublin, Helsinki, London, Manchester, Oslo, Riga, Stockholm, Utrecht, 2025

Trans Inclusive Feminism Loves You

is a tautological, but no less effective, response to recent exclusionary discourse. Transgender people show us how arbitrary gender identities really are and how we all have the right of governance over our own lives.

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What Oppresses Us Shapes Our Desires

Artichoke Trust, UK-wide, 2022

French feminist theory of the 1970s suggested that any oppressor, by definition, has the power to shape all of the responses of the oppressed, including what comes to be regarded as erotic or desirable.

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How To Be Popular

Re-edited found footage, 2021

A 1947 public information film advises young people how to be popular, largely by conforming to societal expectations of gender roles and parental authority. The re-edited version queers the protagonists so that the 'boy meets girl' story takes a subversive turn.

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Valerie Solanas Shoots Artist

Manipulated newsprint, 2023

When Valerie Solanas shot Andy Warhol in '68, the newspaper headline erroneously identified her as an actress and failed to refer to her by name. Solanas has since been recognised as one of the most important names in 20th-century radical feminist theory. Firrell's reworked newsprint reflects this re-evaluation of Solanas's status.

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Une moule à lèvres bleues s'ouvre et révèle un cheval

100th anniversary of Surrealism, Antwerp & Brussels Belgium, 2024

14 days before André Breton, poet Yvan Goll published Surrealism's first manifesto, calling for a deeper, empirical examination of reality. Goll rejected Breton's emphasis on dreams and chance as

counterfeit surrealism.

Accordingly, Firrell's Gollian-surrealist poster derives from the empiral observation that a mussel shell is similar in shape to a horse's skull.

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The First Manifesto of Surrealism

Cambridge Queer Press, 2024

'I couldn't find a readily available English translation of Yvan Goll's Manifesto of Surrealism - the movement's first - so I translated Goll's text from the French and published it with the Cambridge Queer Press on the 100th anniversary of Surrealism.' ~ Martin Firrell

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We Can Be Every Thing (Helsinki Pride, Finland)

Pride Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brighton, Copenhagen, Dublin, Helsinki, London, Manchester, Oslo, Riga, Stockholm, Utrecht, 2025

LGBTQIA+ identity implies a certain kind of freedom: the freedom to realise selfhood in new ways, to live authentically and creatively in any walk of life.

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Homosexuals Are Still Revolting

50th anniversary of the founding of the Gay Liberation Front, London & Manchester UK, 2020

At the time of writing, 65 countries still criminalise private, consensual same-sex relationships putting LGBTQIA+ people at risk of blackmail, arrest, prosecution, imprisonment and, in at least five countries, death by execution.

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Freedom of Expression

All artworks courtesy of the artist. Copyright Martin Firrell 1996-present. Website copyright Martin Firrell Company Ltd. Registered in England and Wales no.7337269.