This episode, TRP613 and Urban Ninja sit down with CHEER UP, an American street artist who has made a serious impact on the global sticker art scene!
Influenced by the raw energy of hardcore punk, DIY concert posters, and underground culture, CHEER UP’s artistic journey began in the early ’90s. By the mid-2010s, the sticker game had become a major part of the project, with tens of thousands of stickers spreading across cities around the world.
But CHEER UP is about much more than putting stickers on the streets. They're also a zine publisher, documenting street art scenes and shining a spotlight on the artists who keep sticker culture alive.
Sticker culture archivist: The Sticker Life zine series features interviews, photos, and insights from sticker artists around the world, helping document a scene that can easily disappear beneath layers of new stickers and city cleanups.
Street art documentarian: The As Seen On The Streets series captures graffiti, stickers, tags, and wheatpastes in cities including Washington, D.C., New York, and beyond.
Inventor of The Stick’er: Frustrated with the difficulty of placing stickers in hard-to-reach spots, CHEER UP developed a compact, extendable sticker pole. What began as a homemade contraption made from a modified back scratcher and cardboard eventually evolved into a professionally designed tool used by sticker artists.
Punk rock connections: CHEER UP has collaborated with Baltimore hardcore band END IT, bringing together underground music and street art culture.
International recognition: CHEER UP was featured in the SLAP STARS Trading Cards: Tokyo Edition project and participated in the “Sticker Party!” group exhibition in Tokyo in 2025.
In this episode, we're getting into the stories behind the stickers, the influence of punk and DIY culture, documenting the scene, and what it takes to keep the global sticker community growing.
How do you get your work noticed in a world covered in stickers? What keeps you creating when pieces disappear? And what happens when a simple idea turns into a tool used by artists worldwide?
Tune in for another conversation about the people, creativity, and culture behind street art!
🎧 Visual Noise: Walls Talk is hosted by TRP613 and Urban Ninja, bringing you conversations with the artists pushing street art, stickers, wheatpaste, and underground culture forward.
Music credit:
“Funk Groove Music” by Alex Gus via Pixabay
