A Helch painting in Garrett Street for an open air art festival

A STREET ARTIST who scaled bridges and rooftops and left his calling card across north London has died aged 34.

The man behind the ‘Helch’ roller paintings, sometimes shortened to a simple ‘H’, seen all over London and on motorway bridges since around 2018, was never officially identified, as he triggered the classic art-versus-vandalism debate attached to street art.

His work featured heavily across Shoreditch and appeared in Garrett Street for the Whitecross Street Party, which celebrates street art as way of bringing people together and making connections.

The artist became the subject of a Daily Mail investigation after the same word appeared on a wall in Windsor, apparently upsetting the late Queen Elizabeth II for affecting the view of the royal castle.

Critics said he was costing thousands in clean-up jobs at private and public sites.

The newspaper published a name, although it was never acknowledged by the artist or the galleries he later worked with.

The BSMT gallery in Dalston had promoted his work by saying he was “stepping out of the shadows” with his debut No Half Measures exhibition, and original artworks were made available to buy for the first time, quickly selling out.

As his death was announced over the bank holiday weekend, the gallery said in an online tribute that it was “heartbroken”, adding: “An urban landscape without an H in it seems unfathomable.”

It added: “A life unlike any other, he was compelled to leave his mark on this world. There will never be another like him.”

Street art fans have shared a series of other tributes and pictures of his work in unusual places, and wondered how he was able to produce it without being detected.