Some people need structure to make good work. Others need pressure. For artists Piicasa and Dricky, it took seven days, a shared studio, a Sampha concert, and blind trust to create something entirely new. No strategy. Just two creatives from different parts of the worlds, showing up for the work.
Their first collaborative collection, titled In Colour, launched Saturday night at Stage & Radio in Manchester. In a one-night-only exhibition born from a random connection and a shared commitment to making something meaningful out of very little. And the story behind it? Exactly as authentic, random, and visually bold as you’d expect. "It could've gone awfully," said Piicasa. "It could've just... not worked at all." But it did. In less than a week, they created seven full-scale works; layered, unpredictable, and unapologetically themselves. A visual conversation between two artists who had never worked together before. No moodboards. No pre-planning. Just instinct and trust.
Picassa’s work is abstract: glowing gradients, colour theory illusions, soft visual builds that feel more like light than paint. Dricky’s is cartoonish, surreal faces and figures contorted into new caricature-like worlds. Together, it shouldn’t work. But somehow it really does. "We were put together through a mutual friend, Dapo," Piicasa explained. "Probably because of how both of us use such vivid bright colours. Coming from two different worlds completely. Him being figurative, almost like person or character based. And me from a completely non-figurative world." And yet, what they made doesn’t feel like an experiment. It feels like an absolute point in time that was always meant to happen. A bold, colourful and fun playground on canvas that somehow works. "When you make art, you're quite precious over it," Piicasa said. "Say I paint something that I like. To give it onto someone else to go over what you've just done... that's quite a special thing. You're trusting them. Or you just think, I trust your skill and ability, and do what you want. I've just painted that, you go over it. Then I'll go over that. Then you go over it again."
Dricky didn’t even flinch. "I didn't even doubt him for a second."
The collab started on a whim. Thursday was the Sampha gig. Friday they hunted down canvases. By Saturday, they were in the studio painting. "Now it's Friday again," Piicasa said, "so it's been six days. Not even a week." Most people, let alone artists, would panic about doing something this spontaneous. Needing time to properly plan, brainstorm before perfectly executing but these two had nothing to lose.
Piicasa, real name Callum, started like a lot of kids: drawing cartoons. "Scooby Doo, Dragon Ball Z, Yu-Gi-Oh," he said. "I used to draw on the end of my parents' bed, sat there just drawing. After school club, drawing dinosaurs, drawing pirates, you know. Typical boy stuff." Before starting school and being introduced to more mediums. "My friend got these marker pens, and we used to, after school, go in the alleyways and just write on back of fences and make a mess of our nice neighbourhood. It developed into an obsession. I just did it constantly. On the weekends, learning to spray from literally 12 years old."
Graffiti gave him freedom. Years later, oil paint gave him depth. "Now, the last five years I've learned to oil paint. It did start from graffiti, but now it's come somewhere else. I love murals. Because I just like working big and in a public realm. People can see it. You have public interactions. It feels nice. I love to just put it out there, instead of adverts, I put art. That's a dream for me. That's what I've always wanted to do."
Dricky, real name Frederick, grew up in Nigeria, moving around often. Art wasn’t the plan. Football was. But life had other ideas. "I never really wanted to be an artist. I wanted to be a footballer. But I was very good at art."
"Did you have your own style from early?" I asked. "Oh yeah, definitely."
He didn’t learn from textbooks. He learned from questions. "I was watching cartoons growing up asking, why are these colours like this? Why do they use these circles, these shapes? Then you're trying to replicate it. You're trying to create your own stuff."
He picked up tips wherever he could. "I used to go to the market and see guys at stalls painting T-shirts live. I was like, I'll definitely try this." And he did more than try. He painted everywhere. On clothes, on walls, on anything he could get his hands on. "Just painting on stuff you shouldn't be painting on." He laughed. "I just felt like art is an expression. All school does is tell you about this person who once painted. You learn the history of art. But style-wise they weren't really teaching you anything."
His big break came out of nowhere. Genevieve Nnaji a Nollywood icon, basically Nigeria’s Halle Berry, handed him her Birkin bag to paint. "I didn't know how much a Birkin was worth. I just did it and then I went from having like 60-something followers to like 4,000. I was in shock. I asked her, why did you give me that bag? But she just trusted me. That's what you need. You just need one person to trust you." From there, he kept building. He painted clothes. Built sets for his brother Frank’s fashion brand. Created surreal, character-led worlds from scratch. No gallery. No formal training. Just curiosity and consistency.
That energy, DIY but deliberate, runs through every inch of In Colour. The pieces are layered. Nothing about them is linear. It’s shapes on figures, glows on gestures. It’s messy in the best way. It’s two styles overlapping without canceling each other out.
The launch was only on for one night. No week-long gallery run. No soft launch. Just one night to witness what they built from scratch. "We've got prints, we've got merchandise as well," they said. "We spray paint shirts live. I did something like that in London at Slawn's studio. This one's just a freestyle." But maybe that’s the point.
"It’s too short," Piicasa said. "We've put a lot of work in for four hours."
"We're trying to do more," they added. "Hopefully it's not just a one-off."
In a world full of over-curated art drops, this one feels refreshingly raw. Two artists, two continents, two distinct styles. No structure. Just colour, creativity, and vibes.
"We could have just done our own thing completely," Piicasa said. "But it's better to take a risk."
"Sometimes," Dricky said, "you just need something new."
