Sarah Yates AKA Faunagraphic (Fauna for short) is a professional graphic designer, graffiti, and mural artist from Lancashire, UK. She spent her formative years roaming the woodlands and river valleys between the Peak District and the Yorkshire Dales, where she fell in love with nature. During her teenage years she found a connection with the skateboarding scene and was introduced to the world of spray cans. Having found her calling, Faunagraphic’s mural art could be seen – if the seeker were tenacious enough – on vast paint-peeled walls of disused warehouses, among the cracked tiles of abandoned public toilets, beautifying bridge abutments and crumbling, weather-worn gable ends. Treasure hunt art.
Fauna’s stunning use of colour and style brought the distant world of dazzling birds, towering trees, forest floor fungi and wild woodland creatures to the concrete streets and looming buildings of northern towns and cities. In 2011, the American shoe company giant Converse launched their “Wall to Wall” project celebrating street art across Europe and the US; Fauna was selected to create the now famous Manchester Blue Tit that still graces the side of a listed building in the Northern Quarter.
Fauna is regarded as one of the pioneers of “urban nature” street art and her work can now be seen around the world. She seeks to bring nature to the forefront of the city and town dweller’s consciousness and hopes to invoke the respect, care, and attention our environment desperately needs.