Hayley Garner’s film (AYLO)
"We're only here for a very short amount of time, and you only get one chance to make the most of your life," says Hayley Garner (AYLO) – an international award-winning muralist, curator, and creative director. It is a core truth driving both her work today and her creative freedom.
Hayley always moved to a different beat. While schoolwork could never hold her attention, paintbrushes and nature led to hours of hyper-focused joy, becoming an essential way to process life.
She discovered graffiti during university, cutting her teeth on legal walls like Cornbrook and abandoned buildings across Manchester. A natural self-starter, she opened a spray paint shop, built an artist community, and co-founded the globally renowned street art duo Nomad Clan. Six years of painting across the globe followed, including the UK’s tallest mural in 2016. However, the relentless hustle led to burnout. "It was like we were always chasing that next high, projects with more clout than the previous," she reflects.
Sadly, in recent years Hayley lost both of her parents to alcohol addiction. The loss stripped away her safety net, leaving her feeling alone without support to process her grief. Yet through that raw experience, she gained the ultimate freedom to stop caring what anyone else thought. "You ain't got time to be worried about what someone else is thinking,"she says.
Hayley pivoted. Teaming up with her partner Chris, she co-founded The Butterfly Effected, moving away from art as mere "eye candy" to create projects rooted in healing and community. "It's more about that mural doing something: who is it helping, whose mind is it changing?"
This led to deeply impactful work like Darkness to Light in Darnhill, Heywood (addressing knife crime while celebrating community resilience) and Common Walls across Rochdale, which earned her a national Pineapple Award for placemaking. Looking back, Hayley has found a much deeper purpose in her art: "Things are more important to me now than massaging my ego... I feel more successful doing what I do today."
Discover more about Hayley and her work at: