wheat paste
/wiːt peɪst/
CommonA street art technique where printed or hand-drawn images are glued to public walls using a flour-and-water paste.
Technically considered illegal on most surfaces, but easier for authorities to remove than spray paint, which affects how it is treated. Artists sometimes get away with it longer in areas where enforcement is lax.
Real-world examples4 examples
| # | Example | What it means | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | they wheat pasted the whole side of the building in one night. massive piece. | A group applied large paper images to a building facade overnight. | instagram, 2023 |
| 02 | this wheat paste series has been going up around the city for months. someone is committed. | A recurring set of paste-up artworks has been appearing in multiple locations over time. | x, 2024 |
| 03 | wheat paste is my favorite because you can print something at 3am and have it on a wall by 4am | The technique allows for very fast, cheap production and deployment of street art. | reddit, 2023 |
| 04 | the rain took down all the wheat paste from last week. gotta go back out. | Recent rain has damaged or removed paste-up works, prompting the artist to redo them. | tiktok, 2024 |
Use it when
- Describing the technique of pasting large paper images onto walls.
- Talking about poster-style street art made with adhesive paste.
- Referring to a work created using this method.
Do not use it when
- The work is spray-painted directly on a wall.Use “graffiti” instead.
- The poster was put up with tape or tacks in an official space.
Variations and related forms
Origin and context
The wheat paste technique has been used since the 19th century for commercial poster advertising. It was adopted by political activists and then street artists in the 20th century as a cheap way to get large-format images onto walls. Widely used in the punk, protest, and street art scenes of the 1970s through today.
- First seen
- 19th-century
- Confidence
- medium
Cite this page
Use this stable URL to reference the entry.
https://slang.fyi/wheat-pasteUpdated: 2026-08-29License: CC BY 4.0