According to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics, 5,656 suicides were registered in England in 2023, of which 4,188 were males who took their own lives.
The artist said the sculpture – of a man being comforted by a small bear – continues to get a lot of attention on social media, including from across the globe.
“Five years later there’s still a massive reaction from people that are only just seeing it for the first time,” he said.
The artist recalled a time he bumped into a man from Malaysia whilst on holiday in 2023.
“He said, ‘what do you do?’ and I said, ‘I’m a street sculptor’. Then he said, ‘you didn’t do Bear With Me, did you?’. That’s the joy of the internet.”