Reykjavik's street art scene has had to adapt recently. The city once turned a blind eye to street art, but recently began cracking down on unauthorized graffiti. The response from artists has been to seek permission to paint on property owners' walls or to accept commissions from businesses. The result is a cleaner, more contained, style of art than the scrappier pieces that bloomed on the city's walls 5-10 years ago.

When the owner of the old Loftkastalinn building (a former theater that was converted into a film studio) saw van Helten's grandfather mural nearby, he commissioned him to create three more in exchange for food and lodging.
Van Helten based these murals on photographs from the Reykjavi­k Museum of Photography Archive. The photos, by Andrés Kolbeinsson, depict scenes from a version of the Jean-Paul Sartre play No Exit that was performed in Reykjavik in 1961.