on English puts up illegal billboards, so he has only one way of knowing if it has been a good day.

"I consider it a success if I don't go to jail," he explained. He should know. He has had two very unsuccessful days in the past.

You may have seen Mr. English, a 43-year-old father of two, wandering around the streets of Manhattan or New Jersey with a bucket of glue, a set of rollers and a crew of accomplices. He plasters his original paintings in broad daylight on billboards he does not own. This is a conscious decision, because billboarding in the dark would only look more suspicious. "If you're out at night," he said, "it's obvious that you're not supposed to be there."

It is worth being careful. Though he has posted more than 1,000 illicit signs, Mr. English says he has been chased while half-drunk by the police in Texas, has been the object of death threats and barely escaped an angry mob in Jersey City.

Mr. English is not a run-of-the-mill graffiti maker. He is widely recognized in the art world as one of the earliest and most celebrated in a line of "culture jammers" — people who usurp the images of advertising and turn them on their head. In the past, his ridicule has been directed at Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Disney and the cigarette companies, to name a few. One of his most famous lampoonings, from 1999, featured what looked like the Apple Computers logo, the message "Think Different," and a bug-eyed Charles Manson. It loomed over East 14th Street for about two months.

His work is slick. He was so good at capturing the essence of Joe Camel that he was hired to create billboards for the cigarette maker — though he was later fired, in part for concealing skulls in the paintings.

"Ron's kind of a one-man billboard hurricane," said Jack Napier, the founder of the Billboard Liberation Front, a San Francisco-based movement considered one of the first to alter such advertising. "He's done some brilliant stuff."

Two weeks ago, Mr. English pasted up three works in Jersey City, where he lives and paints. One reads: "Saddam's SUV's. Oil Dependence Day Sale." It ends with the Chevy logo and the tag "Like Iraq."

A second billboard could easily offend at least three groups: "Jesus Drove An SUV. Mohammad Pumped His Gas," it reads. Moments after its unveiling, on a busy intersection near Jersey City's waterfront, a taxi driver with a thick accent passed by and rolled down his window: "I saw it," he said. "I don't like it. It's a disgrace." Later, Mr. English discovered that the word "Mohammad" had been ripped from the billboard poster.

Others are as upset about Mr. English's medium as his message.

"I don't think that it's the right thing to do," said Frank Nataro, the managing director of Chesapeake Outdoor Advertising, of Union, N.J. His signs in Jersey City have frequently taken the brunt of Mr. English's efforts. "They're trespassing on signage," he said.

Despite, or perhaps because of these stunts, Mr. English has become a sought-after painter of works not normally battered by rain, wind and disgruntled pedestrians. Luciano Pavarotti owns one of his paintings, and some have sold for as much as $30,000, Mr. English said. His most popular recent canvases are a series of Marilyn Monroe nudes that sport grinning Mickey Mouse heads instead of breasts.

With that success, Mr. English said he was thinking of winding down his operation, a pursuit he says is akin to painting a work and then destroying it.

Before forays in the last two weeks, the last billboard he had put up was in 2002, on East 14th Street in Manhattan. It said, "Jihad Is Over (If You Want It)" — prompting news articles that wondered who, indeed, would put up such a thing.

But he believes strongly in the message he is delivering. "It gives me direct access to the public without any editors or art dealers," he said. "There's no one in my way."

So on a recent Saturday, he climbs into his wheezy 1989 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, slips through the Holland Tunnel and enters the East Village, intent on breaking the law.

Things are not going well. For one thing, it has been about a year since he has been back to this section of town, and he cannot seem to find his favorite billboards. His crew is made up of neophytes, including Rusty Pistachio, a singer in a punk rock band, and Bucky Turco, a gallery owner. Thus, a lot of aimless wandering.

But it is aimless wandering with a stepladder, rollers, a bucket of glue and three 5-by-11 "pedestrian" billboards. This all becomes pretty burdensome, so part of the crew packs the stuff into a car and takes off in search of potential targets, giving Mr. English frequent updates on his cellphone.

Complicating matters, three independent-film crews are documenting Mr. English's every move. The frenzy of activity creates gawking and quizzical stares from people on the street. Mr. English mutters more than once, "There's too many people."

The crew locates one spot, on Third Street and Avenue B, and Mr. English gives instructions to the guerrilla painters. Kathy Geary, 49, a musician and producer, is charged with keeping an eye out for potential law enforcement types and giving a quick warning if she sees anything. But Ms. Geary is not keeping watch; she is snapping pictures.

The rest of the crew — Mr. English and two others — glop glue over a legitimate advertisement for the Health Plus government insurance program that shows diapered toddlers in wings sitting on puffy clouds. "Angels Don't Need Health Insurance," it reads, "Your Child Does." They unroll the new ad, a 5-by-7 canvas featuring a bloated Ronald McDonald against a bright yellow background and the words "Mc Super Size." It takes only three minutes to put up, a surprise to those who are new.

A disheveled man spots the work and — to no one in particular — mumbles, "Put them in jail."

Mr. English tells the rest of the crew to move on quickly after everything is done. "We don't want to stand around like it's a crime scene," he says. But as he bolts down the street, most of the crew loiter right underneath the still-dripping sign.

Only two of the three billboards are put up on this day. Frustrated by his inability to find another appropriate spot, Mr. English hops into his car. He and his crew just want to go back home and drink beer.

"I guess I'm a criminal," Mr. English confides as he inches the Olds back through the tunnel. "But I don't think I'm a nuisance to society."
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