Rob Wass took a lot of care and attention in producing this piece, and was out on both days, dodging the showers like everyone else. Some of you may remember his beautiful fox from Upfest 2015 which shares the same distinctive characteristics with this beautiful tree.
Simplicity splashed with carefully selected colours leaves us with a very pleasing piece that generates a sense of calm and connection with our environment…I think I am a fan of his work.
My guess is that this is a cheeky little unofficial piece by Whysayit at Upfest this year. To my reasonably trained eye this looks like an opportunistic ‘quick one’ from an artist beter known for his ‘marginally less than legal’ tags and graffiti art all over the City.
It is a nice piece executed in his square style, which looks like it was put up in a bit of a hurry. I suspect he saw a free board at the festival and took his chance to make his mark, and why not? Festivals run the risk of being too clinical and up their own backsides with ‘corporate’ pieces – it is only when we have some real local street/graffiti artists that we remind ourselves what this is all about. Thank you YSAE.
Those days can happen,
when you don’t know what to do
when you hit the wall.
by Scooj
Perhaps better known for his smaller pieces, stencils and wheatpastes, this large blue face by Beastie came as a bit of a surprise to me at Upfest, so much so that I didn’t even know it was by him when I photographed it.
This was a striking piece that stood out and grabbed the attention and would appear to have an environmental theme to it too. It is interesting that this year’s Upfest appeared to have quite a lot of large portraits, many in single shades of one colour – maybe it is a thing or maybe just coincedence.
Looking forward to seeing what direction Beastie takes with his street art as his work is always interesting.
I was so glad to have found this piece because I have seen it so many times on digital social media. As it turns out, it was about a one minute walk from our hotel, but because of its orientation I only saw it on the last day of our trip.
Somewhat iconic, Gumshoe’s (Angela China) art is so very eyecatching and original. The piece of course has some chewing gum sticking to footwear, in this instance a high-heeled boot. Her art is overtly erotic, which makes it intereting to be so exposed on the street. A piece like this in the UK would probably be dogged or sabotaged by those who might be offended. We rarely see work like this in Bristol, which in my view is a pity.
A superb piece and one I will remember from the trip.
Walking with my family on the obligatory clothes shopping trip in SoHo, we came across this magnificent tiger by Sonny. It is difficult to convey just how spectacular this piece is. Furthermore the piece is actually raising awareness for the global campaign ‘Project Cat‘ which aims to protect wild tigers and their habitat.
Looking at his website, it seems that Sonny is a specialist in painting large wildlife pieces, and has a special talent for this. I love the way he incorporates patterns into the face of the tiger and how cleverly the colours dribble down from the face to create a pool of blue and yellow.
This is a spectacular piece.
.
In the sun
the boys play football
the sky blues
play at home
against the claret and blues;
Sunday league football.
.
by Scooj
My first shadorma.
I have the most enormous backlog of images to post, and can see that the only way to share as many of them as I can is to have slightly shorter written descriptions of the artists and their work, particularly with the non-Bristol street art, which takes me a lot longer to research.
On my recent trip to New York I was lucky enough to be staying in the lower East Side where there are amazing street/graffiti art surprises literally around every corner. This clever Mickey Mouse piece is by Jerkface who produces some amazing works in this grand cartoon style. Unfortunately his beautiful website reveals little about the artist.
This was one of my landmark finds from my trip, and I think it had only recently been sprayed.
Somewhat reminiscent of Banksy’s work or Unify or JPS, this lovely piece by Dotmaster Is just about perfect for this wall. Situated under a camden council sign stating ‘bill stickers will be prosecuted’. The corny old joke suggests that graffiti under the sign should read ‘Bill Stickers is innocent’ but the joke is a hundred years old.
This beautifully executed piece presents us with a naughty child spraying that most sacred of images, a heart, on the wall. A picture within a picture. I love this and pretty much everything about it, but I know little or nothing about the artist, but his biography on his website gives you a flavour. I love his comment:
‘There is NO subculture ONLY subversion.‘
It is impossible not to marvel at the work of Dan Kitchener, and the incredible atmospheric cityscapes he produces. One of the other things that he works on are his ‘speed paintings’ which are insanely brilliant photorealistic pictures – I strongly recommend that you take a look at his Instagram account to check these out.
I took these pictures last year when I was working two days a week in London and used my overnight stays as an opportunity to go to Shoreditch or Camden Town to check out the street/graffiti art.
This amazing piece by Dan Kitchener was actually hiding a little secret, which is pretty much invisible until you get close up to the piece. In amongst the cars and lights in this street scene there are three masks by Gregos.
Ther masks are different sizes and have three different expressions. Dan Kitchener has sprayed over these sensitively, but I am not sure if this was some kind of collaboration or if the masks had been there and Dan Kitchener simply sprayed over them at a later date. I’m not sure it matters too much, because on this wall you have such unbelievable creativity and two for the price of one.
All good.
Natural adventures 