.
Smoke from a bonfire
hangs over a valley copse
breezeless dispersal
.
by Scooj
Month: November 2019
2560. M32 roundabout J3 (176)
A Halloween double bill from the fabulous Biers from a week or two back. I got lucky enough to catch Biers while he was still painting the piece on the right featuring a cartoon Jason Voorhees from ‘Friday the 13th’.
Biers gave no indication that he was going to paint a second character piece (is it from the ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’?) but paint one he did to create this double set. He seems to be enjoying the letters OYEAH at the moment although he didn’t rule out writing Biers again in the future.
Biers did explain to me the colour choices in his letters and that they were very deliberately chosen from the colours used in a game or something. If I am honest he lost me a bit on the story. I knew I should have written it down at the time. my memory is like a sieve at the moment.
Anyhow this is a pleasurable Halloween romp and a fine pair from Biers. Hats off!
2559. Upper York Street (17)
Sled One is hitting a bit of a purple patch just at the moment, and his Instagram feed is overflowing with recent pieces from all over the country. This is a reasonably recent collaboration with Ments and is located on a wall that both artists are familiar with.
Whether it is graffiti writing or character pieces, Sled One simply knocks it out of the park every time, and his writing in particular seems to embrace so many different styles and techniques. Although you can pretty much always identify the work as his, he has a very broad range of letter shapes and styles and no two pieces are remotely the same, unlike some artists who use the same essential building blocks for every piece. A master at the top of his game.
Half time
Taking a breather
TV football ironing
composing haiku.
by Scooj
2558. Millpond Street (7)
Roughly every six months or so this wall on the side of Domestic Drain Services gets a makeover. It is not a commission as such, more like permission and the cost of the paint thrown in, the payback is that the company get a beautifully sprayed landmark that can just about be seen from this busy motorway junction.
This piece is a collaboration between SPzero76, Squirl and Kid Crayon.
On the left is the highly detailed work of SPZero76 full of busy action and cartoon capers. The words ‘Lost Eats’ on the side of the rocket is a conflation of two crews, the Lost Souls, which SPZero76 and Squirl belong to and Eats which is the pairing of SPZero76 and Kid Crayon. A nice touch.
The central part of the collaboration is a much more tranquil almost abstract space idea going on from Squirl. I have seen a little bit of his work on his occasional visits to Bristol for Upfest so it was nice to see this contribution from him.
Finally, on the right is a rather splendid space woman alien kind of thing with the astronaut clad in terrestrial clothes holding the earth with a little space shuttle breaking through the atmosphere. Great, imaginative stuff.
This whole collaboration seems to have the brief of space, but beyond that each artist has absolutely done his own thing, so this is a three-way individual collaboration loosely based on a single idea.
2557. Wilder Street (37)
I can’t think of a time when Sled One hasn’t been on fire. His work is always of such an exceptionally high standard and not only is it technically brilliant, but he combines that excellence with a fertile imagination and interesting concepts.
This piece on the ‘Where the Wall’ curated area is a beautiful (belated) birthday work for his frequent painting buddy Smak. It gives me a warm feeling to know that these guys pay tribute to each other in this kind of way and reassures me that the street art community is built on friendship and decency. The piece itself is a creative spelling of SMAK and is painted with a fabulous colour palette underpinned by a deep red and a scarlet. What a nice birthday present to get.
P.S. it is my birthday in January… any chance…?
Drowsy
It is the weather
that makes me soporific
so I’d like to think
by Scooj
2556. Moon Street (77)
This is one of a great many rabbits by Nevergiveup that I have in my archive of Bristol street art, and I will be releasing them slowly as and when slots appear or the inclination takes me. This particular one in Moon Street goes back to May 2018.
As I recall this furry fellow stayed put for quite a while, but like so many of his colleagues eventually disappeared. I noticed that Bristol City Council have been on an anti-rabbit patrol lately and buffed out a whole bunch of them from utility boxes in the Cumberland Basin area (boo). Now that Nevergiveup has left town I expect the cull to gather pace.
2555. The Bearpit (184)
As a street art hunter (a rather geeky description that I am not very fond of – archivist might be better) it is always worth taking pictures of everything you see, even if you don’t know the artist – you never know, you might be able to find out more later. And so it is with what is probably the first piece I saw by Conrico back in April 2018.
You can tell this is an old piece, because it is from The Bearpit, which has been ‘hermetically sealed’ since the spring this year. The picture is of a coiled snake and a hat without a body – presumably the owner of the hat – has been consumed or crushed by the constrictor, with only his spray cans and hat surviving the ordeal. The patterns on the snake are brilliantly done and this piece was an early indication of the talent that has since been unleashed on the streets of Bristol this year.
Board games
Two wicker baskets
filled with childhood adventures
it’s hard to let go.
by Scooj
Natural adventures 