Long-since bruised toenail
attempting separation
hanging by a thread
by Scooj
Apologies for this rather gruesome tale, but it has become all-consuming and my motivation behind the haiku was to exorcise all thoughts about it. I fear though that it might have had the opposite effect.
Street art posts in Natural Adventures are dominated by Bristol artists, I know and understand the culture (a little) in the city and feel comfortable writing about the art I see. The same cannot be said for other places. I tend to hold back on writing too much about the work I see on my trips outside Bristol because there are other chroniclers who do it so much better with so much more knowledge. Most of the photographs I take in London never get posted, but the break in new art in Bristol imposed by lock down means that I can visit my London archives and share some nice art with you.
This is a gorgeous piece by Mr Cenz in Shorditch that I photographed in November 2018, and I have a feeling that it was still pretty fresh and clean and probably not that old. Everything you expect to see from a Mr Cenz piece is here and it is absolutely stunning. It would be great if he could pay us a visit in Bristol some time – we’d have to find him a good wall though.
When I find pieces by Tasha Bee in my archive it only reinforces my sadness that it has been quite some while since I last saw a new piece by her. She has been busy with other projects, but I hope her absence from the street art scene is only temporary.
This piece on the wall of the Star and Garter from November 2018 is truly beautiful. Her style is instantly recognisable and often solemn, although there is the slightest hint of cheekyness in this girls face – or is that just me? Great colours and so typically Tasha Bee.
Doors 104 – New York City paste up and sticker doors
Lock down continues and the weather has become a little unsettled, which adds up to a failure to find some new fresh doors for you this week, so it is a return to my archives and some doors from a family trip we took to New York in October 2017.
Each morning I would rise early and wander around the East Village area where out holiday appartment was and snap up some street art before the rest of the family got up – I combined shopping for breakfast with getting my street art fix, a win-win situation.
Many of the doors in the area were peppered from top to toe with wheatpastes and stickers. Here are a few of them to give you a flavour of the district:
You can spot a paste up by Phoebe New York to the right of the door buzzer.
There are two more Phoebe New York paste ups here, one above the boxer on the left and one at the bottom right of the door.
I hope you enjoyed this little tour, brief I know and I am sorry about that.
If you have made it this far, you probably like doors and you ought to take a look at the Norm 2.0 blog – the originator of Thursday Doors where there are links to yet more doors in the comments section at the end.
by Scooj
The joy of waking
from vivid, exhausting dreams
a daytime solace
by Scooj
This prophetic piece by Object… in The Bearpit was a protest and exposure of Bristol City’s determination to shut down the space and clear it of all ‘undesirable’ activity and make it a safe, clinical space. Object… quotes from Tom Flemming a creative consultant for Bristol City Council:
“…it will also be vital to champion the messy, the marginal and the avante garde, where imagination drives the city of the future.”
The Council shut The Bearpit down, expelled the homeless people (some of whom I note have returned), removed skateboarding and buffed all the walls with anti-graffiti paint. The space is now sterile (and indeed safer), but street art and graffiti were not contributing to a lack of safety, but perceptions seemed to rule the Council decision making. A council, I would add, that celebrates its association with Banksy. Some muddled thinking here.
Object…’s piece once again features a contorted and strangely proportioned figure propping up the rights of the overlooked, the messy, marginal and avante garde mentioned above. He is a true champion and I salute him.
Going through the archives is turning out some nice surprises, and I have been fiding quite a few old pieces by Conrico, like this one at the M32 Spot from August 2018, at a time when I wasn’t familiar with the artist.
This wonderful melty column piece I suspect in some way might be drug related. There is certainly something fairly unusual and dreamlike going on and the separation of the character’s head and copious amounts of smoke suggest something weird is going on. Ever colourful and imaginative, Conrico is a lovely bloke whose work really brightens the place up.
Wailing for her food
far beyond irritating
already been fed
by Scooj
Ninja the cat is getting on a bit and is losing her hearing and sight. Oh my goodness the noisy protest for food. Had she had her wits about her she’d have found the food already in her bowl.
The great thing about looking back is that you get to see what artist’s work looked like some time ago and how they might have developed over time. This fabulous pair of rabbits from Nevergiveup (#followmyrabbits) is from April 2018 and is notably different from more recent incarnations of the characters in two respects: the amount of decoration on the torso is much more limited, and the ears much smaller than on the 2020 versions.
We have to remember that the artist has only been in Bristol for about three years, it feels much longer because of the abundance and spread of rabbits, but in street art terms it is a relatively short time. The image below is a more recent incarnation pf a Nevergiveup rabbit, can you see the differences?
Aah, it is so easy to forget how bright and shiny (or shite and briney as an old colleague of mine used to say) this collaboration was when it was painted. Its quality has stood the test of time and it remained untouched for a very long spell – I think it has finally been painted over.
The collaboration on the M32 cycle path from 2018 was painted by Dot Rotten (SPOILT), Sled One and Smak. Dot Rotten is an artist Idon’t think I have posted before, but while I have been going through my archive recently I have spotted quite a few of his pieces, so expect more in the coming days/weeks.
Sled One has done here what Sled One does everywhere and that is turned out a high-quality character piece with great panache and style. The skull s beautifully drafted and has an animated humour about it. A nice touch to have an ASK speech bubble coming out of the cigarette.
On the right hand side of the collaboration is a clean, crisp and straight forward Smak piece which stands out from the wall thanks to the yellow outline and bright highlight spots. The whole collaboration has been painted on a shared background and colour selections and was a welcoming sight on this stretch of cycle path.
Natural adventures 