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The world in free fall
bad news seems to trump the good
keep breathing keep faith
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by Scooj
Month: October 2023
5586. St Werburghs tunnel (390)
After his short absence, Kid Krishna is well and truly back in the groove, although his recent pieces, a handful of them, appear to be reasonably simple in their construction, and perhaps he is returning to first principles before building up into another crescendo.
At the entrance to St Werburghs tunnel, this piece is about as basic as you can get from Kid Krishna. You’ll have to take it from me that it most likely spells CRIE, and the writing was probably painted with small rollers. There is a contemporary message ‘no more wars’ which I expect will chime for most of us. What is happening to our world?
5585. M32 roundabout J3 (520)
I don’t know if I am imagining it or whether it is a thing, but it feels like Smak isn’t painting as frequently as he used to and that when I find a piece by him these days it is a rather nice surprise. This is a stylish piece of graffiti writing from a couple of weeks ago, painting alongside some of the RBF crew.
The writing is painted in a stylised font, which is not what I am used to seeing from Smak who tends to prefer a more wildstyle approach. Just by looking at the writing, you can see that it is of the highest quality, with sensational letter fills and a beautifully subtle 3D drop shadow. I love the design of the ‘S’ in particular. Sheer class from Smak
5584. Guildhall Shopping Centre, Exeter
One of the primary reasons I started posting graffiti and street art on Natural Adventures was to provide a little bit of background information and opinion about the pieces I found, because there was very little documented (it is the nature of the beast) anywhere. I have really only scratched the surface of this gargantuan task as a recent visit to Exeter highlighted. I found several pieces in the City, but searching the Interweb to try and find out more was incredibly difficult, and I had to work very hard to find out anything about this amazing piece by Joe Webster Art. There is a tiny signature hidden at the bottom of the piece, but that was pretty much all I had to go on, and I couldn’t find out anything about the display of three pieces in the Guildhall Shopping Centre.
Joe Webster is a ‘landscape graffiti artist’ and has found himself a bit of a niche combining the outdoor natural experience with graffiti. In this powerful piece, Joe Webster has created a kind of word cloud superimposed or rather integrated into a landscape with a tree. The red/orange colours have words like Fire, Smoke, House fire, Ignite, Ember, Hot, Blaze and so on, and the sky carries the word Hope. There is a lot of texture in the piece too. There is a story, probably of climate catastrophe, being told in this intriguing piece.
5583. John Street, Exeter
One of the great pleasures of going to a city or town, even for the briefest of visits, is to explore a place that is unfamiliar. My three-hour stay in Exeter recently, yielded a plethora of fabulous doors for Thursday Doors, and some great pieces of street art, let alone an eye-opening blend of ancient and modern architecture.
In one of Exeter’s narrow streets I stumbled across this beauty by Fark, alongside a couple of My Dog Sigh’s pieces. Finding these gave me a wonderful sense of wellbeing, satisfaction and contentment. This is a beautifully crisp and clean piece by Fark featuring his trademark bird. Although the design looks simple, do not be fooled, to create such clean art with clearly defined boundaries and solid fills takes years of experience and an enormous amount of skill. That this is achieved with spray cans and not brushes is a triumph in itself. A great piece from a brilliant artist.
5582. Cumberland Basin
Maes is a writer who I have featured a couple of times on Natural Adventures, and whose work peppers my archive. He is rather underrepresented in this blog, and I will need to find a way to feature his work more often. He is on the early stages of a steep learning curve, and is out there a lot, seeking to try new things out and improve. I fully expect to be writing about his improvement in a year’s time and, given his productivity, a gallery of his work.
Maes’ work is getting tidier and his fills more imaginative, although his can control is perhaps still developing, and that will come with practice and confidence. The letter design is interesting and colour selection eye-catching. He is working on his details and has created an interesting piece. Could we be witnessing a diamond in the rough? Time will tell.
5581. M32 Cycle path (231)
The Resting Bitch Face crew is an all female crew largely, but not exclusively, centred around Bristol. There are quite a few members of the crew, and it is always a joyous occasion when they congregate for a paint jam. This piece, by Lupa, was painted at one of two paint jams over the last month.
Lupa has a very distinctive style in which she usually makes a feature of the letter ‘U’, which she has done to good effect here. Her letters are large and bold, and everything about her work is quite raw. While there is definitely room for improvement, I am not so sure if that is what Lupa is all about. I get the sense that her work is mostly about joy and happiness and decorating a wall, and that enthusiasm comes across in bucket-loads. A fun and uplifting piece by Lupa.
5580. M32 roundabout J3 (519)
Some of the most gratifying pieces are the ones that you stumble upon, without knowing about them and which are total stunners, like this outstanding collaboration from Saor, Kosc and Mudra on the roundabout.
To the left of the triptych is an extraordinary piece by Saor, which is characteristically sharp and clean. What I particularly like about his work is that he doesn’t use borders to tidy up his work, everything is achieved through extraordinary can control and cutting back. Incredible really.
Kosc’s portraits just get better and better, and he has painted something super-special in the centre of the three pieces. I rather like it that he hasn’t moved into the realms of photorealism, but has an amazing sense of touch, tone and depth. The orange hair is pretty eye-catching, too.
To the right, Mudra has painted another cracker, spelling MUDRA with letters in a uniform ‘font’, which is different to his last few pieces, where each letter has had a different design. A flower and a CCTV camera are thrown in for good measure. The whole thing benefits from having a buffed wall painted in a complementary colour that works well with the colour selection of the collaboration. This is another outstanding collaboration from the NTS crew.
5579. Greenbank (97)
This is the second Cobo piece I have posted in a short space of time and the second featuring a cat, which is nice to see. His big fat chrome/grey letters spell out Cober and are full of depth and character, and resemble large monolithic rock formations.
The cat is not exactly what I would call cute, but is a really nice addition to his writing. Overall, this is an impressive and imposing piece from an accomplished artist, who has a preference for decorating transport vehicles, but who has done a great job here.
5578. M32 Cycle path (230)
A normal week wouldn’t be a normal week without posting something by Bean, and so here is this week’s offering. This one is something a little different from Bean, and he certainly gets tons of credit for constantly dreaming up new characters, no two pieces being alike.
It is high time this wall was refreshed, and Bean has done it in style with this weird butterfly graffiti writer wearing a basketball shirt (naturally!?) and spraying pink dollops on either side of the piece. Creative and imaginative, I still think that his work would really benefit from a little bit of prep work with a buffed wall to help his pieces stand out even more.
Natural adventures 