Flora&Fauna, Friernhay Street, Exeter, October 2023
I have seen many birds painted on walls over the years, and some species are more popular than others. On a survey of one, the top three birds I have seen are: 3rd – Goldfinch; 2nd – Robin; and 1st by a country mile, Kingfisher. There is something magical about kingfishers and they certainly capture the imagination of street artists.
Flora&Fauna, Friernhay Street, Exeter, October 2023
I had to do a lot of detective work to hunt down the name of the artist who painted this beautiful bird tucked down a side street especially as f&f wasn’t a lot to go on – turns out it is Flora and Fauna, and this is one of two of their pieces I found on my short exploration of the city. The piece is striking and rather beautiful, and painted in a fairly soft style, without too much fine detailing. F&f is certainly an artist I’d like to se more of… a potential candidate for Upfest?
Although Exeter doesn’t have quite the same volume of street/graffiti art on offer as Bristol, nor as many spots/locations, it does have one or two resident artists whose work can be found, if you keep your eyes open. One of these artists is None Here.
None Here, Exeter, October 2023
If you fins a street or area with street art bin Graffiti, it is highly likely to have a piece by None Here somewhere. His work is pretty much always nature-based, often featuring birds. His style is very recognisable, looking like illustrations, and I am not convinced they are painted using spray cans, but more likely paint brushes with sprayed backgrounds. This door is typical of the work I saw on my recent trip. I would say that None Here is the beating heart of the Exeter street art scene.
This piece by RichT completely passed me by. I have no idea whether is is old or new. It is a lesson in looking backwards because I walk past this wall from time to time, but cannot see the face of it when walking from the direction I come from. I think it was the dog that stopped after I had gone past and I caught the piece in my peripheral vision, and of course made a bee line over to it.
RichT, The Paintworks, Bristol, October 2023
The piece is typically busy and interesting and beautifully presented. The piece is also brilliantly on-topic, with a can of paint character (not a spray can on this occasion) painting a floral design with a paintbrush. The colours are incredibly subtle and the piece has a black and white tinted effect. Some clever work picking out the mortar lines in the brickwork emphasises the sense of place. A great piece, a commission I imagine, and a nice tribute to Elliot.
Desi, Peggy and Evey, Sparke Evans Park, Bristol, October 2023
I don’t know how old this lovely triptych by RBF bedfellows Desi, Peggy and Evey is, but I think it slightly predates the much larger RBF Halloween collaboration just to the left. A rather pleasant appetiser to its immediate neighbour. Desi has adopted her joined up writing for this piece which is neatly and tidily presented.
Desi, Sparke Evans Park, Bristol, October 2023
Desi leads off on the left with another Veil piece using the light blue and yellow colour palette adopted for the collaboration. I have to say that I don’t think the colour combination is an especially good one, looking a little anaemic against the autumn leaf litter in front of it. Desi has some nice horizontal fills and subtle dot details and the 3D drop shadow helps it to pop out from the wall.
Peggy, Sparke Evans Park, Bristol, October 2023
Peggy has made an oblique reference to the colour scheme with the incorporation of a yellow colour in some of her details. The floral display, complete with an eye at the centre of the flower is exactly what you’d expect from Peggy, containing some nice detail in the levels and petals. I don’t know what the letters AIZH stand for, but you can make them out at the base of the piece. Peggy’s work lends itself very well to being the decorative filling between two pieces of graffiti writing.
Evey, Sparke Evans Park, Bristol, October 2023
To the right, the effervescent Evey has knocked it out of the park once again. Her letters are nicely thought out and she has reflected the horizontal fill regime in Desi’s work on the other side, and has come up with some decorations in the letters that make them feel substantial without being too busy. More great work from these three who appear to enjoy painting together.
The Earthshot Prize looks at solutions to the challenges our planet faces. Five prizes of £1 million are awarded for five years, this being the second year and the award ceremony will be in Singapore.
The shame about this is that the prize has to exist at all. If Governments around the world were serious about getting out of the mess we’re in they would be funding this kind of research and innovation as part of the ‘day job’. I try to lok on the upside though.
My one hundredth post from Greenbank and what better way to celebrate such a landmark than with this stunning face piece by Zake. Over the last few years, Zake has been one of the most regular artists in Bristol, either painting solo or with his PWA friends.
Zake, Greenbank, Bristol, October 2023
In this piece Zake has gone large, and to give you some idea of scale, this portrait stands at about 7-8 feet tall. As always with Zake’s work, the contours and texture of the face are created by a wonderful contrasting of light and shade, giving the appearance of deep furrows and folds in the subject’s skin. Zake pretty much always paints in this cartoon style and I think it would be really interesting to see if he could paint something a little more realistic in terms of proportion and features, just as a one-off… I think he would smash it.
A graffiti writer and artist who regularly pops up on Natural Adventures, Pl8ohas recently had a bit of a purple patch, painting several pieces in the space of a month or two. This is a large burner on the cycle path that runs along the river Avon between Sparke Evans Park and Temple Meads station.
Pl8o, River Avon, Bristol, October 2023
This large (larger than it looks), bold and humorous piece is a great example of Pl8o’s work, always well executed and fun to look at. The letters/number he uses are so easy on the eye, and here he has added an extra ‘o’ to create an excellent pair of eyes, a mechanism used by artists with ‘oo’ letters to great effect, such as Boogie and Scooj (hah!). Over the years, Pl8o’s contribution has not been insignificant as evidenced by this gallery of his work.
This is another wonderful piece from the RBF Halloween paint jam at Sparke Evans Park, and is by Bbygwya, probably better known as Flux, the letters (or variations of them) that she writes. This is a masterful composition, very pleasing on the eye, with each element of the piece excellently executed. If only my slightly misty images did the piece justice.
Bbygwya, Sparke Evans Park, Bristol, October 2023
The letters spelling FLXE or FLuXE or as Paul H rightly points out LUXE are beautifully filled with an orange/red oily-bubbly effect, and the white 3D drop shadow is nicely worked into the piece. The character, looking like a masked villain out of a Scooby-Doo cartoon, is well painted and complements the letters perfectly. Bbygwya, along with her RBF friends, has used the ‘house colours’ for the piece. I would love to have a picture with the whole collaboration, but alas there are large trees in front of the wall, and it is virtually impossible to get the whole stretch in one head-on view.
This wall is a little out of the way and not favoured by many artists in Bristol. It is however a favourite for the Bristol Mural Collective to host occasional paint jams, so I was a little surprised to find a couple of Werm pieces on this stretch, which may have been there for some time, as I don’t visit the spot all that often.
Werm, The Paintworks, Bristol, October 2023
This striking piece by Werm exploits the contrasting nature of Pink and Black, a combination used to great effect by Lee Roy and Waste in Brunel Way a little while back. Judging from the letter shapes, I would say that this piece is relatively recent, and it is dated 2023. I think I prefer his work when it is slightly less busy and cluttered, so I am enjoying this new direction.
Natural adventures 