February 2024 – Page 2 – Natural adventures

5846. Sparke Evans Park (87)

Jody, Sparke Evans Park, Bristol, February 2024

A short while ago, Desi and Evey celebrated their birthdays with a paint jam in Sparke Evans Park, the theme of which related to Pokemon, which is not one of my strong points, having struggled for years with my son’s obsession with the cards when he was at primary school. While I understood the concepts and watched the TV show a few times, I was always concerned that my son knew more about Pokemon characters than he knew about British wildlife in his own garden. Things have changed considerably since then, for the better (IMO).

This is an absolutely stunning piece by Jodi, featuring a Pokemon character called Eevee – you can see what he did there. Jodi is one of Bristol’s very best street artists, who seems to keep a healthy balance between his street work and his studio work. In this piece he has captured the cartoon quality, faithful to the Pokemon brand, and presented Eevee on a rocky ledge with some atmospheric clouds in the background. Another wonderful piece from the incredibly versatile Jody.

5845. Brunel Way (255)

Wxttsart, Brunel Way, Bristol, February 2024

I think it would be fair to say that Wxttsart (Whatsxmilk) has been rather quiet over the winter period, but seems to have woken up a bit in the last month or so. It was painted alongside a rather different piece from Zed in the Clouds (to follow).

Wxtssart’s anti-style calligraffiti is very distinctive and usually spells out MILK, but I can’t quite make out the letters in this one, despite looking at long and hard. The steely grey letters are set on a warm orange background, providing plenty of contrast for the letters to stand out. It looks like the background paints might have been a little thin, and running low before completion, but it doesn’t seem to matter too much. This is a nice piece from the writer.

5844. St Werburghs tunnel (408)

Biers, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2024

Biers, who writes WD40, has been very busy with his wall art over the last few months, and seems to be churning out pieces at the rate of about one a fortnight, which is pretty good going really. His general style is to write his letters and include a cartoon character inside the ‘0’, and it is a tried and tested formula which he has been using since 2021 or so. Before that he wrote O Yeah and before that Biers (and that is what I call him here on Natural Adventures).

I am not too sure who the old character is poking out of the ‘0’, and despite a bit of Googling, I haven’t had any luck. The WD40m letters are nicely finished, and the chrome fill with red spots is a delight. I am enjoying this steady flow of great graffiti writing from Biers, and long may it last.

5843. Greenbank (106)

Sub and Bloem, Greenbank, Bristol, February 2024

I mentioned in a previous post what a pleasure it had been to meet Sub and Bloem painting together under the M32 a few weeks back. The pleasure continued on finding this pair of pieces on the long hoarding at Greenbank. While the two artists collaborate, in so much as they paint together, their work is separate and distinct.

Sub writes his bold oversized letters, with deep drop-shadows, and I guess that a challenge for him is to fill a space with only three letters. There aren’t too many writers who only use three letters, I suppose that Slim Pickings, who writes TES would be one. The fill is augmented with his trademark wisp of smoke running over it, and he incorporates some interesting drip work along the top.

Bloem, Greenbank, Bristol, February 2024

Alongside Sub is this quirky piece by Bloem. It would seem that she ha a bit of a thing for old ‘brick’ style mobile phones, and hands with pointy nails. What I like is that she varies these motifs from piece to piece, keeping both the theme running and keeping things interesting. Bloem is one of those artists whose work I always love finding, like Pekoe, Face 1st, Kid Crayon, Fiva, to name a few. This is a fine couple of pieces and I look forward to many more from the pair to come.

5842. Ridgeway Road

Djembello, Ridgeway Road, Bristol, February 2024

There are a lot of roadworks and diversions in Bristol at the moment, I guess it is that Quarter 4 underspend being used up before the end of the accounting year. The impact of this is that my usual routes to the spots I like to visit have been disrupted, and I found this unusual piece by Djembello on a new route to get to Greenbank.

This wonderful octopus piece is a bit of a one-off, and I am guessing, a commission by the owners of the wall. Djembello is a Bristol artist, perhaps best known for his car-tyre sculptures, such as the cockerel near St Werburghs City Farm, and looking at his Instagram, it would appear he painted this around April 2021. I haven’t seen any other murals by Djembello, and this one seems to incorporate elements of sculptural design in it, not unlike the work of Feoflip, an artist who visited Bristol for Upfest a few years ago. This is a striking piece in a road with no other street art or tagging, and perhaps all the more outstanding for it.

Calm

Realisation

that practising mindfulness

writing haiku, works

by Scooj

5841. Manchester, Northern Quarter

Dale Grimshaw, Northern Quarter, Manchester, February 2024

While wandering around the Northern Quarter in Manchester, I came across a heavily boarded building site, inside which I could glimpse the top of a Dale Grimshaw mural. There was a small letter-box hole in the hoarding and I managed to take a snapshot of the piece together with some construction workers. I also took a picture over the top of the hoarding, without really being able to see what I was doing. I wasn’t unpleased with the results.

Dale Grimshaw is no stranger to the pages of Natural Adventures, and his huge portraits featuring people of different regions and cultures are instantly recognisable. Here is a nice little bit of insight from the artist about the piece, written on his Facebook thread last November:

Storytime – So, this piece has been in central Manchester for quite a good, few years now. It was painted as part of the Cities Of Hope festival. It’s seen so many things – the environment around it has changed dramatically, from a potholed carpark to a new, trendy block of flats. The wall has been tagged & blasted with rain & sun over the seasons. It stood alone, staring out at the empty streets, during the years of lockdown. The wall it’s painted on is even crumbling & damp beneath it – yet it shines on! True warrior. Technically it’s not my best piece – (it was a bit rushed) but it seems to have captured something with the good folk of Manchester.

Memories of painting – the alarm on the scissor lift was beeping for the entire time, day in, day out, (I swear I could fckin hear it in my sleep ) I got to know a few of the local addicts that occupied that spot. One day a pretty wirey guy ran at the scissor lift & climbed up it like Spiderman – I was about 5 meters up & he hung onto the platform edge with his finger tips, staring at an £800 camera within reach, like Gollum & the ring! After that incident, I decided to load all the spray paint in to a shopping trolley at night & take it up to my hotel room in the lift. I’ve always been sophisticated like that.

All great stuff, a brilliant portrait from a very good artist.

5840. Manchester, Northern Quarter

D7606, Northern Quarter, Manchester, February 2024

I recently visited Manchester for a work meeting, the second visit I have made in a matter of a few months, and made the most of the morning before the meeting started to revisit the Northern Quarter. I spend about an hour weaving my way through all the little backstreets, snapping away at so many pieces of street art and graffiti – it was like being a child in a sweet shop. Among all the pieces, I found several wheatpastes from D7606, who hasn’t appeared on these pages for a long while. I don’t know how old some of these paste ups are, but they appear to have weathered pretty well.

I have met D7606 when he has been visiting Bristol for Upfest, but it is becoming increasingly difficult for wheatpasters at the festival, because the organisers have to remove posters and paste ups after the event, so they are discouraged, which is a pity.

Here are some wonderful post boxes, telephone boxes and old style telephones with some celebrity additions for you to enjoy. Original ideas that are executed well and replicated all over the country. Great to see some more of D7606’s work (I feel a galley coming on).

5839. Dean Lane skate park (689)

With the exception of commissions or permitted walls, street art and graffiti art in Bristol is largely an illegal activity that can at times be edgy in either content or placement or indeed both. The former Salvation Army building, on which this writing by Raid has been sprayed, has recently been converted into flats/accommodation and abuts the skate park. Historically, this has been an area with a high level of graffiti and tagging, but the redevelopers cleaned up their walls, presumably to tidy up the building to make it more attractive to buyers/tenants. There is nothing more tempting for graffiti writers, in particular, than a nice freshly cleaned wall in an area of high graffiti activity, and it looks like Raid gave in to the temptation.

From my perspective, not only is this a really nice piece from Raid, but it looks great against the clean brick wall… and there we have it, the edge, the mischief, the anti-establishment stance and so on that graffiti and street art have come to represent. We will all have our views on this, and that is what keeps the culture vibrant and the discussions fresh. For my part, I love street art and graffiti art (naturally) and prefer it to be in the right places. Sometimes you just have to admire the outliers too, and I admire this piece from Raid.

5838. Brunel Way (254)

j9449j, Brunel Way, Bristol, February 2024

This is a great occasion. I have been trying to find out who this artist is for absolutely ages (I know I am not alone) and at last their name ‘j9449j’ appeared as a tag on an Instagram post a week or two back, and we are no longer in the dark. What this also means is that I can release a whole bunch of their work from my archives which has been itching to be posted.

j9449j has a very distinctive collage style with plenty of shapes, symbols and plants, bound together with clever use of colour ‘patches’. The work is original and quite unlike anything else we routinely see in Bristol. How nice it would be to actually meet j9449j and find out more about their art, style influences and so on. This is the first of many posts (retrospective and future) I hope.

	paulh121 on 7403. Dean Lane skate park…
	hitandrun1964 on 7402. Stapleton Road
	paulh121 on 7402. Stapleton Road
	Loveswing on Winter afternoon
	scooj on 7400. St Werburghs tunnel…

	paulh121 on 7403. Dean Lane skate park…
	hitandrun1964 on 7402. Stapleton Road
	paulh121 on 7402. Stapleton Road
	Loveswing on Winter afternoon
	scooj on 7400. St Werburghs tunnel…

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