7051. Narrow Quay

#DFTE, Narrow Quay, Bristol, June 2025
#DFTE, Narrow Quay, Bristol, June 2025

These are three small boards outside a café on Narrow Quay, which I assume are commissions, or at the very least, permitted by the establishment. The artist is #DFTE and illustrate perfectly his philosophical musings delivered in his singular letter style with plenty of drips.

#DFTE, Narrow Quay, Bristol, June 2025
#DFTE, Narrow Quay, Bristol, June 2025

The first declares “love you too” presumably in response to a statement. The second is s little more challenging, and is perhaps a great reflective motto, “Don’t believe everything you think.

#DFTE, Narrow Quay, Bristol, June 2025
#DFTE, Narrow Quay, Bristol, June 2025

The third board in this trio, “Your anxiety is lying to you” is, I think trying to be helpful, but to anyone who suffers from anxiety, it probably just confuses and upsets – I can imagine tying oneself in knots over that statement. These original pieces represent a great way of integrating street art into our everyday lives. Nice work from #DFTE.

Thursday doors – 24 July 2025 – Doors of Godalming

Doors 317 – Doors of Godalming, Surrey, March 2025 (Part III)

A quick one this morning as I haven’t left myself much time to write. This is the third selection of doors from Godalming, a small town in deepest Surrey, a place that on the face of it is reasonably affluent, and definitely has some lovely buildings dotted about the place. I hope you enjoy these doors:

Blue door and high chimney stacks, Church Street, Godalming, March 2025
Blue door and high chimney stacks, Church Street, Godalming, March 2025
Yellow door, Church Street, Godalming, March 2025
Yellow door, Church Street, Godalming, March 2025
Blue door and covered passage, Church Street, Godalming, March 2025
Blue door and covered passage, Church Street, Godalming, March 2025
Door with large hinges to St Peter and St Parl's church, Church Street, Godalming, March 2025
Door with large hinges to St Peter and St Parl’s church, Church Street, Godalming, March 2025
A pair of inset doors, Church Street, Godalming, March 2025
A pair of inset doors, Church Street, Godalming, March 2025
A rather nice blue door with fanlight and lamp, Church Street, Godalming, March 2025
A rather nice blue door with fanlight and lamp, Church Street, Godalming, March 2025
Unusual wide and low door, High Street, Godalming, March 2025
Unusual wide and low door, High Street, Godalming, March 2025
A classy old studded door, High Street, Godalming, March 2025
A classy old studded door, High Street, Godalming, March 2025
Shopfronts and doors in the early evening, but it is those windows that are really special, High Street, Godalming, March 2025
Shopfronts and doors in the early evening, but it is those windows that are really special, High Street, Godalming, March 2025

I rather like this selection of doors and the range of periods, but that last building is a beauty in my view. Here is an excerpt from a website called Geograph, about the building:

Godalming High Street: Nos. 74-76
I was puzzled by this building. A date-stone says 1663, but at first glance I thought that unlikely – probably because I was taken in by the honeycomb glazing bars.

Later, dipping into the Surrey volume of ‘The Buildings of England’ I found Ian Nairn having one of his rants: ‘Nos. 74-76 . . . coming right at the end of the C17 Artisan tradition of brickwork in Surrey, and a deplorable end too . . . All sense of proportion, and even of picturesque outline, is gone’. He makes the useful point that the window design is of 18th century origin – lifted from one of Batty Langley’s pattern books.

Nairn goes on to concede that (along with No. 80, somewhat similar) Nos. 74-76 are ‘good fun to have in a town’ – even if they lack architectural merit. My own view would be that brick-built structures dating from the 1660s are pretty rare in a small-town context, and we should be grateful for those that survive.
 
So That’s it for this week, more to come from Godalming next time.
 

If you have made it this far, you probably like doors, and you really ought to take a look at the No Facilities blog by Dan Anton who has taken over the hosting of Thursday Doors from Norm 2.0 blog. Links to more doorscursions can be found in the comments section of Dan Anton’s Thursday Doors post.

Thursday Doors

Red Admiral

Red Admiral (Vanessa atlanta), St Werburghs, Bristol, July 2025
Red Admiral (Vanessa atlanta), St Werburghs, Bristol, July 2025

.

Dry spring and summer

a good year for butterflies

uplifting beauty

.

by Scooj

7050. L Dub (74)

Turoe and Veks, L Dub, Bristol, June 2025
Turoe and Veks, L Dub, Bristol, June 2025

This is a wonderful old school combination piece painted at the L Dub spot by Turoe, although I think that the character might be by Veks. Everything about this oozes class and experience.

Turoe and Veks, L Dub, Bristol, June 2025
Turoe and Veks, L Dub, Bristol, June 2025

The character wearing a baseball cap has been buffing the wall with a roller, thus indicating a form of self-portraiture. The letters, spelling STYLE are perfectly filled with blended horizontal shades transitioning from purple through red and orange to brown. A striped 3D drop shadow rounds off this piece off nicely and create a metallic sheen effect.

7049. Stapleton Road

Mage and Piewaste, Stapleton Road, Bristol, June 2025
Mage and Piewaste, Stapleton Road, Bristol, June 2025

This is one of those stacked collaborations that have to be taken as a pair, because separating them might look a little bit awkward. I am not 100% sure that it was painted as a collaboration or whether both artists painted their pieces separately, but you can see that Piewaste’s piece overlaps Mage’s piece above it, and was therefore completed second.

Mage and Piewaste, Stapleton Road, Bristol, June 2025
Mage and Piewaste, Stapleton Road, Bristol, June 2025

Mage has presented a regular set of letters, but with a creative fill that includes a dashed line pattern reversed out. It is great to see an artist reinventing himself in the way he has with a completely new set of letters, although I have to say I preferred his old letters.

Piewaste, who has written WASTE in letters that are close to anamorphic, creating a strong sense of depth and three dimensions, also includes his trademark eyes looking out from the writing like a cartoon forest at night (kind of thing). Nice to see these two pieces together like this.

7048. L Dub (73)

Hypo, L Dub, Bristol, June 2025
Hypo, L Dub, Bristol, June 2025

It seems today that it is all about Hypo – the previous post was a birthday tribute to Hypo from Subtle, Ulow and Minto, and this is one of his very own pieces from L Dub. Hypo has had a purple patch that has been continuous for about two years now and shows no signs of abating.

Hypo, L Dub, Bristol, June 2025
Hypo, L Dub, Bristol, June 2025

The letter blocks in this piece are each assigned a different colour, and have a lot of strong graffiti writing motifs, such as the arrows and little double bars, stitching the letters together. It is interesting to note how different the ‘H’ and the ‘O’ chrome letters look quite different due to the different colour drop-shadows. Another nice piece from Hypo.

7047. M32 roundabout J3 (696)

Subtle, Ulow and Minto, M32 roundabout, Bristol, May 2025
Subtle, Ulow and Minto, M32 roundabout, Bristol, May 2025

This fine trio of pieces was painted as part of Hypo’s birthday celebrations, and brings together Subtle, Ulow and Minto – quite a line-up. There is a whole lot of colour and talent on display, marking out this section of wall as being a bit special.

Subtle, M32 roundabout, Bristol, May 2025
Subtle, M32 roundabout, Bristol, May 2025

To the left, Subtle has created a masterclass of colour and design, with some wicked letters spelling HYPO, set on a fabulous red background with pink spots, looking like wrapping paper around the writing. Outstanding stuff.

Ulow, M32 roundabout, Bristol, May 2025
Ulow, M32 roundabout, Bristol, May 2025

We don’t get to see Ulow’s work all that often, so it is always a great pleasure to come across one of his characters. The superb presentation of different tones and shades create a wonderful 3-dimensional effect as if the character is walking straight out of the wall. A combination of simplicity and complexity all in one character piece.

Minto, M32 roundabout, Bristol, May 2025
Minto, M32 roundabout, Bristol, May 2025

Rounding off the trio is this busy piece of writing from Minto. The style here has as much to do with what is absent as it does with what is present, a little bit like Benjimagnetic’s writing. Lots of colourful splashes and unfilled spaces combine to spell out MINTO, in a complex arrangement. Altogether an outstanding collaboration. Bravo!

7046. St Werburghs tunnel (515)

Mr Klue, St Werburghs, Bristol, May 2025
Mr Klue, St Werburghs, Bristol, May 2025

The emphasis of this post will walk through how augmentation works. In street art circles, augmentation (adding to an existing piece) is relatively rare and can be considered as a little insulting to the original artist, or lacking in creativity. On the other hand, it can be seen as flattering and complementary to the original work. Here is a wonderful example of a piece by Mr Klue that has been augmented by Posh.

Mr Klue, St Werburghs, Bristol, May 2025
Mr Klue, St Werburghs, Bristol, May 2025

This rather nice purple ‘KLUE’ abstract writing has been hanging around at the entrance to the tunnel for quite a while, which doesn’t really come as much of a surprise as he kind of ‘owns’ this spot, by occupation at least. The purple is beautifully picked out with white and yellow highlights that create wonderful depth to the piece. Now all is just fine and dandy, and then along comes Posh!

Mr Klue and Posh, St Werburghs, Bristol, July 2025
Mr Klue and Posh, St Werburghs, Bristol, July 2025

Quite a while after this piece was painted by Mr Klue, Posh came along and added into it three posh characters, in yellow, picking out some of the colour in the original piece. These ‘toffs’ have a strong political message, one that picked up a lot of coverage at the Glastonbury Festival, ‘Death 2 the IDF’. Once again, street art acts as a wonderful commentary on contemporary issues, and has an important role to play in free speech and expression. This is a great example of how augmentation can work really well, and Mr Klue thought it was rather funny.

7045. Dean Lane skate park (849)

Hire and Sait Bare, Dean Lane, Bristol, July 2025
Hire, Dean Lane, Bristol, July 2025

This piece from Hire had me raising my eyebrows, in a good way, because it is quite unlike anything I have seen from him before. I would normally associate his work with quite intricate, spiky, angular letters, but here he has gone for something altogether softer and more fluid – to be honest I hind it a little disorientating. (Update – I am being particularly dense, the writing is, of course, by Sait Bare, which is why it is so different in style. I couldn’t see the wood for the trees.

Hire, Dean Lane, Bristol, July 2025
Hire, Dean Lane, Bristol, July 2025

The combination of letters and two characters works well, with a face on the left and one of his trademark rabbits (see, it is spiky) to the right. The letters have a traditional 3D drop shadow with black and red stripes. This whole thing looks like Hire is experimenting a bit, departing from his customary style, and that has to be applauded.

7044. Brunel Way (320)

Zinso, Brunel Way, Bristol, July 2025
Zinso, Brunel Way, Bristol, July 2025

Zinso has made a big impression in Bristol in recent months having burst onto the scene earlier this year. He took over this entire wall, buffed it out with white paint and then painted six pieces, in pairs, each with a small and a large piece. I guess it is one way of getting in some practice. I have split the total production into three posts of which this is the first.

Zinso, Brunel Way, Bristol, July 2025
Zinso, Brunel Way, Bristol, July 2025

Both the small and large piece are in a bubble-writing style, although the larger one is rather more sophisticated. The small piece has alternate colours for the letters, has a tidy drop shadow and neat red border. Great work. As for the larger piece, the fills are absolutely magnificent. Big, bold colours and some really nice shapes resembling calligraphy, create an outstanding overall impression. This is the work of a skilled, technical artist having a great day out. The full wall is shown below:

Zinso, Brunel Way, Bristol, July 2025
Zinso, Brunel Way, Bristol, July 2025