7877. West Street – Upfest 2026 (51)

This Upfest piece by Lima Lima is so completely up my street, and one of my favourites from this year’s festival. As a child I spent many hours in the London Zoo aquarium, and any other aquarium I coulld persuade my mother to take me. I would simply gaze into the dulled tanks, transfixed on the fish and other creatures that lived beneath the water. It sowed the seed of my ambition to become a marine biologist.

Lima Lima has cleverly used this space, a filled in shop window, to make it look like a fish tank, and he has captured those tranquil dull blues perfectly, just as you’d expect in a large marine tank.

I couldn’t find out much about Lima Lima other than that he paints in France. On his Instagram he writes in French, but that is not enough to be sure that he is French. I am so pleased that he made the trip to Bristol and brought something quite different to our streets that chimes so perfectly for me personally.