House is strewn with clothes
and kit that will never fit
into the backpack.
by Scooj
Author: scooj
I am Stephen. I live in Bristol, UK. I decided to shorten my profile...to this: Wildlife, haiku, travel, streetart, psychogeography and my family. Not necessarily in that order.
342. Upfest 2016 (1)
What a busy couple of days it has been – a lot of walking and looking at hundreds of new pieces in South Bristol. Many of the works created are temporary and will be removed after the festival, some have been allocated prime sites and will remain for at least a year, others have been surreptitiously slapped up in interesting places and will have variable lifespans.
I will start my posts of Upfest with some wonderful pasteups by Phoebe New York (aka artist Libby Schoettle). I was especially pleased to see her work here in Bristol as I have only recently become aware of her and how brilliantly refreshing she is. A simple idea really well executed.
I particularly like the edge of her work, both in the content and statements, but also in the locations she chooses. I am a fan, and I expect there are more than just these two examples from Upfest in Bristol. I will be hunting for more.
Upfest is a truly spectacular festival and I feel honoured as an adopted Bristolian that people have come from all over the world to participate over the last two days. There is still one more day to go, but it is a working day and I suspect things will be a lot quieter. I have no idea how I am going to post all the amazinf things I have seen this weekend – I’ll just have to see how it goes.
New Day
With cool morning air
and cup of fresh coffee, I
make plans for the day.
by Scooj
341. Raleigh Road, Vector (2)
Well this may well be my last post before Upfest 2016 festival which begins tomorrow, and for which I have already seen a few early works on Instagram. There is a certain privilege that goes with being a Bristol street art blogger, and that is that each year, the largest gathering of street artists in Europe happens right here, in my back yard.
Another privilege is to watch, all year round, the work of these two wildstyle writers who are at the top of their game. This simultaneously painted pair of pieces is on the back wall of the Vector car park. Deamze is on the left, and Voyder is on the right.
The Deamze writing is reminiscent of a piece I posted back in June from the M32 cycle path. It uses the same greens and has his customary character and ASK motif.
The Voyder piece is really unusual and something quite special. In his Instagram feed he has tagged the piece with #lichtenstein, and you can see the pop art explosion of colour and form.
I love, love, love this. Voyder has absolutely cracked it with this one. Interpretive and in the style of a great artist and brilliantly executed. I can ask no more. Both of these will now have to make way for new pieces for the festival tomorrow. So excited.
340. Ashley Road (8)
Regular readers of this blog will know that I have a real soft spot for Face F1st. I will always try to post his works as soon as I can after I have spotted them, although it is not always possible with such a huge backlog of street art.
This is a slightly unusual Face F1st piece. Sure, the soft colours are there and the FACE letters and the swirling hair, but the expression on the girl’s face is something new altogether. I’m not sure if I like it as much as the softer faces, but it is certainly striking. Good to see more work from the Face.
339. Stokes Croft, the Carriageworks (15)
This rather unusual piece was sprayed back at the start of June and is by DNT. Rather delightfully entitled ‘RIP corporate bunny’ it taps into the edgy political community that makes Stokes Croft such a creative force in Bristol. I like this work for many reasons…bullet holes in a cuddly bunny character. Disturbing and visually engaging all at once.
The piece has been sprayed over the Hoax and AKArat work that I featured in one of my earlier posts this year.
Graduate
What future for the
lad in the white linen suit
and fur collared gown?
by Scooj
- Inspired by a lovely post from Southamptonoldlady which really resonated for me. Lots of graduation ceremonies in Bristol at the moment and each one fills me with hope for the future and reminds me of how I felt on my own graduation.
338. Stokes Croft, Attic Bar
I’m not sure how many times I might have walked past this before I noticed it. I would like to think not many. Recently (I think) the Attic Bar at the bottom end of Stokes Croft (It might even be North Road) had a little face lift with this collaboration between Aspire and another artist. I haven’t yet worked out who the other artist is, but the work looks familiar.
As always, Aspire has turned out yet another superb bird, which looks like a blue jay again, to watch over us.
I am perplexed by not knowing who the writer is. If anyone reading this knows the answer, please drop me a comment.
337. Leake Street tunnel, London (3)
Everything was unexpected when I visited Leake Street Tunnel recently, not least the large number of new pieces that had been created as part of the #do1cancer campaign. It would have been easy to overlook some of the other works that had been in the tunnel…except, I find it hard to overlook anything.
Having reached the end of the tunnel, I returned the way I came – it is funny how you see different things when you go in the opposite direction. High on the ceiling was this wonderful face by Hannah Adamaszek, who I have featured a couple of times recently.
There are two notable things about this work: the first is that it must have been very awkward to do…neck-breaking; the second is that depending on where you stand, the face takes on very different appearances. More great work from Hannah, who I am expecting to see at Upfest.
London lunch
Smoked salmon and cream
cheese sandwiches enjoyed with
views of the river.
By Scooj
Natural adventures 