.
I cannot recall
A performance of yours that
I did not enjoy.
.
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.
Let me be
Summer daydreams are
rudely interrupted by
the here and the now.
by Scooj
592. Upfest 2016 (86)
I absolutely love this beautiful work by N4T4, and was lucky enough to visit it several times during its creation at Upfest 2016. It is an outstanding piece by an artist who left his mark so memorably at the previous year’s event.
It is always a privilege to see a street artist at work, at least that’s how I feel, and of course, when so many are in one place over two days that privilege is filled to the brim, and some. The eyes in the picture above show the evolution of the work…drafted out on the left and near complete on the right.
The finished work has something about it that I really like. It might be as simple as it is really beautiful and easy to look at, it might be the style, with so much going on within the piece itself, I’m not sure, but I know I love it.
I haven’t seen any of N4T4s work other than the two pieces at Upfest, so it would be great to see him return next year to lighten up the place.
591. Upfest 2016 (85)
One of the first pieces I saw at Upfest 2016 was in the back garden area of The Steam Crane pub at the eastern end of North Street. These remarkable pigs are by brothers who paint under the name Id-Iom.
Their entry in the Upfest programme reads: “In a nutshell? Determined never again to suffer under the yoke of an oppressive employer, this is the ongoing tale of two brothers who are going to take the world by storm or die trying!”. Well you have to admire their ambition.
Id-Iom have a great WordPress site, and unlike many artists, they keep it very up to date and post their artworks regularly. Well worth a look. I can work out that they might originally be from the Isla of Man, but now operate out of London.
The pigs in this piece remind me of Animal Farm, but that is probably because it is a book that is very front of mind for me at the moment. It is a brilliantly stencilled wall and a piece that really set the standard for Upfest.
It’s a very British thing
Some things are just too
funny; Johnners and Aggers
corpsing still kills me.
by Scooj
- Reminded of a small piece of cricket commentary:
590. Upfest 2016 (84)
One of the largest pieces of Upfest 2016 is this magnificent mural by Odeith. It is located on the same wall where this Thierry Noir pair was painted for Upfest 2015 and it shows vividly how different art pieces can change utterly the character of a wall.
Odeith was one of the festival’s lead artists and one I haven’t written about before, although I think I have seen his work on the Interweb. He is from Damaia in Portugal and has been spraying since the 1980s. Odeith has worked a lot with perspective and shading to create some amazing 3D effect pieces, a style which he called ‘sombre 3D’. This piece, however is something else altogether.
It is brilliant for so many reasons. Firstly it is an extraordinarily lifelike painting of Benny Hill (anyone not know who he is?) and it is technically excellent. Secondly it is hugely topical and relevant, being a commentary on the Brexit vote in the UK. It openly mocks the vote, implying that UK (Plc) is a clown and viewed as such by the rest of Europe, and probably much of the world. I love this wall and all that it says. It is a constant reminder of our national stupidity. As an aside I ought to say that I always rather liked Benny Hill – especially in the Italian Job and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
589. Upfest 2016 (83)
I like 23 Magpie’s work so much that I recently bought a small piece that she was selling through Instagram. It is waiting for a frame, along with several other things that need frames…I really do need to earn a little more money.
As well as her official work, 23 Magpies left a treasure trail of paste ups all around North Street, some of which I have posted on this blog, and others that I have yet to post. I think I may have got them all, but I can’t be sure. This is a fox painted with a design onto sheet music, something that she does quite a lot. It is always a pleasure finding one of these.
Exeter
Eclectic city
a mish-mash of new and old
buildings cheek by jowl.
by Scooj
588. Upfest 2016 (82)
OK, I know, I just posted a piece by Face the Strange, and here we have another one. I have done this deliberately because I think that each of them deserves a post to themself. Occasionally I will combine pieces by the same artist, but mostly I like to concentrate on each work. It just so happens that there are two by FTS in a row.
I love this small paste up. It could have been easily missed, lurking on a doorway behind a tub of recycling. But take a closer look at this TV set and you will see that there is a still from ‘a Clockwork Orange’ and in the spirit of things, FTS has replaced the heads of the characters with oranges wearing bowler hats. Any artistic reference to this great film has to be a good thing. This wheatpaste is witty and fun, and the style of FTS’s work is always slightly unsettling and anarchic. Great work.
587. Upfest 2016 (81)
Face the Strange seemed to have a great time at Upfest 2016, spreading the love all over North Street with a fine selection of his wheatpastes, each one of them curiouas and humorous.
This one seems to show four red-shirted gentlemen with projector or television tubes for heads. Nobody said that peculiar wasn’t allowed at Upfest, so Face the Strange has provided it in bucket-loads. A commentary on techno-geek-physics-heads? Reminds me a little of Kraftwerk, remember them?
Natural adventures 