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.
In Batesian mimicry, named after the English naturalist Henry Walter Bates, a harmless species has evolved to imitate the warning signals of a harmful species directed at a predator.
I can’t really praise Raid’s work highly enough, and his level of consistency is admirable. I recently posted a gallery of his work and have updated it just now, because I wanted to include the link in this post just to demonstrate how good his work is.
Raid, M32 Cycle path, Bristol, April 2024
Raid is a neat and tidy writer whose edges and borders are always on point, but it is in his creative and interesting fills where he excels, as this piece demonstrates. His skill is in not overcomplicating things or being too fussy, but doing enough and creating new ideas to keep the fill exciting. Pinks and blues always work well together, and in my book, this is an outstanding piece of its type.
Some outstanding writing from Kosc underneath the M32, which amply demonstrates his versatility and comfort with both graffiti writing and photorealistic characters and scenes. This particular stretch of wall is up a bank, and all photographs, unless photographed from the opposite back, are prone to slight distortion due to looking upwards at the piece.
Kosc, Frome Side, Bristol, April 2024
The colour selection reminds me of a packet of boiled sweets that you might take with you on a long car journey – I can see lots of flavours there. Kosc has incorporated one of his trademark features in the writing that gives it an industrial feel, which is the inclusion of ‘rivets’ holding the ‘sheets’ of writing in place. Great stuff from a brilliant artist.
Bogat has been lying low for a while, so it was rather nice to stumble across this vibrant piece on one of the subway entrances on the north side of the M32 Roundabout. He says that he hopes to be a little more active this summer, which is great news.
Bogat, M32 roundabout, Bristol, April 2024
The colour selection for this character piece is exceptional, and the green has an amazing glowing quality – the colours are what you might expect in a spooky disco or ghost train, if you know what I mean. Bogat has made great use of light and shade to accentuate features, something I have spoken a lot about in Zake’s character work. A more than decent piece and first of many to come this year I hope.
I mentioned yesterday that you’d be seeing more of Noise today, and true to my promise, here is another fabulous piece from the artist. Noise has a very distinctive style, but I find it quite difficult to describe. His letters tend to be quite thick and nicely proportioned, and which work equally well in upper or lower case. His fills are dynamic, with plenty of interest.
Noise, Dean Lane, Bristol, March 2024
Although this piece from Noise was completed, the wall opposite was being painted by other artists, and some of their kit was strewn around this wall, which I think adds a little to the overall ambience of Dean Lane. The fills in this piece are outstanding, and it is lifted (rather unsubtly) by the red drop shadow on a black background. Still more to come from Noise in what has been a busy month or so.
• St Totteringham’s day is the day of the football league season when it becomes mathematically impossible for Tottenham Hotspur to finish above Arsenal. Today is that day.
Noise has had a rich spell of form recently, painting at least three pieces and probably a few more too that I don’t know about. This fabulous writing/character combination piece was painted during an LRS paint jam in Sparke Evans Park.
Noise, Sparke Evans Park, Bristol, March 2024
This lively piece, full of vibrancy and colour, has a very strong Noise vibe about it, but is a little different from his usual work with the inclusion of a cat character making up the ‘O’ of NOISE. The cat is really well crafted and it would be great to see him do more of this kind of thing. Combination pieces allow artists to showcase their artistic skills beyond writing or characters alone. Watch this space (like tomorrow) for more from Noise.
Ryder organised a brilliantly well attended paint jam in St Werburghs tunnel back in February this year and this is his outstanding contribution to it. While I am used to seeing writing from Ryder, I am less familiar with his character work, so this combination piece was a joy to behold.
Ryder, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2024
It is a pity that Ryder doesn’t get out to paint more often, because he is a real class act, and his writing is always out of the top drawer. These beautifully designed letters contained within a yellow outline and small drop shadow are immaculately crafted and contain a nice four-colour horizontal fill. Straightforward, not too fussy and easy on the eye.
Ryder, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2024
The character is Splinter from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a franchise that passed me by, but one that regularly crops up in street/graffiti art. Ryder demonstrates his skills as not only an exceptional writer, but character artist too. Great work and a great paint jam to celebrate his exhibition in the Farm pub around the corner.