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.

3037. Cattle Market Road (2)

This is the second outstanding piece from a gathering of great street artists a week or two back orchestrated by The Hass. On Cattle Market Road, a theme has emerged on some of the pieces, involving a cow/cattle, the first one by Sled One that I posted yesterday.

Hazard, Cattle Market Road, Bristol, June 2020
Hazard, Cattle Market Road, Bristol, June 2020

This beauty is of course by Hazard and it really is an absolute stunner. Hazard talked about this a little in her Instagram feed saying that the vibrant red colours were chosen to reflect the sizzling lay hot day on which the piece was painted. The cow is magnificent, but it is the whole composition that screams out Hazard, with the amazing flowers and soft touch she creates with her spraying.

I hope that these hoardings remains intact for a while and that the taggers keep clear, because here we have a great showcase of Bristol talent.

3036. M32 Cycle path (64)

Another artist who has been pretty busy since the end of May is Taboo, and his ‘new school’ work is really rather quirky and organic. The central part of this piece looks like a standard throw up, and then it has a dynamic and beautifully painted character incorporated into the work, almost as it it were by two artists – something Taboo does very well.

Taboo, M32 cycle path, Bristol, June 2020
Taboo, M32 cycle path, Bristol, June 2020

I really don’t like this hoarding at all though. It is at the start of the M32 cycle path, and the large sky above it makes photography, without flaring, almost impossible. Dull days or dusk are probably the best times to come down to this spot.

Taboo, M32 cycle path, Bristol, June 2020
Taboo, M32 cycle path, Bristol, June 2020

Back to the piece ‘landed in the wrong dimension’, Taboo has painted an incredible Mickey Mouse figure with a surreal distortion to the top of his head that circles round into the A of TABOO. There is something edgy and unsettling about the whole thing, challenging the familiar. Great work.

Pot bound

.

Those extra seedlings

in waiting and unplanted

forlorn also rans

.

by Scooj

3035. Brunel Way bridge (41)

Possibly the most difficult piece I have tried to photograph. This is a magnificent column piece by the wonderful Skor85 who organised a small paint jam last weekend under Brunel Way. She had invited various folks along via FB Messenger and so I was able to get along and get some WIP pictures.

Skor85, Brunel Way, Bristol, June 2020
Skor85, Brunel Way, Bristol, June 2020

Before I say anything else, I have to share that Skor85 is without doubt the nicest and most enthusiastic street artist I know and when I arrived she made me feel so welcome and seemed genuinely pleased to see me, which after months of lock down felt really good.

Skor85, Brunel Way, Bristol, June 2020
Skor85, Brunel Way, Bristol, June 2020

Her piece is all about balance, equality and unity which is an understandable theme in these troubling and uncertain times. Two fish sitting on a set of balance scales illustrate this theme and remind me a little of Al Gore’s film ‘Inconvenient Truth’ where he puts the earth and money on either side of a scale and poses the question ‘which is more important’. I digress.

Skor85, Brunel Way, Bristol, June 2020
Skor85, Brunel Way, Bristol, June 2020

Skor85 has a lovely touch to her artwork that almost looks like brush strokes rather than spraycan art. I have always liked her work and can’t wait to see more as the summer unfolds.

3034. Cattle Market Road (1)

This is one of five new pieces on Cattle Market Road on the previously blank hoardings that are on the southern perimeter of the development site behind Templemeads Station that should have been Bristol’s new concert venue. The session from a week ago was co-ordinated by The Hass and the opportunity arose through Out of Hand.

Sled One, Cattle Market Road, Bristol, June 2020
Sled One, Cattle Market Road, Bristol, June 2020

This extraordinary piece is by Sled One and is a welcome return by the artist – I believe this to be his first piece in the city since lock down measures were eased. The outstanding piece tells the story of the site, from a cattle market to the chaotic development site it has become, illustrated by a wrecking ball crashing across the piece on a gold chain. The cow, or more accurately bull, is looking a little crazy and is part of the narrative that recalls that when the place was a cattle holding space a bull escaped and terrorised the locals. As you would expect from the artist, this is an imaginative piece full of movement and wonder. First class (a little reference to the Royal Mail/Parcelforce buildings that were derelict/knocked down to create this development opportunity).

Gathering clouds

.

Centralising all

Whitehall communications

mimicking POTUS

 

time for all to be worried

an absence of scrutiny

.

by Scooj

 

… on the news that Dominic Cummings, er, (coughs) I mean Boris Johnson is going to centralise (control) all government communications departments so that instructions (news) can be given direct to the public, avoiding media (and therefore scrutiny), also involving many job losses. He wants to start holding Presidential style daily news conferences with hand picked journalists, who will be barred if they cause trouble. This is all leading the country in a very troubling direction, and what is most worrying is that these moves (‘sacking’ of Sir Mark Sedwill, Head of the Civil Service, removal of treasury advisors, merging of DFID with the Foreign Office) are happening while the nation is distracted with coronavirus or EU exit and so on.

well we voted for this as a nation so we will have to suffer the far-reaching consequences. The damage that is being done to honour, credibility, decency, openness, transparency, capacity and competency of our parliamentary system and governance is incalculable. Once again hard working decent folk will pay for it and have to pick up the pieces.

I reject Cummings and his cabinet. They do not represent me or have the best interests of The Many in this country. Well with the Mekon (DC) in charge what do you expect.

3033. Dean Lane skate park (329)

So many artists have has a creative rush since the easing of lock down and one of them is Dibz. Ordinarily you’d be lucky to see a new Dibz piece once every two months or so, but I have seen three in the last month of which this is one.

Dibz, Dean Lane, Bristol, June 2020
Dibz, Dean Lane, Bristol, June 2020

Dibz is a precision graffiti writer. I have never seen anything by him that isn’t really tight, clean and crisp and I have never to my knowledge seen a throw up from him. This is a very classy piece of writing with a beautifully graded fill from dark red through to orange and yellow. The slim yellow edging on the upper sides of the letters creates a lifting effect. This is a piece for connoisseurs.

3032. M32 Cycle path (63)

There are some artists whose work I enjoy finding more than others. Is that normal? I guess it is. It doesn’t mean I don’t like the others, on the contrary I pretty much tend to like them all, but some just some give me that special feeling of excitement for whatever reason. One of these artists is Daz Cat.

Daz Cat, M32 cycle path, Bristol, June 2020
Daz Cat, M32 cycle path, Bristol, June 2020

I found this unusual piece on the M32 cycle path next to one from painting companion Kool Hand. This cat looks a little worse for wear, judging from his expression and the long neck is a clever mechanism for getting the whole thing into a landscape format. Some lovely touches on the cat’s jumper and an all-round winning piece.

Fuddy-duddy

.

Self-proclamation

wincing at ‘gotten’ not ‘got’

… you Americans!

.

by Scooj

3031. M32 roundabout J3 (225)

I can’t remember when I last saw a new piece from Ments, but it is quite some time ago. The word I always use to describe his work is ‘organic’ and it most definitely applies to this recent piece on the M32 roundabout.

Ments, M32 roundabout, Bristol, June 2020
Ments, M32 roundabout, Bristol, June 2020

This is a delicate piece that feels rather ephemeral, and is so unlike the work of more conventional graffiti writers. It is quite hard to make out the letters MENTS, but I assure you they are there. This is an accomplished piece painted with great skill, however it isn’t my favourite work by the artist, something feels a little unbalanced about it… I am though, being hyper-critical because it is actually very, very good.