The walk to my school
filled my heart with a deep dread;
cap and bag held tight
I was an easy target
for bullies on the estate.
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.
797. Upfest 2016 (128)
This piece was one of the most mysterious and moving of the whole festival. It depicts, in a stained glass window style, a mother and child wrapped in a blanket. On first glance it looks like a Virgin Mary and Jesus depiction, and the mother has a halo effect around her head. Look closer and for a little longer and the horror of the image becomes clear. This is a contemporary study of the terrible refugee crisis of people from many of the world’s most troubled regions desperately crossing the Mediterranean Sea to get to mainland Europe.
The child is not dressed in swaddling clothes as one so young should be, but strapped into a life jacket and the pair of them are enveloped in a silver sheet to keep them warm. This is both distressing and compelling, and pretty much my favourite piece of the whole festival. One big hitch…The picture was not there on the second day, and I never got to find out who it was by. I scoured the Interweb but drew a blank. If anyone might know, I’d love to find out. I am still really moved by this piece. Brilliant. Bravo.
796. Upfest 2016 (127)
There is only one downside to Upfest, in my eyes, and that is that there is so much art on display, it can be difficult to take it all in. The senses are bombarded around every corner, and in every green space in Bedminster. Sometimes it takes a while…maybe months…for all the images to bed down. This is a case in point, where it is only now when sifting through all my photographs that I am reminded of it.
The artist Steve Pinchess was born in Leicester and brought up through the care system. He loved his art, and meagre resources led him to use the streets as a canvass (I paraphrase from his biography notes in the Upfest programme). He now lives in Bude in Cornwall (very nice too) and shares a gallery with his wife.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get a clean picture of the whole piece, so am unable to commentate too much on it. Maybe I’ll do a better job this year.
Warm
Warm still greenhouse air
tinged with the delicious smell
of tomato leaves.
by Scooj
Bad world
A massacre of
innocents. Difficult to
explain to a child.
by Scooj
795. Upfest 2016 (126)
In a car park just off Raleigh Road, a double decker bus was given ‘the treatment’ at last year’s Upfest. This side of the bus was given over to Snub23, and he made a beautiful job.
Snub23 Uses his geometric patterning and shading to great effect, and then looming down from the left is one of his characters that seem to be inspired by the comic genre. Powerful stuff.
794. Dean Lane skate park (48)
Now that I know what I am looking for, and recognise the signature I will be featuring more of Hire’s work as and when I come across it. He is the artist who sprays the large buck toothed bunnies, which appear from time to time.
This is a wildstyle piece which, if you look carefully spells out HIRE, although it takes some convincing to be sure. This is a nice quick piece which all forms part of the rich mix you can find down at Dean Lane.
793. Stokes Croft, I forget where
I believe this to be the very last set of my images from Tian’s tour of Britain in April 2016. It was an exciting week, discovering all the gifts and surprises he had pasted up all around the Stokes Croft area, and it was great to see his work at Upfest in July too.
My knowledge of screen actresses from the fifties onwards is rather poor, and I am not sure who this is, but I am sure she is famous. I’m sure Southampton Old Lady would know. It is a pity that the wheatpaste is tagged, but in a strange way it adds to its ‘street’ credibility (not street credibility) (does that make sense?).
I dearly hope Tian will visit Bristol again soon.
Birdsong
Sweetest pair of wrens
disproportionate voices
lightening my heart.
by Scooj
792. Dean Lane skate park (47)
This is not the first time that I have seen a collaboration wall between these two. Some time ago I posted a piece by Laic217 from Moon Street, but left the Cort piece out, which was on reflection a bit unnecessary. This time I have kept Cort’s half. I know little about Cort apart from these two pieces mentioned.
Laic217 again seems to be experimenting with his grayscale work, with just a touch of accent colour in his signature. I have noticed too that in shared walls like this one, Laic217 always seems to occupy the left hand side – is this a thing for street artists? is it like having a preferred side of the bed?
I like this collaboration a lot, and am pleased to have got a clean photograph of it, something that is getting more and more difficult to do in Bristol.
The missing Cort photos from March 2016 are below…
Natural adventures 