I met Hardie while he was painting at Upfest, and what a friendly fellow he is. Although I think I have only ever posted one or two of his pieces on Natural Adventures, he seemed to know who I was and was familiar with my blog, which was most encouraging.
Hardie, Purdown, Bristol, July 2024
The Bristol-based artist doesn’t tend to paint the streets all that often the odd shutter or wall here or there but rarely in the popular hotspots, so it was a super surprise to find two of his pieces side by side in the wartime gun emplacement. His characteristic character portraits are made up of a patchwork of crosshatches, creating a really interesting effect. As you can see from these two pieces, Hardie uses a stencil to create his faces, and it also demonstrates how using different colours can create a different look from essentially the same template. What a pleasure to come across these rarities.
Well this is a bit weird, even by Zake standards, and I am not entirely sure what to make of it. To me the piece looks a bit like a cross between an aristocrat and a spaniel, and once seen, I can’t unsee it. There is something about that pointy nose that I find quite unsettling.
Zake, M32 roundabout, Bristol, July 2024
Zake has been on fire for a very long time and continues to push boundaries, but also reverts from time to time to his basic round face characters. His USP is working with light and shade to create depth and texture, great example of which can be seen in the eyes and cheeks of this character. Both bizarre and wonderful work from Zake.
Dime, Jody and Turoe, M32 roundabout, Bristol, July 2024
What a wonderful triptych piece on the roundabout which is what I would describe as a unique collaboration between Dime, Jody and Turoe. I am not familiar with Dime and am guessing that he was visiting Bristol and made contact with artists in the city to see who’d like to have a paint. That is how I imagine these kind of things happen.
Dime, M32 roundabout, Bristol, July 2024
The collaboration starts with a stunning piece of graffiti writing from Dime, with nicely defined letters, beautiful fill colours and a deep 3D drop shadow. The borders are nice and thin and flawless, and the letters are lifted with contrasting orange and red blobby decorations around the outside. The way I think about decorations in a piece is to try and imagine what it would look like without them – often they enrich what might have been something a little ordinary. Decorations are part of the composition, not just an afterthought.
Jody, M32 roundabout, Bristol, July 2024
Jody has been smashing it all over the place for a sustained period, and I understand from talking to Fade, is really enjoying himself. In this piece he provides the filling in a graffiti writing sandwich and features a cartoon style cool character striking a pose with a cloudy background. I love the sparkle on the sunglasses, a brilliant touch.
Turoe, M32 roundabout, Bristol, July 2024
Rounding off the collaboration is a piece of writing from a Bristol legend, Turoe, although I originally thought it was by Soker it is actually a tribute collaboration to Soker who had a cycling accident recently (Thanks to Jay for the background information). If ever you want to know what outstanding graffiti writing looks like, then look no further than Turoe, and this piece demonstrates why. Perfect colour selection, superb interlocking letters without being over-engineered, a deep and contrasting 3D drop shadow and tight border. All the elements are there and they are brought together by a master of his craft. All in all, this is a fabulous and quite unexpected collaboration. We are blessed, and a fabulous tribute.
I think that this piece by The Art of Sok has been around for a little while, but I was pointed in the direction of it by the artist himself, which was lucky, because I don’t visit this spot as a matter of routine. It was painted as part of a collaboration with Smak, which makes sense because they are friends and share a Welsh heritage.
The Art of Sok, Ashton Road, Bristol, July 2024
The Art of Sok has done here what he does so well; he has created an outstanding comic-book style cartoon of a young man wearing a baseball cap and smoking. The piece is perfectly clean and tight as a nut. Even the smoke coming from the cigarette is stylised, and you can see the two styles meeting where the much more wispy smoke drifts across from Smak’s adjacent piece. Wonderful work from The Art of Sok.
I have been suffering from Elvs withdrawal symptoms… it seems such an age since he regularly visited the city, although this is his second piece painted in July, so there is some hope, I guess. This piece feels like classic Elvs, and I think I know what I mean when I say this, because his writing remains similar from piece to pieces, but there is something here that reminds me of some of his older work.
Elvs, M32 roundabout, Bristol, July 2024
The colour selection, including the background colours, just seem to work so well together, with the break in red tones disrupted through the central section. The writing spells ELVS and the letters are created with the thin highlight lines, so typical of Elvs’ work. There is a lovely grey drop shadow with a central vanishing point which rounds the piece off nicely and without which it would all look pretty odd. Excellent stuff from Elvs.
He gets absolutely everywhere, does Grimes, and what a delightful thing that is. He has even made it into the narrow Leonard Lane with this fine chrome piece. You might spot some double yellow lines, that could possibly be the most useless yellow lines in the country, given that it is a dead end, incredibly narrow and if a driver was stupid enough to drive into the lane, they might never get back out again.
Grimes, Leonard Lane, Bristol, July 2024
Even when he paints in a single colour, Grimes manages to generate great energy from the form of his letters and in this case some orange ‘flame’ decorations around the perimeter. The letters spell out GRIME and are beautifully finished with a decent 3D drop shadow border. Still more to come from this relative newcomer to Bristol.
Rusk, Ulow and Corupt, M32 roundabout, Bristol, July 2024
At first glance, this piece might look like a collaboration between Rusk and Ulow, but regular readers will have seen the figure (by Ulow) on the right before in a collaboration with Hypo a short while ago. What has happened here is Rusk has gone over Hypo’s piece, but worked carefully to retain the Ulow character. It is rather nice to see Corupt getting in on the act too, with a nicely delineated piece sitting atop the others.
Rusk, Ulow and Corupt, M32 roundabout, Bristol, July 2024
Rusk, who has written RUSKY, has produced a banging piece of graffiti writing. It looks like there are five horizontal colour transitions in the letter fills, with some tidy lines in white and brown breaking things up a little. A tried and tested 3D drop shadow with ‘glowing’ yellow spheres dotted around the place lift the letters nicely. This is a nice and tidy piece from Rusk.
The flurry of The Art of Sok pieces continues with this beautiful column portrait. There is a clarity and clean finish that the artist manages to perfect with every single piece he paints. Everything is exactly where he wants it, the lines are crisp and the fills solid and bold.
The Art of Sok, M32 Spot, Bristol, July 2024
The character in this piece is nicely worked into the tall thin column and beautifully presented on a lilac background. The simplicity and accuracy of The Art of Sok’s work is his USP, and is something we don’t see too much of in Bristol. A really wonderful comic-book style design, with still more to come from the artist…
There is no doubt in my mind. I simply have to publish a gallery of great graffiti writing by Noise, because his work is now so completely bedded down in Bristol, something he has managed to do in a relatively short amount of time. As well as working solo, he has also teamed up with a host of other Bristol artists in his celebrated collaborations, which has helped him to become super-established.
Noise, Dean Lane, Bristol, July 2024
This magnificent gold and red piece, painted on one of my favourite walls, is big and bold, and has the tiniest nod to calligraffiti on the up ticks on the tops of some of the letters. I like the shout-outs to Dibz and Fade, who were probably painting other walls in Dean Lane at the time, and interestingly the words ‘Joburg-Bristol’ which makes me think that perhaps Noise has South African connections.
Living in Bristol (as I do) and tracking down street/graffiti art (as I do) it is impossible not to be familiar with a stylised fox mega-tag that appears in all corners of the city. The foxes are painted by Foksymoron, and this is by far the largest one I have seen yet, in Dean Lane for Dean Lane Hardcore.
Foksymoron, Dean Lane, Bristol, July 2024
This skate ramp has often been decorated by Feek for the Dean Lane Hardcore event, but not this time, and Foksymoron appears to have done a pretty good job, filling the space. Foxes have a long and studied history in Bristol, and it is great to see so many featured on the street art scene. I have a host of foxes by Foksymoron in my archives, and feel that perhaps I ought to dig them out and post them all together… watch this space
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