5. Street Art – Page 43 – Natural adventures

7051. Narrow Quay

These are three small boards outside a café on Narrow Quay, which I assume are commissions, or at the very least, permitted by the establishment. The artist is #DFTE and illustrate perfectly his philosophical musings delivered in his singular letter style with plenty of drips.

The first declares “love you too” presumably in response to a statement. The second is s little more challenging, and is perhaps a great reflective motto, “Don’t believe everything you think.

The third board in this trio, “Your anxiety is lying to you” is, I think trying to be helpful, but to anyone who suffers from anxiety, it probably just confuses and upsets – I can imagine tying oneself in knots over that statement. These original pieces represent a great way of integrating street art into our everyday lives. Nice work from #DFTE.

7050. L Dub (74)

Turoe and Veks, L Dub, Bristol, June 2025

This is a wonderful old school combination piece painted at the L Dub spot by Turoe, although I think that the character might be by Veks. Everything about this oozes class and experience.

The character wearing a baseball cap has been buffing the wall with a roller, thus indicating a form of self-portraiture. The letters, spelling STYLE are perfectly filled with blended horizontal shades transitioning from purple through red and orange to brown. A striped 3D drop shadow rounds off this piece off nicely and create a metallic sheen effect.

7049. Stapleton Road

Mage and Piewaste, Stapleton Road, Bristol, June 2025

This is one of those stacked collaborations that have to be taken as a pair, because separating them might look a little bit awkward. I am not 100% sure that it was painted as a collaboration or whether both artists painted their pieces separately, but you can see that Piewaste’s piece overlaps Mage’s piece above it, and was therefore completed second.

Mage has presented a regular set of letters, but with a creative fill that includes a dashed line pattern reversed out. It is great to see an artist reinventing himself in the way he has with a completely new set of letters, although I have to say I preferred his old letters.

Piewaste, who has written WASTE in letters that are close to anamorphic, creating a strong sense of depth and three dimensions, also includes his trademark eyes looking out from the writing like a cartoon forest at night (kind of thing). Nice to see these two pieces together like this.

7048. L Dub (73)

It seems today that it is all about Hypo – the previous post was a birthday tribute to Hypo from Subtle, Ulow and Minto, and this is one of his very own pieces from L Dub. Hypo has had a purple patch that has been continuous for about two years now and shows no signs of abating.

The letter blocks in this piece are each assigned a different colour, and have a lot of strong graffiti writing motifs, such as the arrows and little double bars, stitching the letters together. It is interesting to note how different the ‘H’ and the ‘O’ chrome letters look quite different due to the different colour drop-shadows. Another nice piece from Hypo.

7047. M32 roundabout J3 (696)

Subtle, Ulow and Minto, M32 roundabout, Bristol, May 2025

This fine trio of pieces was painted as part of Hypo’s birthday celebrations, and brings together Subtle, Ulow and Minto – quite a line-up. There is a whole lot of colour and talent on display, marking out this section of wall as being a bit special.

Subtle, M32 roundabout, Bristol, May 2025

To the left, Subtle has created a masterclass of colour and design, with some wicked letters spelling HYPO, set on a fabulous red background with pink spots, looking like wrapping paper around the writing. Outstanding stuff.

We don’t get to see Ulow’s work all that often, so it is always a great pleasure to come across one of his characters. The superb presentation of different tones and shades create a wonderful 3-dimensional effect as if the character is walking straight out of the wall. A combination of simplicity and complexity all in one character piece.

Minto, M32 roundabout, Bristol, May 2025

Rounding off the trio is this busy piece of writing from Minto. The style here has as much to do with what is absent as it does with what is present, a little bit like Benjimagnetic’s writing. Lots of colourful splashes and unfilled spaces combine to spell out MINTO, in a complex arrangement. Altogether an outstanding collaboration. Bravo!

7046. St Werburghs tunnel (515)

Mr Klue, St Werburghs, Bristol, May 2025

The emphasis of this post will walk through how augmentation works. In street art circles, augmentation (adding to an existing piece) is relatively rare and can be considered as a little insulting to the original artist, or lacking in creativity. On the other hand, it can be seen as flattering and complementary to the original work. Here is a wonderful example of a piece by Mr Klue that has been augmented by Posh.

This rather nice purple ‘KLUE’ abstract writing has been hanging around at the entrance to the tunnel for quite a while, which doesn’t really come as much of a surprise as he kind of ‘owns’ this spot, by occupation at least. The purple is beautifully picked out with white and yellow highlights that create wonderful depth to the piece. Now all is just fine and dandy, and then along comes Posh!

Mr Klue and Posh, St Werburghs, Bristol, July 2025

Quite a while after this piece was painted by Mr Klue, Posh came along and added into it three posh characters, in yellow, picking out some of the colour in the original piece. These ‘toffs’ have a strong political message, one that picked up a lot of coverage at the Glastonbury Festival, ‘Death 2 the IDF’. Once again, street art acts as a wonderful commentary on contemporary issues, and has an important role to play in free speech and expression. This is a great example of how augmentation can work really well, and Mr Klue thought it was rather funny.

7045. Dean Lane skate park (849)

Hire and Sait Bare, Dean Lane, Bristol, July 2025 — Hire, Dean Lane, Bristol, July 2025

This piece from Hire had me raising my eyebrows, in a good way, because it is quite unlike anything I have seen from him before. I would normally associate his work with quite intricate, spiky, angular letters, but here he has gone for something altogether softer and more fluid – to be honest I hind it a little disorientating. (Update – I am being particularly dense, the writing is, of course, by Sait Bare, which is why it is so different in style. I couldn’t see the wood for the trees.

The combination of letters and two characters works well, with a face on the left and one of his trademark rabbits (see, it is spiky) to the right. The letters have a traditional 3D drop shadow with black and red stripes. This whole thing looks like Hire is experimenting a bit, departing from his customary style, and that has to be applauded.

7044. Brunel Way (320)

Zinso has made a big impression in Bristol in recent months having burst onto the scene earlier this year. He took over this entire wall, buffed it out with white paint and then painted six pieces, in pairs, each with a small and a large piece. I guess it is one way of getting in some practice. I have split the total production into three posts of which this is the first.

Both the small and large piece are in a bubble-writing style, although the larger one is rather more sophisticated. The small piece has alternate colours for the letters, has a tidy drop shadow and neat red border. Great work. As for the larger piece, the fills are absolutely magnificent. Big, bold colours and some really nice shapes resembling calligraphy, create an outstanding overall impression. This is the work of a skilled, technical artist having a great day out. The full wall is shown below:

7043. Cumberland Basin

Squarms, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, July 2025

I think that this year, perhaps more than any other year, I have seen an increase in the number of visiting artists painting in Bristol, which tells me that it is very much a destination city for street/graffiti artists. This is, in my view, a really great thing and opens up opportunities to get acquainted with a huge diversity of artwork from across the country and beyond.

I’m not too sure exactly when these colourful skeletons, painted by Squarms, appeared, but it was probably around the same time as some others under Brunel Way, perhaps in late June. These skeletons are brilliantly presented and have a feel of graphic design about them, as if they could be found on cards, posters, t-shirts etc.. Something a little different to enjoy.

7042. Cumberland Basin

Scrapyardspec, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, July 2025

Scrapyardspec has returned to Bristol recently and dropped a whole load of pieces at spots all over the city, which seems to be his modus operandi when he visits. This multicoloured goofy face is in the little ‘tunnel’ area alongside the long wall at Cumberland Basin.

There is something completely loveable about Scrapyardspec’s characters. You pretty much know that you are going to get a wobbly face with lots of teeth and googly eyes, but there is enough variability within that formula to ensure that each piece is interesting and unique in its own way. The background colours are what mark this piece out from some of the others, being much more colourful ‘a la fruit salad’ I would say. More to come from our welcome visitor soon.

	cjsmissionaryministe… on Thursday doors – 5 Febru…
	cjsmissionaryministe… on 7442. St Werburghs tunnel…
	scooj on Thursday doors – 5 Febru…
	scooj on Thursday doors – 5 Febru…
	scooj on 7449. Greenbank (180)

	cjsmissionaryministe… on Thursday doors – 5 Febru…
	cjsmissionaryministe… on 7442. St Werburghs tunnel…
	scooj on Thursday doors – 5 Febru…
	scooj on Thursday doors – 5 Febru…
	scooj on 7449. Greenbank (180)

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