It is big, and pink and bold and probably the largest ‘Seismic’ that I have seen from Jee See (Goshiku Chavu). This simple but impactful piece is on one of my favourite walls in Bristol in Dean Lane skate park.
Jee See already knows that I am a big fan of his work and his relentless pursuit to find walls to leave his work and messages. He is always pushing the boundaries with his themed work and also on his Instagram feed which hosts so many photoshopped images and sketches. Seismic!
It is great to see that VisitBristol (the local tourist authority) is putting its weight behind the creative arts, in particular street art, by commissioning this mural on one of the walls of We the Curious (formerly @Bristol). The idea behind the mural is to increase visits to the city over the Christmas period to boost tourism as this little YouTube video shows.
The artists chosen for the commission are Cheo and Silent Hobo, both of whom have featured on these pages many, many times before. Here they combine to produce this sumptuous Bristol-themed Christmas mural with a whole ton of identifiable Bristol icons.
The left hand side of the mural is mostly the work of Silent Hobo and features the aquarium, the ice rink, the cathedral and harbourside among other things and in the foreground we have a few bristol carol singers representing the two (rival) football teams.
On the right Cheo’s mural includes the Clifton suspension bridge, the zoo, the Christmas market, the M Shed and Isembard Kingdom Brunel (the greatest ever Englishman). The whole thing is surrounded with a golden frame and the whole thing is rather delicious.
Given that street art and graffiti are part of the USP for Bristol, I would love to see VisitBristol and the Council do more of this kind of thing in recognition of the street artists who bring free art to the city rather than locking it down, for example in The Bearpit.
#MerryBristmas
Even though it is becoming more difficult to find clean walls to work on in The Bearpit, and the Council are taking more of an interest in artistic activities, some of Bristol’s finest are still able to make their mark. This is a fine piece by Nevla.
What makes this quite unusual for a Nevla piece is the inclusion of colour. Most of the work I have seen before has been two or three colours only. I don’t know if this is a budget driven thing or a fast getaway thing, but this time he seems to have branched out a little. His cartoon style continues to keep up a happy and light-hearted perspective in this little corner of Bristol.
I’m not sure how often Andy Council participates in paint jams (I can’t recall any recent occasions) but he certainly joined in the spirit of this one down on the M32 roundabout between St Agnes and Easton.
Andy Council is well-known for creating pictures of animals or birds that are composed of natural of built features. He has excelled himself with this beautiful duck-billed platypus swimming through a watery scene. This is a wall that just keeps on giving and will continue to do so until its next makeover and then its next.
I may be imagining it or it might be a real thing, but Soap seems not only to be doing a lot more work on the street recently, but also is doing more writing. This is a lovely colourful little piece in one of the tunnels of the M32 roundabout combining his writing with his trademark mouths.
These tunnels must be a nightmare to paint, because they act as both footpaths and cycle paths and seem to be forever busy. Anyone who can produce art of this quality in these tunnels gets my instant admiration.
My hundredth post on Upfest 2018 and I have been saving this piece to mark the occasion. Sometimes in this game you get to see something very special, and when I heard that Odeith was coming to the festival I had high hopes. This piece not only met, but far exceeded my expectations, and it was a real privilege to see this master of anamorphic street art at work.
I have seen a lot of Odeith’s work on social media, most of it of insects and spiders stretched across a corner, but this is the first time I have seen anything on three walls and under water. The effect is quite astonishing and how well it plays tricks with your eyes and mind. Even with the artist standing in the middle of the space, disrupting the effect, it still looks amazing.
The water level is so brilliantly devised that it feels like the viewer is swimming about a foot or so under the surface, and the water distorts the back of the scene where the crocodile’s head breaks the surface.
The walls of the tank are composed of large stone block letters, spelling out ODEITH. Not only is the concept of this piece extraordinary, but the skill and attention to details, light, shade texture and so on is second to none. I think that in most people’s eyes, this was the piece that stole the show. A technical masterpiece.
Antonia Lev is one of those lucky artists who managed to paint two walls at Upfest 2018. The first, in The Hen and Chickens yard I covered a few posts back was complemented by this hoarding piece in South Street Park.
Her work has a really interesting feel to it and the colours are in the bright pink/purple/blue range which makes it stand out from the crowd. I think there is a story going on here, part of which is a social media commentary, which is rather pertinent as the artist (on the far left of the picture) is herself using the keypad on her smart phone in these pictures. Great to get an introduction to this artist from Russia.
This gateway is a particular favourite of mine and has played host to some lovely pieces by 3rdeye and Aspire in previous Upfests. This year it was the turn of Dr Love, an artist from Tbilisi in Georgia.
The piece is a large stencil, and you can see just how tricky it is to put together a stencil of this size from the picture above. Looking at this stencil, I can’t quite work out the layering, but that is why I write about these things rather than try to do them myself.
Dr Love likes to spread love with his work and I think with this piece you can sense the tenderness of a skeleton holding a butterfly on his finger and the message is conveyed loud and clear with the large word LOVE across the middle of the piece. Sadly the work only lasted a few months before it was tagged, and I believe that a Muckrock piece is there now, but I’ve not managed to get down to see it yet.
I think that this Paul Monsters piece counts as an Upfest work, even though it was completed a few days before the festival itself. Upfest simply wouldn’t be the same without Paul Monsters, and I mean that quite literally, as he is at the core of the organising work and biography gathering for the festival and works in the Upfest shop in North Street.
Paul Monsters is a master of creating these geometric 3D patterns which he does both as small prints or enormous walls like this one. What was preciously a bland and unremarkable wall has been transformed into a thing of beauty which lifts the mood of the area and those that look upon it.
In this piece he uses his trademark colours of orange, brown, purple, green and blue using shades of these colours to create the 3D effect. A remarkable wall from a lovely chap.
I think that this was my favourite wall of Upfest 2018. Situated just off Dean Lane and on the margins of the Upfest main drag this new wall played host to four or five astonishing pieces, including my favourite piece of the festival by Kowse One. This magnificent and rather different piece is by Ione from Tenerife, which is interesting, because it shares the same understated tones used by Feoflip, a fellow Canary Islander, who came to Bristol in 2016 for Upfest and sprayed many pieces all around the city.
I rate this piece very highly in part because it is so unusual. It seems to borrow heavily from the Cubist and Surrealist genres and there are elements that remind me of Picasso and Miro. The figure also makes me think of Mary Poppins, but that might just be me. Subtle and interesting, I love this piece and love the wall.
Natural adventures 