7.6 Upfest 2024 – Natural adventures

6601. Upfest 2024 (60)

Jack Lack, Upfest 24, Greville Street, Bristol, May 2024

Jack Lack is an artist from Stuttgart, Germany, who is a muralist who uses cans and rollers in his work, influenced by the graffiti scene. When I first saw this impressive and moving piece, I assumed the animal was a fox, but it was nagging me that the proportions of the snout, and markings were all wrong. It turns out that it is a red panda, and this is what the artist wrote about the piece:

Sometimes things are easier to comprehend if they are fluffy, so here is an endangered red panda dealing with a pointy nest. Hopefully soon we can steer the world to an increase in safe homes for everyone.

So it would seem that the red panda nestled in amongst some arrows is a metaphor for safe homes for everyone, and I guess that means domestically and those suffering in war zones or other disaster areas around the world. It is a powerful piece, but more than that it is superbly painted, and a stand out piece from the 2024 Upfest festival.

6600. Upfest 2024 (59)

Dave Bain, Upfest 2024, Bristol, May 2024

Dave Bain is a reasonably well known muralist in Bristol, and I have featured a few of his pieces before in Natural Adventures. This was his Upfest 2024 piece, which as you can see took up the whole front of a terraced house, giving it that something special compared to its neighbours.

Dave Bain’s imagination and creativity have run wild in this floral piece which combined familiar shapes and figures with abstract ones. There may be a little symbolism in the piece too, with a spaceman-like figure holding up a polyhedral shape on a starry background. I feel that sometimes Dave Bain could be a little bit more adventurous with his colours, because this colour palette is quite subtle, and perhaps doesn’t do the artwork justice (my view only). An interesting festival piece.

6599. Upfest 2024 (58)

Katie Scott, Upfest 24, Lime Road, Bristol, May 2024

Peeping over a wall in Lime Road, is this extraordinary toy Troll piece by Katie Scott, who has been smashing it with her amazing toy work, including Barbies, over the last couple of years. Definitely this is one of the most memorable pieces of 2024 and unfortunately one of the most difficult to photograph. I think it is now time to yield to drone envy and ask for one for my birthday.

The whole piece, includes a woman’s hand holding the Troll, but that part of her work is hidden in an inaccessible and rather narrow lane. Although difficult to capture, the piece itself is perfectly painted, and one of the trademarks of Katie Scott’s work is the animation photorealism she manages to achieve, as if the image were from a Disney Pixar still or something like that.

Katie Scott painted an unbelievable Barbie doll at the Cheltenham Paint Festival in 2023, but I never got to see and photograph the completed piece. She is definitely a rising star, and her talent is out there for everyone to see. As for the Troll, I rather hope that it isn’t overpainted, because it looks so right where it is.

6597. Upfest 2024 (56)

SEPC, Upfest 24, Dean Lane, Bristol, May 2024

Since the stormy and wet winter weather started up in earnest about a month ago, fewer artists have been out and about, doing what they do best, a pause which frees me up to post a few pieces from Upfest earlier in the year. This one from SEPC is an absolute beauty, and one of the first I saw at this year’s festival.

SEPC is an artist from Manizales in Colombia whose colourful work embodies the connection of people in an urban environment, and his profile on the Upfest website is well worth a read. This was one of two or three pieces that the artist painted while he was in town. I love his humble approach, with plastic bags and boxes full of paint and kit for painting.

In his own words, SEPC combines photorealism with use of colour and incorporates various contextual elements. In other words, there is a lot going on in this work alongside the main portrait pieces, and all of it superbly painted. SEPC’s work was one of the real highlights of this year’s festival.

6423. Upfest 2024 (55)

Zoe Power, Upfest 24, The Tobaccco Factory, Bristol, September 2024

At Upfest 2024, the format of the festival changed a bit, and I don’t think that it worked as well as it has in the past. I believe that the changes have come about by the enormous cost of hosting a festival over two days, and the rapidity of the clean-up afterwards have worn down the organisers. So this year we had feature walls which were painted over a three week period, allowing for a lot of high-end murals, and small 1m square boards – there was nothing in-between, which is the bread and butter for most street artists.

The 1m boards were painted on three occasions, and I managed to photograph them on one of those occasions, missing out on the other two. This was a board painted by the wonderful local artist Zoe Power.

The stylised painting is full of symbolism, and a story of our time. It features a hand holding an olive branch, and rarely have we needed to see the olive branch extended more than now. There is a simplicity and crispness in the piece that betrays the complexity of the underlying messaging and what it represents. It is always a real treat to see Zoe Power’s work.

6421. Upfest 2024 (53)

Perspicere, Upfest 24, The Tobaccco Factory, Bristol, September 2024

Sometimes street art takes on a new and vibrant form, and even when you think you’ve seen it all, an artist like Perspicere will come along and blow your mind. I have been aware of Perspicere for a couple of years, but managed to encounter him at work twice this year, both at Upfest and at the Cheltenham Paint Festival.

Perspicere works with thread that is suspended between rows of hooks along each side of the frame. By threading the line across from one hook to another again and again in a very specific order he builds up a layer of thread that has depth and colour, tricking the eyes. He uses only four colours of thread (red, blue, yellow and white) and the whole thing is worked out using a computer programme, and he has to follow the directions meticulously. The end result is mind-boggling, especially on the scale that he works to.

I think that you have to have a special kind of patience and determination to do this kind of thing, but perhaps it is a rather mindful exercise and great for zoning out. A fine addition to the spectrum of art at this year’s Upfest.

6420. Upfest 2024 (52)

Jimmer Wilmott, Upfest 24, The Tobaccco Factory, Bristol, September 2024

Somehow this piece by Jimmer Wilmott passed me by at this year’s Upfest, and I only got to see it recently during a visit to a few spots with Paul H, including the Tobacco Factory. Sunday is the best day to visit this spot, because there are no cars in the parking spaces, which are immediately in front of the wall. Saturdays would also be good, if it weren’t for the market, which clogs things up a bit.

Jimmer Wilmott has been working in the studio on canvass with his ‘alphabetti spaghetti’ pieces for quite a long while now, but this is the first wall I am aware of that he has decorated in this way. The concept is simple and brilliant and somehow he achieves a photorealistic presentation, which causes many a double-take. Spelling ‘Jimmer was ere’, this is a creative delight from one of the most creative talents in Bristol.

6419. Upfest 2024 (51)

Hardy, Upfest 2024, Greville Smyth Park, Bristol, May 2024

It was a real pleasure to catch up with Hardy at Upfest 24 at the time that he was painting this piece, and he had plenty of kind words to say about my posts on Natural Adventures, which I always find a little bit surprising, because I really have no idea (beyond the core readership of the blog) who reads this stuff, and whether they value it. The function of my street art/graffiti posts is to keep a living record of contemporary street art in Bristol, if people visit and enjoy, then I am doubly satisfied.

Hardy has used this space well to spray four of his distinctive stencils, in two sizes and in different colours, and decorated the rest of the area with symbols and patterns, without which the stencils might look a little stark. Brightening up this space for Upfest.

6295. Upfest 2024 (50)

Taqi Spateen, Upfest 2024, North Street, Bristol, June 2024

I think that this might be one of my favourite pieces from Upfest 2024. I have always been a big fan of trompe l’oeil work and love pieces that make use of, and incorporate, the space they are painted in. This pair of murals by Palestinian artist Taqi Spateen delivers in spadefuls on both counts.

Taqi Spateen, Upfest 2024, North Street, Bristol, May 2024

Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to stop and chat with the artist when he was painting this piece, as I would have liked to have complimented him directly on creating such a charming scene in this little corner at the end of North Street.

The girl on the left-hand archway is stretching on her tiptoes to reach an unreasonably high door knocker, with a door lock above it, totally out of reach. The girl’s beautiful clothes are wonderfully painted, with all the folds and textures so well observed. The shadows cast by the wall and by the girl add to the illusion of depth.

The boy on the right has something of a stiffer challenge, attempting to scale his door on a rope, so that he can reach the four locks, using the bunch of keys hanging off his backpack. That we can’t see either of the children’s faces adds to the mystery.

The murals would appear to be some kind of metaphor about inaccessibility and hopelessness, but also about a determination in the face of adversity. My guess would be that the war in Gaza is very much behind the piece, although I might be reading too much into it. Whatever it is about, they are a truly magnificent pair of murals, worth a trip to Bedminster alone.

6294. Upfest 2024 (49)

Ejits, Upfest 2024, Greville Smyth Park, Bristol, May 2024

A few weeks after Ejits painted this piece for Upfest, I was fortunate enough to meet her while she was painting a larger wall at the Cheltenham Paint Festival. She told me a little bit about her style and that she uses brushes for her work, because although she uses spray paint, her can control is not up to it for fine detail.

This is the second farting character piece I have posted in a matter of days, the other one was by Pl8o, this one however is a farting unicorn, farting rainbows, as they do. I have a feeling that Beep Monkey painted a rainbow-farting unicorn a few years ago. Obviously it is a thing. Ejits has painted this beautifully over a challenging wall with plenty of different textures to contend with. Neat, tidy, fun and cute… nice work all round.

	paulh121 on 7350. Hillgrove Street (9…
	Bill Bisgood on Thursday doors – 11 Dece…
	scooj on Thursday doors – 11 Dece…
	scooj on Thursday doors – 11 Dece…
	scooj on Thursday doors – 11 Dece…

	paulh121 on 7350. Hillgrove Street (9…
	Bill Bisgood on Thursday doors – 11 Dece…
	scooj on Thursday doors – 11 Dece…
	scooj on Thursday doors – 11 Dece…
	scooj on Thursday doors – 11 Dece…

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: