The lowering sun
renders the urban landscape
insignificant.
by Scooj
404. Upfest 2016 (37)
Well there’s a story to tell here. For such a long time I thought this Bristol-based street artist was called Fois, after all, most of his pieces contained the word, and many of the Bristol writers use their names, or corruptions of them and paint under those names…Deamze, Sled One, Epok, Soker, Inkie, and so on. Well not this artist.
The last time I featured him on this blog, I had established that he was actually called Kleiner Shames, Jimmy Kleiner Shames. Once again it was Instagram that came to my rescue. Then it gets a whole lot better. Kleiner Shames recently cleared out his studio because he is moving to London (booo!) and was offering some studio paintings for sale. I ended up buying two from him – he is an exceptional talent and I love his work. He is such a decent bloke, he even offered to deliver the pictures in person.
The piece he did for Upfest contains everything you would expect; architectural features, diagonal lines, hands, pastel colours and a wonderful retro feel. I wish him well with his move to London and hope he’ll be back in Bristol to brighten up our walls. We’ll miss him…Fois forever.
403. Upfest 2016 (36)
Tucked away on the Ashton Gate School playground wall is this subtle and intriguing piece by Feoflip. There is such wonderful detail surrounding the crow, with little figures climbing onto the top half, which has the appearance of a ship. A wonderfully imaginative piece and one that merits prolonged scrutiny.
Feoflip’s biography in the Upfest programme reads:
‘Feoflip means spray paint, latex, chalk,…on a wall, strange characters, bio-mechanical animals, botany, robotics and endless metamorphosis that recycle and pervert logic and reasoning’.
That pretty much sums it up! Great stuff.
Great to see that Feoflip also left a few extras lurking in Bristol during his visit to the city – more on these later.
402. Tropicana, Weston-super-Mare (3)
A recent trip to W-s-M resulted in seeing much more street art than I had prepared myself for. I knew I would find a few stencils by local artist JPS, but wasn’t too sure what else I might find.
The Tropicana was the site of Banksy’s Dismaland last year, and this year the venue hosted the Hazy Days festival, which looks likely to be repeated and expanded for 2017. At the Hazy Days festival this year, several artists, including Dan Kitchener, My Dog Sighs and Osch gathered at the Tropicana and created some wonderful works. This is the piece by Osch, and shows a rather different style to the one in my previous post.
Osch is a highly accomplished artist with an incredibly distinct style. Plenty more of his works will feature in this blog before long.
401. Old Street, Shoreditch (1)
During my strolls around the Shoreditch area, I have come across several of these striking pieces by Osch (Otto Schade). Instantly recognisable with their trademark yellow/orange centre and silhouetted scene, often funny or political in nature. This one highlights a pole dancer and CCTV camera watching her.
Osch, originally from Chile, trained as an architect but is equally at home with his art, which is inspired by the Surrealists. He now lives and works in London, where many of his fine works can be seen.
Osch’s work has another distinct style in which he creates figures or scenes out of long strips of ‘material’, reminiscent of Egyptian mummies unraveling. More on this in my next post. I haven’t seen any of his work in Bristol yet, but am hoping he will visit sometime…it is only a couple of hours away after all.
Eternity
Geological
time contextualises
human existence.
by Scooj
Interloper
There’s a pooch in my
meeting; its contributions
are greater than mine.
by Scooj
400. The Bearpit (25)
It is fitting that my 400th post on street art should feature Aspire. It is difficult to tire of his incredible graffiti pictures of birds. This fine bird in the incongruous setting of The Bearpit is an American Goldfinch and can still be found at the end of the Southern tunnel.
Aspire really needs to get out to New York and paint for the Audubon Mural Project, he even paints American birds! I’m not sure how artists get an invitation to paint for the project, but it must be time for Aspire? In the meantime, we’ll just enjoy his work here in Bristol.
399. Nine Tree Hill (4)
It has been a little while since DNT or Akarat graced these pages, so here is a reasonably recent collaboration, or perhaps better, co-location of these two great local graffiti artists. The dragon is by DNT (Bruno Dante) and the fish on the utility box are by Akarat. I didn’t see the fish the first time, which is something of a gaffe for a marine and fisheries biologist who prides himself on observational skills.
This is a fairly quiet collaboration tucked on a side street just off the main drag of Stokes Croft. I love to see their work, and together with other local artists, they really do keep things fresh. Great dragon, great fish…different styles meeting.
Bait ball
Explosive shimmers
on the surface; predators
move in for the kill.
by Scooj
Natural adventures 