6368. St Werburghs tunnel (445)

Nips, St Werburghs, Bristol, August 2024
Nips, St Werburghs, Bristol, August 2024

I can’t explain why, but there is something that I really like about Nips’ graffiti writing. She first came onto my radar less than a year ago, but in that time her colourful and characterful work has really grown on me. She is an artist I have not yet met, but look forward to doing so some time and asking her about her work.

Nips, St Werburghs, Bristol, August 2024
Nips, St Werburghs, Bristol, August 2024

While Nips tends to keep her letter style fairly consistent, it is the fills where the magic happens, and in this piece she has created a stunning kaleidoscope of colour and patterns. A simple bit of background patterning and a drop shadow help the piece to stand out, along with some white highlighting in the letters. This is a notable piece from a creative writer.

6367. River Avon (64)

Desi and Mr Two Gram, River Avon, Bristol, August 2024
Desi and Mr Two Gram, River Avon, Bristol, August 2024

Recently I have become more organised and started writing my blog posts the day before, giving myself a buffer if things get a bit tight before I start work. So far this revised approach seems to be working really well. What it means is that I wrote this post yesterday and that any references to weather or the news might well be a little out of kilter. However, I am pleased to report that it looks like we will be having a bit of a dry spell in Bristol for the next week or so, and Donald Trump continues to be weird.

Desi, River Avon, Bristol, August 2024
Desi, River Avon, Bristol, August 2024

I don’t think that I post nearly enough pieces by Mr Two Gram, and Desi seems to have had a slightly slower summer, so it is great to be posting this collaboration from them. Desi presents her letters in a uniform style, filling them with a patchwork of greens, blended in a ‘paintbrush’ style. A generous smattering of pink hearts finishes the piece nicely.

Mr Two Gram, River Avon, Bristol, August 2024
Mr Two Gram, River Avon, Bristol, August 2024

Mr Two Gram has painted a fair bit over the summer, but inexplicably I haven’t posted much of his work. I might need to do a trawl at some point and present a mini-gallery of his work. His letters are consistent in form and here spell 2GRAM and his fills composed of blues, purples and magenta. The piece is tight and the collaboration modest, tucked away on a wall with little footfall. Great work from the pair.

Orange hawkweed

Orange hawkweed, Greenbank Cemetery, Bristol, September 2024
Orange hawkweed, Greenbank Cemetery, Bristol, September 2024

.

Early autumn hue

scattered among worn tombstones

mother earth returns

.

by Scooj

6366. Cumberland Basin

Peanutsdeli, Cumberland Bassin, Bristol, August 2024
Peanutsdeli, Cumberland Bassin, Bristol, August 2024

Who Framed Roger Rabbit was the theme for Chapter 16 of World Wall Stylers, and the Bristol graffiti writing and street art community went to town (toon town). This is a remarkable piece by Peanutsdeli, who doesn’t live in Bristol, but visits often enough to be part of the gang.

Peanutsdeli, Cumberland Bassin, Bristol, August 2024
Peanutsdeli, Cumberland Bassin, Bristol, August 2024

Peanutsdeli’s work adopts the manga cartoon style, and here he fuses that with characters from Roger Rabbit, with the chief protagonist himself and a manga Baby Herman. Peanutsdeli sticks to the brief really well in terms of content and colour, contributing fabulously to this wall.

6365. Cheltenham 2023 (5)

Krimsone, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, Town Centre East car park, Cheltenham, July 2024
Krimsone, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, Town Centre East car park, Cheltenham, July 2024

Here are three more wonderful pieces from the Cheltenham Paint Festival this year, and I have to say that Andy Davies, the Director and organiser of the event, has excelled in gathering a blend of international, national and local artists together to show off their talent. I believe that 2024 is the best one yet. This first enormous piece, on the side of the Town Centre East car park, is by Krimsone, an artist I have only once before come across at Upfest 2017. This is a top class portrait piece worked to fit the tall wall perfectly, with a vase delicately balanced on the woman’s head taking up the top half of the wall. Incredible stuff.

#DFTE, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, Honeybourne Line tunnel, Cheltenham, July 2024
#DFTE, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, Honeybourne Line tunnel, Cheltenham, July 2024

As reliable as ever, Bristol artist #DFTE manages to raise a smile with his appropriately coloured writing exclaiming “Totally Bananas”. Fabulous drips.

Fark, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, Princess Elizabeth Way, Cheltenham, July 2024
Fark, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, Princess Elizabeth Way, Cheltenham, July 2024

Finally in this mini selection, Fark, who is a regular at street art festivals, presents one of his superb birds with precision and tidiness. Great work.

6364. Cheltenham 2024 (4)

Snug One, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2023, Sherborne Place Car Park, Cheltenham, July 2024
Snug One, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2023, Sherborne Place Car Park, Cheltenham, July 2024

I took these pictures at this year’s Cheltenham festival, although the first image featuring an extraordinary piece by Smug One is from the Cheltenham Paint Festival 2023. I managed to catch up with Smug One as he was finishing off this stag beetle piece “Monarch of the End”, but rain was forecast and he was rather agitated that he might not be able to complete it before it came. I often present Cheltenham pieces a year late, because many are incomplete at the time of my visiting the festival, and I tend to only visit once a year. This is a magnificent piece.

Benzi Brofman, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, North Place car park, Cheltenham, July 2024
Benzi Brofman, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, North Place car park, Cheltenham, July 2024

I don’t know Benzi Brofman at all, but I rather like this irreverent take on family life with the line “Being normal is boring”. The sentiment of the picture taps into the subversive nature of street art and I rather like it. 

LPVDA, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, Swindon Road, Cheltenham, July 2024
LPVDA, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, Swindon Road, Cheltenham, July 2024

I also don’t know the French? artist LPVDA but his Instagram feed is fascinating. It looks like he creates his work using an angle grinder, etching out images on wooden ‘canvases’. The effect is stunning and it is amazing how he achieves depth and tone just by altering the depth of his grinding. 

All three pieces are wonderful.

Routine

.

My daily rhythm

a curse and a salvation

me and the dog both

.

by Scooj

6363. St Werburghs tunnel (444)

Benjimagnetic is a Bristol artist who tends to paint regularly but not frequently, if that makes any sense. So there is a constant drum beat of his work appearing often enough that he doesn’t fall off the radar.

Benjimagnetic, St Werburghs, Bristol, August 2024
Benjimagnetic, St Werburghs, Bristol, August 2024

This is a nice piece at the entrance to the tunnel, which is so characteristic of his unique style. The letters spell out BEN and are notable more for what isn’t there than what is. Benjimagnetic tends to avoid using solid or decorative fills for his letters, so what you are left with is the architecture of writing which creates these magnificent pieces full of lines and structures. This is a lovely tight piece from the artist.

6362. Dean Lane skate park (749)

Fade and Dibz, Dean Lane, Bristol, August 2024
Fade and Dibz, Dean Lane, Bristol, August 2024

You might have seen several references in the past to World Wall Stylers, and wondered what it is all about. Essentially, it is a global street art collaboration event, organised through Instagram, setting a theme which artists can adopt, paint and photograph, tagging @worldwallstylers in their own Instagram feeds. It is a way of showing off your style to a large urban art community and observing other artist’s impressions on the same theme. This month is chapter 16 of World Wall Stylers and the theme is the film ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’.

Fade and Dibz, Dean Lane, Bristol, August 2024
Fade and Dibz, Dean Lane, Bristol, August 2024

Fade and Dibz have collaborated in this Roger Rabbit piece in what I would call a fusion collaboration where both artists will have contributed to all parts of the piece, in spite of the letters spelling out FADE. The character in this piece was called Smart Guy, one of five weasel characters belonging to the Toon Patrol. Brilliant work from the pair and a prompt to dig out the movie and re-watch it sometime.

6361. Cumberland Basin

Chill, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2024
Chill, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2024

Usually when I photograph collaborative work, especially from the PWA crew, I tend to post all of the pieces together, which risks a little, the dilution of impact of each of the contributing artists. Sometimes I like to decouple the collaboration to be able to concentrate on a single piece and this is what I have done with this fine cartoon piece by Chill.

Chill, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2024
Chill, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2024

This piece by Chill was painted as part of the celebratory paint jam for Werm’s birthday, an event that generates a great turnout every year. Chill has come on such a long way over the last few years and his cartoon-style character pieces betray his tattoo artist background, with strong clear black (ink) outlines and interesting designs. He also includes some ornamentation, usually little birds and greenery, but here in the form of skulls with plasma bursts emanating from them. This is a great example of Chill’s fabulous work.