Natural adventures

5259. Upfest 2022 (69)

Foxes have a special place in Bristol. Although urban foxes are found throughout the UK, it was in Bristol where they first were recognised as a ‘thing’ through a research programme conducted by Bristol University. In fact, their research showed that Bristol played host to the most densely populated community of foxes ever recorded, centred around my old allotment. The funny thing is that even though they are so common, there is something quite special about seeing a wild mammal living amongst us.

Justinks, who has painted at Upfest a few times, has absolutely nailed it with this outstanding greyscale rendition of a sleeping fox. It is a truly beautiful painting and captures not only the form of the fox perfectly, but also its peaceful sleeping state. A wonderful piece.

5258. Upfest 2022 (68)

The quality and variety of pieces at last year’s Upfest was as good as it has ever been, if not a little better. My only regret is that I didn’t manage to capture completed pieces by many artists, because there was an abrupt end to the two-day festival, after which the boards in Greville Smyth Park were dismantled, and that was that. Fortunately, just as I was leaving, Ale Poire (from Guadalajara, Mexico) was signing her beautiful hands piece, and the signature usually indicates the piece is complete.

There is something very special and expressive about hands, and Ale Poire has captured a tenderness in this emotional painting. The simplicity of the composition combined with the technical craft of the artist left me with one of the most memorable images of the festival. A very special piece, which would last for only a few hours after I took this picture.

5257. Upfest 2022 (67)

An occasional visitor to Bristol for Upfest, Woskerski is an outstanding artist who operates out of London. I have posted pieces by him a few times in Natural Adventures, but because I don’t visit London much these days, his appearances have been few and far between.

This extraordinary piece, depicting some sort of alien interaction in a future vision of Earth, was painted over a couple of days, and the work in progress shot provides a little insight into Woskerski’s method. It looks like he sketches up the elements of the piece and then ‘colours them in’ which is quite an unusual way of going about things, but he is wonderfully successful at it.

There is such a sense of movement created by the dogs, which have been so accurately captured, but the star of the show for me is the serene face belonging to the girl wearing a hoody/space helmet to the right of the piece. Woskerski is such a massive talent, and it was a real privilege to welcome him to Bristol for Upfest 2022.

5256. Upfest 2022 (66)

Such has been the productivity on the streets over the last year combined with my attempts to post as much as I can, I have completely neglected my Upfest 22 posts, which really isn’t very impressive. I will try to squeeze in as many as I can whenever I can, because there was so much quality art to see from what was a very successful couple of days at the end of May 2022.

I had to have several goes at photographing this magnificent piece by Anthroe, but it is the damn cars that make it so challenging. The piece itself is a fabulously colourful portrait of a woman holding a bouquet of flowers, with what looks like a petrol pump (surely not) in her left hand. The whole piece is set on an abstract patterned background. This is one of my favourite pieces of the festival by an artist I don’t know at all, but I believe that he lives and paints in Los Angeles, so it is great to see this piece here in Bristol.

5255. M32 Spot (164)

How truly wonderful to see a Skor85 piece for two big reasons; the first is that I haven’t seen any of her work in an absolute age, and secondly, she is one of the nicest, kindest and most bubbly artists in Bristol. Even better is that this is one of two pieces she painted during this paint jam organised in the M32 Spot by Conrico.

The column piece looks like a mash-up of a portrait with a design idea, and kind of comes in a top and bottom half. The portrait below seems to portray happiness, but is somewhat at odds with the deer design above, which is more stylised and looks ready to go onto the front of a Christmas card. I am puzzled by the rune on the deer’s forehead… is it an expression or is it a tag? I think the former. The whole thing is a welcome return from Skor85.

5254. Greenbank (82)

This post gives you a sense of how far behind I am with my posts and how difficult it is to keep up with the sheer volume of street art and graffiti writing being painted in Bristol right now. The wonderful piece by Pekoe is from an Easter paint jam with her RBF crew friends.

Pekoe has spent this spring concentrating on her letters, and it is always great to see artists pushing and challenging themselves. I think that Pekoe may struggle a little with straight lines and that she might benefit from writing a more curvy word – there are a lot of straight lines in PEKOE. The fills are lovely and typical of her style, and the eggs a nice festive touch. More writing from Pekoe in the pipeline.

5253. M32 Spot (163)

I think that the Bristol artist who has stretched the most so far this year is Zake. He has consistently been expanding his repertoire pretty much with each new piece and is becoming more original with his designs and ideas. This recent wizard piece at the M32 Spot is a great example of how varied his work is becoming.

Although it is easy to see, in this column piece, the traits for which Zake is best known, namely the use of light and dark shading to create depth, it does not scream out Zake on the surface, and had it not been signed, it would have taken me a little while to work it out. An unusual and fun piece from the Spanish face specialist.

5252. Lighthouse Community Garden, London (10)

Vane MG, Lighthouse Community Garden, London, April 2023

Here we have another wonderful portrait piece from the Lighthouse Community Garden in London, this time from an artist called Vane MG. She is an artist and designer originally from Colombia, but is now living and working in London. The following is from her excellent website:

She worked in the Design world from 2009 & in 2015 she started working on projects which focussed on highlighting the importance of Latin American women. Her objective is to attempt to reclaim elements of the cultural past, integrating it with the present and creating new images that help to define a lost identity.

The portrait of a young girl is exquisitely painted in lilac and turquoise tones, creating depth with clever light and shadowing. A child’s windmill is in front of the girl, whose expression is slightly haunting, with the glimmer of a smile hiding a sadness – at least that is how I see it. A truly lovely piece for another artist who needs to be snapped up for the next Upfest festival in Bristol.

5251. Lighthouse Community Garden, London (9)

Elno, Lighthouse Community Garden, London, April 2023

One of the things about finding street art in a place that isn’t your home, is that you will come across artists that you are unfamiliar with, and that is certainly the case here with this fabulous portrait piece by Elno at the Lighthouse Community Garden in Stratford.

Elena Gonzalez Nieto also known as ELNO, is a Spanish visual artist based in London since 2014 (taken from her fabulous website) who it would seem specialises in stunning portrait pieces elaborated with bright colourful backgrounds. Although painted last year, the piece looks fresh and vibrant – definitely a candidate for Upfest I would have thought.

Thursday doors – 1 June 2023

Doors 223 – Doors of Weston-super-Mare (1)

Last weekend, Paul H and I took a trip to Weston-super-Mare to photograph some of the street art there, not least the impressive recent additions from the last three years thanks to Upfest’s involvement with the Weston Wallz initiative. We hadn’t even left the station when I spotted a surfeit of doors on a Network Rail maintenance wagon – this was going to be a good day.

Plenty of doors on this Network Rail rail grinder, Weston-super-Mare, May 2023

Being a seaside town, many of the doors are in fairly poor condition, from all that salt spray in the winter months, so, plenty of characterful doors, but not many ancient ones. The doors were a bit of a bonus on what was actually a street/graffiti art mission, but Paul was very patient with me as I snapped up a few interesting doors. I hope you enjoy them:

Blue doors of a certain period, Weston-super-Mare, May 2023

Green doors of a certain period in need of some TLC, Weston-super-Mare, May 2023

Dirty plain door and a little bit of graffiti, Weston-super-Mare, May 2023

Steel doors, Weston-super-Mare, May 2023

More to come from this trip in due course. My I wish you a happy end of week.

If you have made it this far, you probably like doors, and you really ought to take a look at the No Facilities blog by Dan Anton who has taken over the hosting of Thursday Doors from Norm 2.0 blog. Links to more doorscursions can be found in the comments section of Dan Anton’s Thursday Doors post.

by Scooj

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