There is something about the work of Elvs that I find rather compelling. His letters are so very distinct and always easy to identify. I love what he has done in this piece, using a little spaceship to create a ray of light over his writing and offer the opportunity to show off two discrete colour variants, one within the arc of light and the other outside it.
Elvs, Dean Lane, Bristol, December 2019
The piece is really clever and I’m not sure I have seen this kind of idea on a wall very often. As always, Elvs has turned out some really tight graffiti writing that speaks volumes to his great talent.
It is only a few months ago that The Bearpit was a street art hub, and very much a ‘go to’ destination for street art tours and hunting in Bristol. But then the Council stepped in, painted all the walls with anti-graffiti paint, cleared out all the containers and a double decker bus that had been a cafe, but once closed became a squat.
It was as if the graffiti and street art was symbolic of the squallor and so it had to go. In my view it was the chronic homelessness problem in Bristol that was responsible for the decline in amenity value and increase in anti-social behaviour, but the Council know best and have created a sterile space.
Nothing happens there any more. No more artists, no more skateboarders, no more gardeners – it is a joyless place. I wonder where they have shifted the homeless people to. I know a bunch of them live in the underground car park near my work.
Tian, The Bearpit, Bristol, May 2019
One of the last pieces I photographed there was this wonderful wheatpaste by French artist Tian, which was one of a series of wheatpastes he left us in and around the Stokes Croft area last spring. I guess on his next trip to Bristol he’ll have to give The Bearpit a wide berth.
There is a great problem with street art, and that is that there is simply too much of it. I would think that for every piece I feature in Natural Adventures, there are probably two others I have photographed that never make it. That is why going back through my archives is such fun, bringing dormant pieces back to life.
Jaune, Shoreditch, London, April 2019
This is a small piece from a trip I made to Shoreditch back in April this year painted by the artist Jaune, who specialises in pictures of waste disposal workers often in miniature like this one. It is great going to London occasionally hunting for street art, because there are many more internaional artists who visit there, compared with the provinces. Jaune I believe is from Brussels in Belgium, but I have never seen any of his work in Bristol.
Continuing with the late release of prisoners from my archive, I bring you this extraordinary piece from April this year by Zase. The commission was one of two pieces that he painted and is at the back of Marlborough House, a student accommodation. Bristol has two universities and a whole ton of students, which is part of what makes Bristol so mixed and interesting, but the expansion of UWE in particular has led to a massive growth in student accommodation and many of the recent developments in the centre have been built by the universities.
Zase, Barton Road, Bristol, April 2019
I guess it is great to see the university promoting Bristol’s artists with a commmission like this, so I can’t really complain. Zase is a truly gifted artist who seems to be able to turn his hand to pretty much anything and here he has painted a fabulous seascape with racing yachts. I particularly like the pixellated effect of leaving a few bricks unpainted at the top of the piece.
I cannot for the life of me remember where this lovely framed philosophical offering from #DFTE actually is. I know it is in town, and probably on a wall that doesn’t have too many other street/graffiti art pieces, as #DFTE tends to stay away from the regular spots. I took the picture way back in March, and my brain is so useless that I struggle to remember what happened yesterday, let alone back in March.
#DFTE, Town, Bristol, March 2019
The guidance presented here says ‘Love in such a way that the person you love feels free’. I’m not too sure I am on the same page as this one, because it might be making the assumption that love could be a form of imprisonment and I am not sure that that is what love is. Smothering love maybe, and perhaps that is what this is about.
I am annoyed that I can’t remember where this is, because one of the great skills of installation artists like #DFTE is that placement is a key element of the work.
My search through the archives continues with this lovely piece from February 2019 by Warp. I found this one on the back of research that I was doing for the piece I posted by him a couple of days ago, I hadn’t been able to read the letters or signature and so it was languishing forlornly in my March 2019 folder.
Warp, M32 roundabout, Bristol, February 2019
This is another classy piece of graffiti writing from Warp, clean, crisp and in the company of the fabulous Smak (left) and Jaksta (right). I wonder if I have any more of his pieces in my folders…
As you can probably guess from the last post, I have been having a bit of a rummage around in my archive of 2019. Regrettably there are so many great pieces that haven’t made it into Natural Adventures, many of them because at the time of taking the photograph the artist was unknown to me and I try not to post too many ‘unknown’ pieces.
Conrico, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2019
From back in February 2019 this might be one of the earliest works I have from Conrico but it is a really cracking piece of writing, beautifully designed in a cartoon style and nicely set in a coastal scene with the sea, a beach and palm trees – it is details like these that mark it out as a Conrico piece. Nice to see a reference to ‘the Monday Club’ a loose crew that is now well established in Bristol.
Natural adventures 