.
No longer outraged
bought-in to the narrative
seems anything goes
.
by Scooj
.
No longer outraged
bought-in to the narrative
seems anything goes
.
by Scooj
Being so close to Bristol, the Cheltenham Paint Festival is crowded with artists that I am really familiar with, who make the short journey up the M5 or on the train. This is a lovely piece called ‘I Hear You’ by Stephen Quick which according to his Twitter feed is a call to arms to all the unheard voices now being heard.

Stephen Quick’s pieces historically used to be complex stencils, but more recently he has taken to painting freehand in a stencil style. He uses a brilliant mash-up approach to his work combining film or TV elements and to illustrate this here are his #hashtags for this piece on social media:
Streetart, urbanart, portrait, power, woman, superhero, shera, teenagemutantninjaturtles, mural, cheltenhampaintfestival, cheltenham, painting, art, artofinstagram, spraypaint, acrylicpainting, stencilart.
A really fine piece. Bravo.
A beautiful and understated little stencil piece by M-one that for me pretty much stole the show at the Cheltenham Paint Festival this year. I haven’t come across the artist before but I believe he lives in Southsea.

What is so clever about this stencil is not only the placement and the illusion that the hole is a real one, but that the rust colour he has used kind of blends in with the rusty drips on the tiles behind. I’m not sure if this was his only piece at the festival or if there is another one somewhere in my archive. I’ll find out soon enough. Brilliant piece.
Procrastination
has become an art form here
must get on and cook.
by Scooj
A gallery of magnificent character work from Bristol’s Silent Hobo
All photographs taken by Scooj















































One of the first pieces to be completed at this year’s Cheltenham Paint Festival was this homage to Nadiya Hussain, the Great British Bake Off winner and now celebrity chef, by RJ77 who I believe might be quite local but I’m not sure why I think that.

RJ77 has stuck well to the theme of the festival and his book is Nadiya Hussain’s ‘Time to Eat’ cookery book. He is a very talented stencil artist and this greyscale piece looks like it has maybe eight or nine layers – gotta love those drips too. He painted a lovely piece at Upfest 2018 which I posted a little while back. I’d love to see more of his stuff, but might have to wait for more festivals to see it.

This is a lovely new shutter piece by The Hass on North Street. Unfortunately there is a bit missing on the left hand side which rolls down over the door, but shutters are difficult to get at the best of times so I was pleased to get this shot. The Hass paints under another name in Bristol, but those that know, know and those that don’t, don’t need to.

As a marine biologist I need little encouragement to marvel at this wonderful marlin swimming in waters close to a paradise island, looking a little bit like the island set in the Disney Pixar film The Incredibles. This time though the gorgeous waters are polluted with plastic bottles in amongst the fish. Nice piece combining abstract elements with realism and a great story.
Convenient lies
trotted off with abandon
electioneering
by Scooj
I only make occasional trips to L Dub, which is OK, because the turnover isn’t quite up to the same level as it is in places like Dean Lane for example. Those rare visits though are totally worth it, and the dog rather enjoys the trip too.

This lovely piece of writing by Smak was alongside the Sled One mermaid which I posted a little while back, and the subtle colour selections work so well placed on the cloudy sky background. I am a fan of clouds, and since I started playing around with spray paint I have been looking at clouds a whole load more to make sure I don’t make silly mistakes (for example clouds that are darker on the top than on the bottom – it just doesn’t happen). Nice to see this Smak piece, it feels like a while since his last one.
How fantastic to see these two PWA artists hooking up again after what feels like way too long. Soap and Face 1st have been painting buddies for a long time, but lately have been doing their own thing. I was beginning to think that they might have fallen out and may maybe they had, so it was with some relief that I came across this fine collaboration on the M32 cycle path.

The collaboration itself is a lovely crisp piece, which is tapping into Face 1st’s recent theme of a crying face, which I interpret as a metaphor for the desperate state of our nation. This collaboration is really tight and one of my favourites that this pair have produced. The yellow boundary contains the two elements into a ‘proper’ collaboration of shared paint and merged ideas rather than the loose collaboration of when artists paint different things together.