Over the course of the three day Upfest street art festival, visitors are treated to a huge display of artistic talent, which includes a some exceptional stencils, most of which are allocated these meter square boards at the St Francis church location. This extraordinary four or five layer stencil is by midlands self-taught artist RJ77 (there is hope for me yet).
RJ77, Upfest, Bristol, July 2018
This mysterious image is rather compelling and looking at it I want to know more. What’s the story? Is it simply a pose or is there more going on? I am a bit of a sucker for these monochromatic stencils, and I’ll have to look out for more from RJ77.
One of my biggest regrets of Upfest 2018 is that there were a few outstanding pieces that I never saw in their finished state, including this perfect collaboration between Braga Last1 and Kowse.
Braga Last1 and Kowse, Upfest, Bristol, July 2018
I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with work in progress shots as that is all I have (first world problems huh?), but I think you get the idea of just how great this piece is even from these pictures. Braga Last1 has been a regular at Upfest and always turns out brilliant work, quite often containing a self-portrait. Kowse’s other piece at Upfest 2018 I think was probably my favourite of the whole festival, so having these two together is a dreamy collaboration.
Braga Last1 and Kowse, Upfest, Bristol, July 2018
There are several oblique references to The Simpsons in this piece, the Homer skull, Krusty haircut and clown’s nose and a Simpsons fish… there may be more. All in all a wonderful collaboration from two extremely talented artists.
So it has been a while, and since there isn’t an Upfest festival this year, I am going to have to post another series of pictures from Upfest 2018 (there are still so many more waiting) starting with this utterly awesome piece by Insane51.
Insane51, Upfest, Bristol, July 2018
This extraordinary artist from Greece specialises in 3D street art and has created dozens of huge pieces which look fuzzy because they are double images, but when viewed through the red and blue specs stand out from the wall in good old-fashioned 3D.
Insane51, Upfest, Bristol, July 2018
This particular piece went up over about three or four days and was impressive enough in its halfway stage when the female portrait was complete. Insane51 then added the blue skeleton layer to the piece. The magic really happens when you view the whole thing through 3D specs one eye at a time. Rather helpfully, Insane51 did the job for us on his Instagram feed.
Insane51, Upfest, Bristol, July 2018
Definitely one of the finest walls at last year’s festival and a real crowd-pleaser. I got rather lucky and managed to grab a few words with him and during the course of our conversation he gave me a little goody bag of some stickers and the essential cardboard specs. It would be great to see him return again and wow us with his extraordinary talents.
Strictly speaking this is not actually Dean Lane skate park, but is actually a Dental surgery on the corner where North Street and Dean Lane meet, it is however, adjacent to the skate park. Over the last year or two this whole wall has become progressively grubby as taggers started a job that then moved on to rather useless throw ups. Something had to be done.
Ali Hamish Campbel and Nina Raines, Dean Lane, Bristol, May 2019
I was down at the Deaner a couple of weeks ago and was lucky enough to run into Nina Raines and Ali Hamish Campbell who were just finishing off this fun commission for the dental surgery. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of what it looked like before, but this is a dramatic improvement, and just demonstrates how uplifting great street art can be.
Ali Hamish Campbel and Nina Raines, Dean Lane, Bristol, May 2019
Nina told me that she designed the piece (she is a scenic artist) and the pair of them collaborated to paint it, Nina drawing on Ali’s experience of using spray paint. Overall this is a really nice commission, and hats off to the dental practice for making it happen. A win-win situation.
Another tremendous piece of writing from Smak along the M32 cycle path from a few weeks back. In some of his more recent pieces I have noticed that he is going for this style of blocking out letters in different ways, along similar lines to SkyHigh, and here, the M and A in particular are outstanding.
Smak, M32 cycle path, Bristol, May 2019
All the letters are blended and yet individual, clever work, but for me the jewel in the crown is the box around the A and circle around the M which make this piece extra special. I had difficulty photographing this piece, because it was very bright every time I visited, and the way the light falls in this alleyway makes photography really tricky. Yet another outstanding work from Smak.
Tight. That is the best word that I can think of to describe this amazing piece of wildstyle writing from Dibz. He is the master of executing the most complex of pieces from the sketches and drafts in his black book. This wall was painted in the very good company of Cheo (to the left) and was nicely prepped with the brick-red wash which offers a very clean finish to this work.
Dibz, Dean Lane, Bristol, May 2019
With a vanishing point adopted for the shadowing, the piece stands out really nicely and the blue background adds interest and depth. I don’t think I have ever seen a piece from Dibz that isn’t technically excellent.
Silent Hobo manages consistently to paint these amazing character pieces on the tall thin upright concrete pillars under the M32 motorway. This latest arrival of a Bristol youth gathering is wearing a yellow t-shirt overa shirt with collar (is that a thing?). Best of all is his fetching Jacques Cousteau red woolly hat – I want one of those… really.
Silent Hobo, M32 Spot, Bristol, May 2019
You can just about make out another Silent Hobo character on the adjacent side of this pillar that I posted a little while back. I know I’ve said it pretty much every time I write about Silent Hobo, but he is brilliant at capturing a youth mood, without glamourising it. These are not ‘snowflakes’ but ordinary urban people caring about ordinary urban things, like in this case music (base head) and probably drum and bass at that. Always great to see a New Silent Hobo piece. I believe he has done some cricket world cup pieces in milennium square… I’ll have to take a look.
Natural adventures 