An empty church hall
decked out with trestle tables
and three earnest clerks,
I pencil in my crosses;
my vote is cast. There it is.
by Scooj
I expect a very low turnout for the metro mayor election.
762. Upfest 2016 (119)
A pair of great wheatpasters occupuying the same space at Upfest, which is often the case when there are only a limited number of ‘public’ utility boxes of one sort or another to choose from.
The first of these excellent paste ups is by Losthills featuring his wonderful Jake the Dog, the second is a weird and wonderful pigeon headed gentleman by Face the Strange (I guess his name gives away his artistic direction).
These two artists really brought some colour and fun to North Street, along with all the other wheatpasters. I fear it is an underrated form of street art, but I am a big fan.
761. Upfest 2016 (118)
It was great to meet Dice 67 at Upfest, as we had communicated by Instagram before the festival, and I had arranged to say hello. His piece for Upfest was more of a collection of stencils pulled together into one place, and they are all really good.
In the first image, Dice 67 is touching up some of the breaks in the outline from the stencil with a pen.
I love the ideas that he has brought to this eclectic gallery – a Victorian lady spraying, and a girl roller-skating, sporting a SSOSVA t-shirt.
One of the things that Dice encouraged visitors to do was stick up a signature or small stencil on his wall. There are many artists who took him up on his offer. I also made my debut tag…in the picture below – can you see it?
My first effort, and it could do with a bit of work, but not too bad. This was a really fun piece by Dice 67, getting into the spirit of the whole festival.
760. Upfest 2016 (117)
You really know you are at a street art festival, when the bins that are provided for used spray cans are themselves sprayed. In this case by the talented and humorous The Agent. These minions were sprayed on bins around the Upfest site and added to the overall spectacle.
I met The Agent a day or two after Upfest, when Inkie was finishing off his piece on Dean Lane. He corrected me about the post I wrote about a Bearpit piece on the 12 July, a short time before the festival. He most definitely is from Bristol, and indeed I have a recent piece by him lined up for posting soon. All good fun.
A case of you
Truly beautiful
music to close your eyes to;
map of Canada.
by Scooj
Ana Moura cover version.
759. Upfest 2016 (116)
Pooka, from Brighton is a relatively new entrant to the street art scene and has been spraying his monochrome portraits only since 2015. This wonderful freehand piece is, I think, a portrait of Nina Simone.
Really striking and a great debut piece for Upfest.
TMay Rex
Stubborn, obstinate,
uncompromising, severe,
arrogant old fool.
by Scooj
758. Armada Place (10)
Well this is a bright wall from Laic217 and Hire. Regular readers will be familiar with the work of Laic217, as I tend to feature a piece by him almost every week, however this is the first work by Hire that I have posted.
I think that this is another of those painting together walls rather than a collaboration per se. There is an element of sequence between the two pieces, but the main link is the background wash selected, and the skeleton spraying on the Hire piece.
No major surprises from Laic217, but consistent with his progress over the last year, the quality of his pieces improves with each work.
I know very little about Hire, except that I am certain I have pictures of other work he has done in my archive. I will try and dig some out if I can. This is a lovely wildstyle piece, with some similarities to the style used by Dibz. A great combination.
Sorry to say that I returned a few days later and the whole thing has been obliterated with this:
757. Stokes Croft, the Carriageworks (24)
You can always rely on ObjectØØØ to be very present when there is some political action going on. At the start of March he and DNT took over several of the arches at the Carriageworks and posted a huge and rather crude protest banner piece for a march in London, protesting against cuts in the National Health Service (NHS).
While technically not as strong as the Paintsmiths piece, the image still has impact. Power to the people!
Cryptic
Imagination
playing tricks; I’ll not be found.
I am a twig, me.
by Scooj
Natural adventures 