7288. Cumberland Basin

Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, October 2025
Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, October 2025

I haven’t seen too much of Acer One this year, I guess he is probably busy with his commercial work, so it was so great to see this gorgeous geometric piece alongside Andy Council for Dibz’ 50th birthday celebration paint jam.

Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, October 2025
Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, October 2025

The sophisticated stellar piece features the sun, moon and a star all interwoven with great precision. The background is a wonderful cosmic scene, most fitting for this piece. I feel I haven’t had my quota of Acer One’s work this year, so will be keeping my eyes peeled for more.

7007. Cumberland Basin

Andy Council and Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, June 2025
Andy Council and Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, June 2025

Andy Council and Acer One are a classic painting duo, with utterly different styles and subject, but their work, counterintuitively, seems to be wonderfully complementary. There is no jarring of styles, or competition for space or the limelight – the two artists seem to be comfortable with themselves and each other.

Andy Council, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, June 2025
Andy Council, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, June 2025

Andy Council has painted one of his gorgeous dinosaurs, selecting some beautiful colours and stitching the whole creature together with small components, like a Lego model. The little dots of green add so much to the piece. The collaboration was painted as a tribute to Tickz, who will be very much missed by the graffiti community in Bristol.

Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, June 2025
Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, June 2025

Acer One, who has been relatively quiet this year, has painted one of his iconic peace and love stamps in yellow and white or gold and silver, depending on your interpretation. This is a difficult wall to paint, especially with a designed graphic like this one, and the recesses in the walls present a challenge that Acer One has risen to. A fine collaboration and fitting tribute.

6704. Cumberland Basin

Andy Council and Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, January 2025
Andy Council and Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, January 2025

There is never a time when it isn’t a genuine pleasure to come across an Acer One/Andy Council collaboration. These two have been painting together for a long time, and although their styles couldn’t be more different, there is a harmony in their work that is probably supported by their familiarity with one another.

Andy Council, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, January 2025
Andy Council, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, January 2025

This wonderful composite creature piece by Andy Council is stitched together in his unique style. Andy has said that he is aiming to paint one dinosaur piece each month to celebrate 20 years since he painted his first. If this feathered velociraptor is anything to go by, we are in for a treat in 2025. I like the way that the cloudy puffs span across to Acer One’s piece.

Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, January 2025
Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, January 2025

Acer One is constantly inventing ways to dazzle us with his graphic lettering and design. Always executed to perfection, his pieces are quite different to anything else we see in Bristol. In this piece he has combined peace and heart symbols to come up with a single entity. It is beautiful and meaningful, and I expect we’ll see more of this icon from Acer One. A fine collaboration.

6670. Cumberland Basin

Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, January 2025
Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, January 2025

After a reasonably quiet winter season, Acer One has pulled this beauty out of the hat. The piece is painted on a wall that Acer One has made his own over recent years, and this is a rather special instalment.

Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, January 2025
Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, January 2025

The stylised letters spell out ‘peace and love’ which are placed over a swirling ribbon of colour and a neutral grey background. Acer One specialises in his stylised fonts, and tends to execute them to perfection. A nice sentiment and great piece.

6570. Cumberland Basin

Conrico, Acer One and Andy Council, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, May 2024
Conrico, Acer One and Andy Council, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, May 2024

You might be able to detect that I have been rooting around in my archives again, which I like to do every once in a while, because there are so many pieces that I’d like to share, but that get left behind. How this amazing collaboration from Conrico, Acer One and Andy Council ever got omitted I’ll never know, but I am making up for it now.

Conrico and Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, May 2024
Conrico and Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, May 2024
Conrico and Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, May 2024
Conrico and Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, May 2024

The three part piece is a wonderful co-creation in which all the distinctive elements come together seamlessly. The landscape background with hints of an oriental coastal scene is by Conrico and creates a wonderful setting for the letters of Acer One, that spell out WABI SABI in two sections either side of the centrepiece by Andy Council,

Andy Council, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, May 2024
Andy Council, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, May 2024

The central portrait of a roaring tiger has everything you’d expect from a piece by Andy council where each of the elements of the tiger are ‘stitched’ together to form a coherent and, frankly, stunning whole. I think that the rose pink clouds emphasising the tiger head were painted by Conrico. The overall collaboration is a triumph of three very different styles coming together to create something truly excellent.

6379. Brunel Way (289)

Goldie, Fade, Acer One, Jody and Dibz, Brunel Way, Bristol, August 2024
Goldie, Fade, Acer One, Jody and Dibz, Brunel Way, Bristol, August 2024

All year long, Dibz and Fade have been decorating this wall with alarming regularity, and they have been joined along the way in their endeavours by Andy Council, Jody and Acer One (amongst others) and this time are joined by Goldie, Acer One and Jody. A production tribute wall to honour the musician and DJ, Randall.

Goldie, Brunel Way, Bristol, August 2024
Goldie, Brunel Way, Bristol, August 2024

The whole production is very nicely balanced which given the configuration, which starts with a Goldie piece that embroiders the words ‘The R’. This is a really nice dedication and beautifully painted. The colour selection is reflected in the rest of the collaboration. It is always great to see Goldie visiting Bristol for a bit of a paint.

Fade, Brunel Way, Bristol, August 2024
Fade, Brunel Way, Bristol, August 2024

Fade is next up and he has compressed his piece to accommodate Goldie next to him and support the balance I was talking about earlier. With the orange and turquoise letters, Fade has written the letters ‘DJ’ which are as immaculate as you might expect. Both sets of writing are adorned with flames, which extend for the entire collaboration.

Acer One and Jody, Brunel Way, Bristol, August 2024
Acer One and Jody, Brunel Way, Bristol, August 2024

The centrepiece is  a shared space with Acer One lettering across the top of an outstanding Jody portrait of DJ Randall. Acer One has written ‘Too hot to handle’ which I am guessing is part of a slogan rhyming with DJ Randall. Not being a music specialist myself, I am unable to shed too much light on the artist or his work.

Jody, Brunel Way, Bristol, August 2024
Jody, Brunel Way, Bristol, August 2024

The Portrait is a faithful and beautifully painted, and certainly a fitting tribute.

Dibz, Brunel Way, Bristol, August 2024
Dibz, Brunel Way, Bristol, August 2024

The production rounds-off on the right with a wide piece of wildstyle graffiti writing from Dibz. The Turquoise and orange letters spell Randall, so the whole production spells out:

“The R, Too hot to handle, DJ Randall”.

Wonderful stuff from this quintet of talented artists.

6370. Purdown (79)

Rowdy, Andy Council and Acer One, Purdown, Bristol, August 2024
Rowdy, Andy Council and Acer One, Purdown, Bristol, August 2024

You don’t expect to see production collaborations up at Purdown, so it was wonderful to see this ‘take-over’ by Rowdy, Acer One and Andy Council on the concrete slabs of the derelict anti-aircraft gun emplacement. The light conditions were tricky on both occasions that I went up there, and the photographs don’t really do justice to this creative display.

Acer One, Purdown, Bristol, August 2024
Acer One, Purdown, Bristol, August 2024

Starting in the Centre and on the margins, Acer One has painted one of his mind-boggling impossible triangle pieces, displaying great technical skills and accuracy. This is the third such piece I am aware of that he has painted in this spot.

Andy Council, Purdown, Bristol, August 2024
Andy Council, Purdown, Bristol, August 2024
Andy Council, Purdown, Bristol, August 2024
Andy Council, Purdown, Bristol, August 2024

On either side of Acer One’s centrepiece, Andy Council has painted his trademark ammonites in living-fossil form, each using his composite method to stitch together the creatures from components to make a whole. The dusky pink background used by Acer One and Andy Council works very nicely with their respective colour schemes.

Rowdy, Purdown, Bristol, August 2024
Rowdy, Purdown, Bristol, August 2024
Rowdy, Purdown, Bristol, August 2024
Rowdy, Purdown, Bristol, August 2024

Finally, bookending the collaboration, Rowdy has joined in the fun with a fabulous collection of Bristol crocodiles. More than any other active artist in Bristol, I think that Rowdy represents that raw, quirky, subversive and original talent that underpins the whole graffiti/street art scene in the city, and long may it last. This is a fabulous production piece from the trio of great artists.

6321. Cumberland Basin

Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2024
Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2024

By the time you read this, I should be some 35,000 feet or so in the air somewhere between Bristol and Copenhagen, so I wrote this post yesterday. I am spending a long weekend in Copenhagen with my mother who gifted me the trip as my 60th birthday present.

Acer One has been smashing it recently with a range of different ideas, including these cryptic boule writing designs that are designed to challenge the viewer to work out what is going on… visual puzzles I guess you could call them.

Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2024
Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2024

The gold letters along the top spell ‘Change is inevitable’ and the black letters running along the bottom of the piece spell out ‘Growth is optional’. So this piece is both a puzzle and philosophical. Great technical work from Acer One.

6302. Cumberland Basin

Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2024
Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2024

I’m not entirely sure how Acer One finds the time to paint so much, but I am glad that he does. One of the upsides of self-employment I guess. This is a really classy design piece in one of his favoured spots, which he pretty much ‘owns’ these days.

Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2024
Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2024

The word ‘love’ is written in the same format as the background, and emerges from it due to the curves in the lettering where they depart from the horizontal background pattern. If the letters were to straighten out, they would disappear into the wall altogether. The piece is nicely conceived, and as always with Acer One, beautifully executed.

6282. L Dub (54)

Acer One, L Dub, Bristol, August 2024
Acer One, L Dub, Bristol, August 2024

L Dub (Lawrence Weston) is a funny old spot, really. It involves a 15-minute walk alongside the M5 motorway on a pathway which runs through a kind of brownfield site of scrub and thickets. The place is absolutely bursting with wildlife, which thrives in and around the drainage ditches, which I presume take excess water away from the motorway. It is interesting that these dilapidated ‘forgotten’ spots are often some of the most biodiverse in the country. The place is festooned with all sorts of interesting plants, dragonflies, beetles and butterflies,,, an unlikely nature hot spot.

It also plays host to a water pumping station which offers several walls for painting, and a pedestrian underpass which takes you under the motorway and some other roads and provides plenty of graffiti opportunities, for those that can be bothered to find the place. Acer One has recently painted a couple of pieces here, away from the crowds.

Acer One, L Dub, Bristol, August 2024
Acer One, L Dub, Bristol, August 2024

This is a complex piece, which demonstrates how his mind works (in his own words) and is also a little bit experimental. The letters spell out ACERONE, but are alternately coloured, so it starts with a dark blue A, followed by a gold C, then a blue E and so on. Fascinating stuff that can take a little while to work out and keeps those brain cells ticking over.