One of the things that I really like about Sled One’s work is that everything seems so effortless, and as a result, his pieces are immersive and compelling in a way that other pieces might be static and boring. As usual, even his writing seems to have a story to tell.
Sled One, M32 roundabout, Bristol, April 2021
This ASK – After Skool Klub – piece is rather cute and engaging. The letters reveal an eye, a mouth, a daisy-chain garland and a hand with a peace gesture and the whole thing is a little bit ‘peace and love, man’ but so incredibly easy on the eye. This artist is the best at turning the inanimate into imaginable living things. Gotta love this one.
Sled One is a great champion for the ASK crew, and will often paint these animated letters in his inimitable style that creates so much movement and character. This is one of two such recent pieces.
Sled One, St George, Bristol, April 2021
The skate park at St George doesn’t have the best graffiti walls, most of the site is rolling mounds and shallow bowls, but this ramp and one at the other end offer graffiti artists some decent opportunities. This vibrant ASK would most likely have been freestyled and I imagine fairly quickly, such is the skill and talent of Sled One. More like this coming soon.
Soker is an incredibly versatile writer, managing to conjure up no end of extraordinary styles for his usual SOKER letters, but this piece is, in my view, an extra special one produced during a recent birthday celebration paint for Sled One.
Soker, M32 roundabout, Bristol, March 2021
The colourful letters are framed within a beautiful flowery border that oozes pure class. It doesn’t take much more than the slightest glance to see that this is a masterful piece with an outstanding overall design, beautifully crafted fills and superb finishing. A supreme piece of graffiti writing.
Bright sun is my enemy (only in the context of photographing street art, you understand), it adds the kind of interest to a piece that I could well do without, in this case the ‘interest’ is a blooming huge shadow cast across this magnificent corner piece by Sepr.
Sepr, St Paul’s, Bristol, March 2021
Sepr always has been and continues to be on fire with his distinctive cartoon style of character-based pieces and this one is a masterpiece. The central character is a Pied Piper playing on a flute, surrounded by an entranced troop of rats (mice?).
Sepr, St Paul’s, Bristol, March 2021
The rats appear to be dancing to the tune of the piper, seemingly under his/her spell while a bird nonchalantly looks on eating some popcorn. How on earth does Sepr come up with narratives like this? He is a master storyteller, and we are blessed in Bristol that he decorates our walls so beautifully and frequently.
This piece was part of an ASK paint jam that I believe had been organised to celebrate Sled One’s birthday. What a great way to spend the day, painting with your friends and being creatively active. This is a classic surreal character piece from Sled One and illustrates perfectly his extraordinary ability to tell stories with his art.
Sled One, M32 roundabout, Bristol, March 2021
A seaside scene in which a crab is eating a mint choc-chip ice cream, or at least was, but the ice cream has toppled off and has been replaced by seagull poop, which is all rather disgusting. The gull, not content with providing his own Mr Whippy, is also breaking wind. Charming. The characters are beautifully painted, and the crab shadow lifts the whole piece from the wall. Fabulous, seaside humour.
Thank you, Paul H for correcting my assumption that this piece was by Sled One. It is in fact by 3Dom, and was painted to celebrate Sled One’s birthday paint jam. In terms of the rest of the post, everything I wrote about Sled One is applicable to 3Dom. I will leave the post as originally written, because it is important to recognise how difficult it can be sometimes to get things wrong…
This wonderful piece of writing from Sled One is actually one half of a collaboration with himself, which in retrospect I ought to have posted as one, but without thinking I have split into two. Both elements of his work were part of an ASK painting session a couple of weeks back.
3Dom, M32 roundabout, Bristol, March 2021
Given that Sled One usually freestyles his work, which means he doesn’t paint from a design on a piece of paper in front of him, but with the freedom of his own mind, there is an extraordinary ease, confidence and flow that demonstrates his gift. Sled One is a truly gifted artist whose distinctive surreal creativity puts him in the highest echelons of character artists in Bristol (and beyond), and he is a great writer too. This is a fairly straightforward piece of writing, but often his writing is enhanced with character-like elements. Turning the inanimate into the animate is a speciality.
I think that Sepr is probably my favourite character artist in Bristol, and let me tell you that the bar is very high, so this is praise indeed. The last few weeks have had me purring because he has been very productive indeed. I guess that he is making the most of lockdown and I suspect that his frequency of street work will drop once things move to a new normal.
Sepr, M32 roundabout, Bristol, March 2021
This piece was painted as part of an ASK collaborative wall, but sadly has already been over-painted. The subject of the piece is a paintbrush combing his pink hair and looking rather cool, in spite of his half moon spectacles. Sepr has a very special talent for making the inanimate animate and his style has an interesting retrospective feel about it. You can see how his tattoo design style maps across onto walls to create these interesting pieces. I love this.
Inkie and his ASK compatriots have been smashing it in recent weeks, and it is a very good thing to see. I can’t remember a time when so many classy pieces have been painted in such a short space of time. 2021 is shaping up to be one hell of a year for street/graffiti art in Bristol.
Inkie, M32 roundabout, Bristol, March 2021
This lovely piece is in colours favoured by Inkie and seen many times on Natural Adventures before. It is the intricacy of the piece that I find rather special about this one. There is so much interlocking and cross-over of the letters, it becomes impossible to work it all out in your head… goodness only knows how Inkie manages to do it. Yet another very nice piece from that man Inkie.
Soker hasn’t painted many walls during the pandemic, but what he has lacked in quantity he has surely made up for in quality. This is a magnificent recent piece painted alongside Inkie and Sepr in the depths of St Paul’s.
Soker, St Pauls, Bristol, March 2021
Everything about this piece of graffiti writing is right out of the top drawer, from the colour selection to the letter design, the graded fills and dripping black spots. There is so much to enjoy here, and Soker is exceeding even his very high bar.
Soker, St Pauls, Bristol, March 2021
I genuinely think that in Inkie, Soker and Sepr, we have some of the very best graffiti writers and street artists in the world, a bold claim I know, but difficult to argue against.
Anyone over a certain age will probably remember the cartoon series Hong Kong Phooey, I certainly do, but what is incredible is that there were only 16 episodes made. How is that possible, at one point in my life, I would have been about 10 years old, this cartoon seemed to be on all the time? Inkie has breathed new life into this hapless undercover crime solver in this breathtaking new piece in St Paul’s.
Inkie, St Paul’s, Bristol, March 2021
Painted on a new hoarding, this piece is in the very good company of Soker and Sepr (to follow). This is a beautifully finished high-quality piece from Inkie set on a blue star background with bright orange and red lettering to match the skin tones and costume worn by our hero. Great to see Spot the cat making an appearance too.
Street art in Bristol seems to have undergone a renaissance over the last few months, something that I suspect will calm down a little as artists return to their day jobs and a form of normality resumes. If not, then I am in big trouble because I simply can’t cope with the amount of new art being produced each and every day.
Natural adventures 