Awkward and Benjimagnetic have been having a bit of fun in Dean Lane recently, producing a couple of collaborations which are always worth photographing and reporting on.
Benjimagnetic’s GRO letters in the middle of this combination collaboration are book ended by two slightly creepy characters by Awkward. The ensemble works well as always with this pair. It is the eyes in Awkward’s characters that draw me to them, clever and impactful design.
After quite a long fallow period, Awkward has popped up once again, spurred on by Benjimagnetic, it would appear. His character pieces are so distinct and have a slightly sinister quality to them, with crazy big eyes, a skeletal nose and zigzag line mouth.
The blue-faced character looks like he is wearing a Cheech Wizard hat, the character created by underground comic artist Vaughn Bode, and firm favourite with graffiti artists. The speech bubble contains the word Awkward and performs the role of signature for the piece, as if a signature is needed for Awkward’s work. A lovely piece.
I met Awkward for the first time at the Ikea Wall of Fame Metalheadz paint jam organised by Goldie. As is usually the case, Awkward was nothing like the image I had of him in my mind, based on his artwork. It was so good to have a chat with him and understand a little about his motivations around art and music, where his music is his main thing.
This cheeky piece (why is it that most of his character pieces seem to be on the cheeky side?) features a pink faced character with enormous eyes and a speech bubble with the words ‘Universal magnetic’. This may be a reference to his friend Benjimagnetic. To the left of the face, Awkward has left his customary signature split into two halves, AWK…WARD.
It would appear that Awkward is going through a bit of a purple patch, having made only occasional appearances for several years, he is now painting regularly in the Deaner. This one was part of a wider collaboration, or at least it was painted at the same time as some other pieces on the wall.
In Awkward, perhaps more than with other artists, we see a strong crossover between his art and music – perhaps Benjimagnetic could give him a run for for his money – and indeed Awkward promotes Sentinel793 (Benjimagnetic) in this piece. The two cartoon characters appear to be rather ghoulish, with empty eye-sockets that are connected by wisps of smoke. Nice work from Awkward, although it might not be to everyone’s taste.
Awkward has been getting noticeably busier in recent months, possibly prompted by his counterparts with whom he has collaborated successfully. This time though he painted solo on the bricked up flat wall behind the long skate ramp.
The blue-faced character, wearing a baseball cap, appears to be resting on a wonderfully painted red cloud (emanating from his ear) and has a trademark speech bubble with the word AWKWARD spread over two lines. The large saucer eyes and wobbly lines to the left add a nervous energy to the piece. Awkward’s characters are quite unique and always come across as fairly wired or fraught. This is a nice piece.
The FUA (From Up Above) boys are at it again, although this time they are joined by Awkward, and have opted for a smaller wall for this collaboration. In this piece we see our two main protagonists getting closer and closer to fusion in their work.
Fade on the left and Dibz on the right have opted to use the same colours, 3D drop shadow, decorations and background, and it is only their stylistic differences that separate them. Dibz’ work tends to be a little bit more angular than the smoother edges of Fade. The colour transitions in the fills are excellent in both halves.
The central piece is book-ended by two characters by Awkward, who has painted with Dibz and Fade in Dean Lane not all that long ago. Messages contained in the speech bubbles are ‘roll the dice’, ‘Awkward’ and ‘Stop the war’. The characters look typically alarmed/animated with their exaggerated eyes and wobbly outlines. A rather nice collaboration from the three artists.
I shan’t go into a drawn out conversation about my reluctance to post promotional street art, because I did all that about a week ago, and would be in danger of becoming (more) boring. I choose to concentrate on the left-hand side of this piece by Awkward, painted on the side of a graffiti shop and gallery ‘Veeez’, which does a great job with supporting the culture in and around Bristol. Veeez is also an artist who has features a number of times in Natural Adventures.
The Awkward character is exactly what you’d expect from the artist. A kind of skeletal face painted in an irregular style, with enormous eyes and a speech bubble with the work AWK-WARD written in it. There is plenty of movement generated by the little wavy yellow lines around the outline. Another one for the gallery.
There is something rather unique and weirdly charming about Awkward’s character pieces. There really is nothing like it out there in Bristol or anywhere else I have been. Not only are the characters unique in style, but his use of strong primary colours grabs the attention and draws the eye.
In this piece two characters are exchanging thoughts, one with a speech bubble saying ‘Awkward’. underneath the conversing heads is the simple message ‘stop war’, which places the piece very much in the context of the present, with the terrible wars in Gaza and Ukraine ongoing. Although his interventions are infrequent, Awkward’s characters are always welcome.
A gallery of fabulous character faces from Bristol artist Awkward.
Instagram: @awkward_uk
All photographs by Scooj
I am not sure that I have seen this wall painted as much as it has been over the last year or so, not just painted, but painted with so many high-quality pieces. This recent collaborative piece is by Fade, Dibz, Awkward and Noise.
The left-hand end of the wall is collaborative combination from Fade and Awkward. Starting with the latter, I think that this is the most extensive bit of work I have seen from him, with so much more than his usual mega-tag face. Here Awkward has included a complete character as well as some woodland beasties and flowers, with loads of little details. The character is wearing a Cheech Wizard hat and surreptitiously holding a spray can. Fade has painted some beautifully finished letters, acting as a central platform for Awkward’s decorations.
The middle section is by Dibz with a combination of outstanding writing and a couple of characters… a Vaughn Bode Lizard and another masked character whose name I don’t know, both faithfully reproduced. There have been a whole ton of Vaughn Bode inspired pieces lately, and I guess it is a theme from World Wall Stylers or something like that.
Rounding off the wall and sticking with the colour theme, Noise, who seems to be enjoying a spate of collaborations, has produced another of his NOISE pieces composed of dense letters with stunning fills and transitions. Awkward makes another appearance with a character peeping over the ‘S’ along with a couple more woodland bugs. Altogether a wonderful piece from the foursome.
Natural adventures 