Tiniest of birds
pays me a little visit
deeply privileged
by Scooj
Tag: bird
2610. Stokes Croft
Oh what a beauty… a little piece of heaven just dropped onto the wall beneath Banksy’s Mild Mild West, and it is an absolute humdinger by Hazard. Painted only last week, Hazard has smashed it out of the park (to use a modern phrase – my kids would be laughing if they read this, but not much chance of that ever happening).
I love Hazard’s work, and it is great to see that she is capable of so much more than her trademark portraits. This piece is so good in my view that I actually think it is my favourite of hers… ever. She has captured the colours and proportions of the pigeon perfectly and has somehow created an irridescence on the bird’s breast with greens, whites, yellows and purples – what a job eh? And.., the flowers, flipping heck, the flowers!
I think I might be able to call myself a pigeon fancier, at least this pigeon.
I believe that there is some explanation on the fence in front of this piece, but it wasn’t there when I took these pictures, so I can’t tell you what it says.
Happy days.
Seven for a secret
Momentarily
a huge mischief of magpies
fills the sky above.
* On seeing the largest group of magpies I have ever seen, I counted at least 25.
2590. Upfest 2018 (161)
This is the kind of fantastic work that we are missing ever since Aspire left Bristol for London. How lucky we are that he returned to us for Upfest 2018 and painted this new wall with these magnificent puffins.
Aspire specialises in painting birds and he seems to be improving with every new piece he creates, it is just a pity that I don’t get to see much of his work ‘in the flesh’ any more, and have to rely on Instagram for my fix.
This particular piece is quite unusual for two main reasons. Firstly I can’t recall seeing any sea birds from Aspire before and secondly there are lots of birds in the one scene, where more commonly he will paint only one. Love this piece.
2587. St Mark’s Avenue (5)
It may be an old piece, but that in no way detracts from its class and beauty. Aspire left Bristol about two years ago, and this piece dates back to some time before then I suspect. My recent discovery of St Mark’s Avenue has been a bit of an archeological expedition, digging out perfectly preserved specimens from another age.
Aspire specialises in birds, and I think in particular has a thing for Blue Tits – this is one of at least four that I have posted in his gallery. It is such a pity that he is only an occasional visitor to Bristol, his pieces were really rather special. Our loss is London’s gain.
2464. Cheltenham 2019 (3)
The whole Cheltenham experience was new to me, but I had heard of the Honeybourne Line before I went to visit the town for the Paint Festival earlier this month. This disused railway line is now a beautiful footpath leading from the station into the town centre. The tunnels under a footbridge often play host to street/graffiti art, and the walls are buffed each year for the Festival. I will be posting more pieces from this spot in due course, but this first one is by Thisone.
I have seen (and posted) some of his work from London, but this is the first time I have seen his work away from the capital. His archetypal work is in shades of black and white with an animal or bird as a central character, usually dressed with some jewellery. This curious piece meets all of these criteria, but the beast is an unusual one, looking like a cross between a bird of prey and a rat. I was lucky enough to meet the artist, and will talk more about our encounter when I post his other Festival piece in due course.
2413. Redcliffe Way (1)
Sometimes you glance a piece of street art when driving about the place and make a mental note to go back on foot. This is one of those, and well worth the legwork to find it. It is a beautiful stencil of an owl by Kin Dose, which I figured was several years old, but is probably less than 18 months old if streetview is anything to go by.
The first observation is that this spot is a prime location for a stencil. Blocked out windows like this always make such fantastic framed backdrops for street art. I think that this is a barn owl, and the stencil is in very much the same style as his 2018 Upfest stencils, with the animal sprayed over a coloured swirl background. When I spoke to Kin Dose earlier this summer, he said that he has moved away from doing stencils because the cutting out process is tedious and he is preferring his spray-brush style at the moment. Lovely piece.
2399. South Street
This summer has been so very busy for street art in Bristol and I am really struggling to keep up with it all. For every piece that I write about in these posts there are at least another seven or eight that never make it out of my archives, and all of this without the hunderds of pieces I would normally be writing about from Upfest at this time of year. All this means that I have an inevitable backlog.
This not-so-recent collaboration is yet another extraordinary piece to have been organised by Upfest for their Summer Editions event. Who’d have thought of bringing together L7M and Paul Monsters? But here they are working together with their hugely contrasting styles.
The centrepiece by L7M is a delicately, wispily painted finch (I’m not sure which species) full of movement and colour, a skilful mixture of fine detail and blurry ‘smoke’. His work is truly exceptional and we have been lucky in Bristol to see quite a bit of it in this area thanks to Upfest.
The geometric surround is the work of Paul Monsters and is typical of his 3D blockwork, but notably different from anything I have seen from him before in that it is black, white and grey, when I normally associate his work with oranges, greens, browns, yellows and mauves. The whole thing makes for a clever juxtaposition which challenges the norm. Great collaboration.
Park sounds
.
Ruben’s squeaky ball
a distressed squirrel squawking
chaka chaka crow.
.
by Scooj
2285. Overton Road (1)
It’s like busses… you can wait ever such a long time and then three come along in quick succession. This is the third recent piece I have photographed by Bristol artist Bex Glover who seems to be on a bit of a roll with her street work. Ordinarily she might be better known for her studio work and operates her business under the name Severn Studios but of course my interest is predominantly in her street murals.
This lovely commission is on the side wall of the Hobgoblin pub on the Gloucester Road and is made up of two panels. On the left is a beautiful raptor, wings unfolded, perching on a bent branch.
On the right hand panel we see another bird, possibly the same one, in full flight stretching out its double set of wings. There is something very lyrical about this mural which seems to be telling a story about nature in its full glory. Bex Glover is a fabulous artist and her illustrative style takes me back to my childhood and picture books.
The piece is a ‘selfie spot’ funded by the Gloucester Road Bristol Independent District which promotes the shops, cafes and other outlest in Gloucester Road.
Natural adventures 