Ooh, I am really enjoying the work of Pl8o at the moment. The letters he uses lend themselves very well to graffiti writing and provide a lot of scope to do great things, like Boogie for example. There are some letters And numbers that just seem to work well together.
Pl8o, St Werburghs, Bristol, August 2020
This one was at the farm end of the tunnel and in daylight that makes it so much easier to photograph. All the elements of this piece come together. The gold letters and grey shadow, the stars and spots and white letter stars. This piece is so very easy on the eye.
One of the constants of the Bristol street/graffiti art scene, the beating heart, has to be the ever-present work of Face 1st. He appears to be tireless, and there is rarely a week goes by without a new piece from this happy-go-lucky artist.
Face 1st, M32 Cycle path, Bristol, August 2020
This cheery piece on the M32 cycle path is not dissimilar in style and colour regime to the one he recently painted on a caravan nearby. Of all the artists in Bristol, if Face 1st were to stop painting, I think I might miss home the most.
An artist who hasn’t featured very much on Natural Adventures is CD.TC, but I am about to put that right over the next week or two.I don’t think he paints too much, but recently there has been a little rash of work, often alongside DazCat and Kool Hand.
CD.TC, Purdown, Bristol, July 2020
This is a nice piece up at Purdown of a colourful character catching a little butterfly in a tin labelled CD.TC. I really don’t know where these artists get their ideas from, but maybe Purdown with its urban wildlife offers some inspiration. This is a tidy and beautifully sprayed piece from this rather under-represented artist.
Mr Penfold is well known in Bristol for his abstract murals and commissions dotted about the city, and also for his studio work. He is a fine designer with a very distinct style. Every now and again he lets his hair down with a fun cartoon piece like this one in Dean Lane.
Mr Penfold, Dean Lane, Bristol, July 2020
This dog Is a happy dog and is brilliantly clean. All the lines are perfect and all the fills solid. Sometimes less is more and this is a perfect example of that. The splashes of white on the nose and tongue are rather special. I love this piece and others like it by Mr Penfold.
When I get the time, which isn’t often, I like to wander away from the ‘sure thing’ spots where I know I will find street art and take a punt on places where I might get lucky. I got very lucky in Belmont Street with this wonderful piece from Silent Hobo, which was adjacent to another much larger piece by him (to come). The whole wall dates back to March 2017, and yes, it has taken me this long to find it.
Silent Hobo, Belmont Street, Bristol, July 2020
The girl on the left is, I think, a portrait of the artist’s daughter and on his Instagram feed he called her his ‘little Bee’, and she is finely dressed in a bee costume. I haven’t often seen portrait work like this frrom Silent Hobo, as it tends usually to be more cartoony in style, I think that this is magnificent.
Silent Hobo, Belmont Street, Bristol, July 2020
To the right of little Bee is a girl sitting with a cat in an altogether more recognisable style. Silent Hobo has such a talent for portraying young people, their clothes, their postures andd their emotions via expressions. There is nearly always a sense of calm in his work that rubs off on the viewer. This section of wall is masterful and was well worth waiting for. It looks so fresh, it is hard to believe it is over three years old.
It is always a treat to find an Inkie piece, and to come across two new ones in the space of about month is a great excuse for celebration. This one appeared a week or two back on the long wall at Dean Lane alongside Soker and Zooki (an artist I am unfamilar with).
Inkie, Dean Lane, Bristol, August 2020
The shapes of the letters and the style of 3D fills are so recognisable in his work and it only takes a second to identify his pieces. The colour transitions in the fills are expert an the overall colour selections with the blue 3D shading and red clouds are brave, but work fantasticlly well. A fine piece from a top artist, and a nice tribute to Desire.
A short while ago I posted a portrait piece by an unknown artist in St Marks Avenue, and said at the time that there was another one by the same artist that I would post perhaps once I knew who the artist was. Since then I posted the piece on Instagram and thanks to Rusk I now know that the artist is Rosalita from the RAW crew.
Rosalita, St Mark’s Avenue, Bristol, July 2020
The face with clown paint reflects a lot of face-painting work that Rosalita appears to do and carries that over onto our streets. I think that this and her other portrait are masterful, sensitive and original pieces that add to the wide spectrum of street art that we are lucky enough to see in Bristol. I truly hope that Rosalita carries on with these wonderful portraits.
Natural adventures 