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.
This gateway is a particular favourite of mine and has played host to some lovely pieces by 3rdeye and Aspire in previous Upfests. This year it was the turn of Dr Love, an artist from Tbilisi in Georgia.
Dr. Love, Upfest, Bristol, July 2018
The piece is a large stencil, and you can see just how tricky it is to put together a stencil of this size from the picture above. Looking at this stencil, I can’t quite work out the layering, but that is why I write about these things rather than try to do them myself.
Dr. Love, Upfest, Bristol, July 2018
Dr Love likes to spread love with his work and I think with this piece you can sense the tenderness of a skeleton holding a butterfly on his finger and the message is conveyed loud and clear with the large word LOVE across the middle of the piece. Sadly the work only lasted a few months before it was tagged, and I believe that a Muckrock piece is there now, but I’ve not managed to get down to see it yet.
On observing that it has been a terrible year for butterflies in the UK except for the white species which appear to have thrived in the dry conditions. This afternoon however I have spotted a couple of colourful butterflies, a speckled wood and one other.
I have been aware of the work of this Bristol artist for some while now, but didn’t know much else about him. Well a little stroke of luck…a delay to my usual bus…encouraged me to walk home after work and I decided to take a slightly different route. As I dropped down the steps from Park Street into Frogmore Street I saw this beautiful display of foil butterflies pressed into the road tarmac.
Duncan McKellar, Frogmore Street, Bristol, April 2018
The gentleman in the pictute is actually the artist, Duncan McKellar, who likes to bring a smile to the citizens of Bristol with his unusual artistic displays that appear from time to time. I guess one might describe him as an installation artist, but what he does brilliantly is bring to life many of the things we fail to see around us, such as statues and trees and puts them front and centre of our consciousness with his art.
Duncan McKellar, Frogmore Street, Bristol, April 2018
I particularly like this foil piece because it is an unusual experimental technique which Duncan was trialling. We stopped for a lengthy chat, and I will certainly be following his artistic adventures with great interest. More from Duncan to come soon.
