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.
Awkward, North Street, Bristol, July 2024
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.
I get a little bat squeak of excitement when I see a piece that is obviously by an artist new to me, tempered by mild anxiety that I don’t know who they are and may not get to post their work until I find out more. Everything happened quite quickly with this wonderful piece by Nuke, thanks to Instagram, and I am thrilled to be able to post this debut piece for Natural Adventures.
Nuke, M32 Spot, Bristol, June 2024
This is a very interesting and compelling graffiti writing/character combination piece that has an interesting quality to it. It has a ‘soft-focus’ appearance and yet is clearly defied and masterfully painted. The 20 years refers to the length of time that Nuke has been painting, and his experience certainly plays out in this piece. I don’t know if he was passing through or whether he is staying in Bristol, but this is one of two recent pieces painted in the city by the artist.
What a wonderful surprise it was to come across this outstanding collaboration from Hypo and Ulow. Regular readers will be familiar with Hypo, especially as he has been so productive over the last year or so, but Ulow’s appearances are rare these days, so this was a real treat.
Hypo and Ulow, M32 roundabout, Bristol, June 2024
This collaboration is out of the top drawer. Hypo’s super-colourful writing is as good as I have seen from him and has a touch of Hemper in its presentation and depth… praise indeed. Ulow has an incredible talent for painting the perfect graffiti characters, and his dancer on the right hand side of the collaboration matches the energy of Hypo’s writing. This is a supremely good piece, and one of my favourite collaborations so far this year. Bravo!
Sage is an artist who emerges every once in a while in Bristol, and could never be described as prolific, indeed he has been rather quiet for some time now, so is was great to see this piece, which was part of a larger collaborative paint a week or two back.
Sage, Brunel Way, Bristol, July 2024
I know that I have several of his pieces in my archives that for some inexplicable reason I have never published. He is a talented writer, and for a while dotted the streets of Bristol with his capped character mega tag. This writing has a bit of a retro-psychedelia feel to it and is accompanied by a couple of interesting characters on the right. This is a classy piece, and I rather hope it might indicate increased activity from Sage.
Face 1st and Zake, M32 roundabout, Bristol, July 2024
It looks like Face 1st and Zake have an insatiable appetite for painting at the moment, and they are teaming up, with or without the rest of PWA friends to get out there and decorate our walls. This time the pair have chosen the M32 roundabout to express themselves.
Face 1st, M32 roundabout, Bristol, July 2024
Face 1st continues to work on his 3D blocky letters, which in fairness he has been tinkering with for a few years, but seems to be really concentrating on them at the moment. This is a familiar format, where he spells out FACE with the letter ‘A’ being replaced with a laughing girl.
Zake, M32 roundabout, Bristol, July 2024
Zake has been creating some rather zany and at times mildly disturbing cartoon portrait pieces lately, and this one fits that description quite neatly. Whenever I see a heart in street art, I read it as meaning one of two things – love, or heart break. It is possible in this instance that it is neither and might be illustrating the tussle between heart and mind. The character has been cleaved in two, which makes for not the most attractive sight. All in all a nice collaboration from the busy pair.
Noise and Sait Bare, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, July 2024
I have to say that this was not a collaboration that I was expecting, but that is the joy of documenting street and graffiti art in this fine city. Noise has collaborated with several different artists in Bristol, so why not collaborate with Sait Bare? The two artists have gone for a colour coordinated theme that carries through both of their graffiti writing.
Noise and Sait Bare, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, July 2024
Noise has painted the left hand side with his chunky NOISE letters, and Sait Bare has written BARE in his slightly unruly style – together they compliment each other perfectly. I would guess that the character in the middle was probably a combined effort, but without asking them I can’t be certain. This is a very nicely produced collaboration and great surprise.
Soap, Zake, Face 1st and Chill, Coach and Horses, Bristol, April 2024
This production collaboration from the PWA crew was photographed in April this year, and nearly got left behind, had I not carried out one of my occasional archive ‘sweep ups’. Soap, Zake, Face 1st and Chill have combined to create this zany and energetic piece.
Soap, Coach and Horses, Bristol, April 2024
Starting off with Soap, who has been a little quiet of late, and this writing/character combination. I have spent way too long trying to find out who the character and cat are and what cartoon series they belong to (possibly Adventure Time?). Some beautiful blue letters here spelling SOAP set on a green and pleasant background that Chill has enhanced with his silhouetted plants along the ground.
Zake, Coach and Horses, Bristol, April 2024
Next up is a very curious character piece by Zake, which unusually has the whole character and not just the head. The character’s body is brilliantly drafted, with some lovely detail around the knuckles, stitching on the trousers and shoes, but then you get to the head… What has happened here. Expressive it might be, but I find it slightly grotesque, but that is the joy of cartoon characters, you can make them do unreal things.
Face 1st, Coach and Horses, Bristol, April 2024
Face 1st gives us a classic laughing girl piece with the letters FACE staked up in her hair. The letters follow the recent interest that Face 1st has shown in creating 3D blocks, and works very well in this piece. It is so good to observe Face 1st pushing his boundaries and expanding his repertoire.
Chill, Coach and Horses, Bristol, April 2024
Chill, I feel, is an underrated and underrepresented artist on the Bristol scene. I rarely see his pieces shared on social media, and I feel he doesn’t get the recognition he deserves. His characters are always on point, full of fine detail and comic expressions, and he combines his urban ‘geezers’ so well with his beautiful and fragile nature silhouettes that accompany this entire production and others. This is a fine collaboration from the PWA boys.
There are many pieces I see every day, and I look at them and I am left wondering who painted them. These tend to remain in my archive folders and get left behind… until some time later, it may be months or sometimes years, after I have established the identity of the artist, I will take a quick scan of an old folder and drag out the piece for posting. This is one of those pieces by 3GV from March this year.
3GV, St Werburghs, Bristol, March 2024
The combination piece features a flat combination piece of the letters 3GV bookended by a couple of street characters. 3GV has an unusual style, that suggests he is a self-taught artist, but I have no evidence for that, just my intuition. There is not a lot of depth to the piece, but it is nicely filled and bordered with a thin yellow line. I think I may have several more 3GV pieces lurking in my archive somewhere.
The dry, and occasionally hot, weather we have been experiencing during this so-called English summer has seen artists out and about in large numbers, with several recent very well attended paint jams. This beauty, by I am Ian, was painted on the roundabout wall during one of these paint jams.
I am Ian, M32 roundabout, Bristol, June 2024
I get the feeling that I am Ian, who doesn’t paint walls all that often, was coaxed out of his studio to paint next to his friend Kid Crayon. Furthermore, I have never seen an I am Ian piece that isn’t adjacent to or a collaboration with Kid Crayon. The character looks a bit like one of the evil alter-egos spawned from Gizmo in the 1980s ‘horror’ film ‘Gremlins’. The mischievous character, who is spraying the wall with red paint, is nicely presented and definitely brings something fresh and interesting to the paint jam. I am looking forward to seeing more of these events through the summer period.
It has been a while since I last saw a piece by Stiff, and while finding his work is always a great pleasure, I don’t think that this is one of his finest. The main problem I have with this piece is that I am not quite sure what it is, as the colours are rather dark and the elements not clearly defined.
Stiff, Dean Lane, Bristol, June 2024
Stiff usually paints weird and wonderful aliens and monsters, and I guess that this is another one to add to his menagerie. I feel it is important to post as much as I can from all artists, warts an all, because I like to reflect the full spectrum of art and graffiti writing in the city. Looking forward to Stiff’s next piece.
Natural adventures 