A gallery of wonderful character pieces and graffiti writing by Bristol’s awesome Cheo.
All photographs taken by Scooj.
Cheo
Tag: Character
2211. Dean Lane skate park (212)
When you see a piece like this in blue tones with a dash of white and it is so incredibly clean and tight, you can only stand back in wonder and admire the extraordinary talent of Bristol’s Cheo.
Cheo usually paints character pieces, and I don’t think there is anyone better at creating this cartoon style anywhere in the country. Every line and shadow is immaculate and skilfully laid down. As always he has marked the piece with his signature bee. This was a lovely surprise piece to find in Dean Lane and is another little reminder of the world class street art scene in Bristol.
2150. Rivington Street, London (7)
I have a terrible feeling that I might have walked past this marvellous piece by Stik several times over the last year or two. It doesn’t look especially new, but I have just never noticed it before… there is always reward in looking up.
I have said it before about his pieces, but it is incredible how much emotion he manages to convey with these simplest of characters that have no features other than dots for eyes. It is also interesting how your mind completes the picture where the windows break up the artwork. Rivington Street is a great place to see street art, and if you should happen to go, don’t forget to look up.
2089. Hotwell Road (2)
Life is so full of surprises, and this piece by Silent Hobo rounded off a fantastic walk around Bristol during which I found several artworks completely new to me. The piece is tucked away on the side of a shop, and easily missed if you approach it from the wrong direction without looking back.
In this piece we see a fabulous blend of urban landscape in the form of the M32 and nature trying to get a grip from the ground upwards. The beautiful girl seems to be caught in the middle of the natural world and development… something of a conundrum for us all.
I love the work of Silent Hobo, particularly his characters who seem to have so much soul and mystery about them. This is a magnificent and somewhat unexpected piece.
2065. Shoreditch, London (24)
Back to some more incredible work from Shoreditch. I am still only a fraction of the way through posting some great pieces from my November trip to the ‘Big Smoke’ – I love the Bristol scene, but it is great to get out and see what else is out there. This is a beautiful character and writing combo from the highly respected and accomplished artist Tizer. Although I have heard of him and seen a few of his pieces, I know little about him, until I read this spectacular interview on the Bombing Science website. If you do nothing else today, you really ought to dig this out and give it a quick read, he is an amazing guy.
This vibrant piece is so full of class and is clearly the work of a highly experienced writer. The lettering is quite organic but beautifully proportioned and the character looks like a throwback to the ’70s or ’80s. A tidy piece. Now go and read that interview.
2063. St Werburghs tunnel (65)
A few weeks ago Fiva painted a fabulous piece in St Werburghs tunnel, and you know what? he’s only gone and done it again pretty much directly opposite the first. The piece is similar in that it uses the clever layering of two different scripts, saying FIVA/Fiver, superimposed on one another. The lettering has a rather crafty 3D thing going on too.
It is always a great pleasure seeing work by this occasional (compared to some of the others) street artist, especially as his work is so clean and tidy. I’m not too sure who the character on the left is, but the grayscale tones contrast really well with the blue and purple writing. Another great work from Fiva.
2045. Upfest 2016 (163)
When I saw this back in 2016 I was still at the early stages of learning about the street art scene in Bristol (in fact I am still learning every day) and I knew little about the RAW crew and the artists constituting it. While it is obvious that the character on the right is by Jaksta (the medallion gives this away) the writing is less obvious.
It looks like the letters say WARE to me, but here I am showing my ignorance because I don’t know the artist at all. The writing is beautifully executed and I love the musical notes sitting on the midway line on the blue letters. A really nice piece of street art for the festival.
2029. Dean Lane skate park (191)
I got lucky recently on a lunchtime walk to Dean Lane to find Cros painting this fine writing and character along with Cort and Laic217 who had unfortunately left before I arrived. Together with Cros was his friend Lorris, and together they had collaborated in Dean Lane some weeks before. I have pictures of that collaboration, but didn’t know who they were, so didn’t post them at the time…watch this space.
Cros is a really nice guy, originally from Spain but now living in Bristol who said he plans to be much more active painting on the streets when the weather gets a bit better. I can’t wait. When I first saw this piece I was getting a bit confused, because the lettering is quite similar to Cort’s lettering, but Cort was working on another piece next to it, also the letters themselves are quite similar…CROS and CORT. The character is what separates them, as I don’t think I’ve ever seen one from Cort.
Cros has a lovely touch and this is a nice clean piece. Unfortunately he hadn’t finished when I had to go, and indeed didn’t finish until the following day. I managed to get out a couple of days ago to take a picture of the finished piece, but the light was all wrong. This is also a difficult wall to photograph and these pictures really don’t do the piece justice. A great sign of respect that the piece is still there completely untagged.
2006. Millpond Street (6)
It is great to see yet another EAT crew piece on this exclusive wall on the side of Domestic Drain Services. Their last piece has been over sprayed in what feels like the blink of an eye because it had suffered from being getting rasined on, and the paint had not stuck to the wall leaving behind a bit of a mess (one that I liked incidentally, but there we go).
EAT are of course SPZero76 and Kid Crayon who have formed a joyous partnership bringing together their contrasting styles in a seemingly effortless way. SPZero76 has a sharp clean and highly detailed style and Kid Crayon a much softer, rounded and organic style, each one exemplified by the writing in the middle of the piece.
On the left of the collaboration are a couple of characters chilling out to some music and using some spray paint – SPZero76 has replaced the ’94’ on the spray can with a ’76’. I am guessing that the 76 in SPZero’s name relates to the year of his birth, it would kind of make sense.
On the right is a character (is it a self-portrait?) also spraying and in his rucksack along with his roller and spray can is a fish. I do very much like Kid Crayon’s obsession with fish…it is something I can relate to. All in all this is a fun piece and more than makes up for the loss of its predecessor.
2005. Jubilee Street (6)
So he might not be in the UK at present, having upped stumps and moved to Tasmania, but I am still finding some of his pieces that he painted before his departure. ‘He’ is of course, as if I need to state the obvious, Deamze.
This fabulous piece of writing and character is on the side of a recycling business in Jubilee Street. This little area is like an ASK gallery, with pieces that can remain for a long time often in excess of a year, without so much as a tiny tag.
I took the picture first thing in the morning which is why the colours are a little flat, but at least there are no vehicles parked in front of it. I’m not sure who the little wizard character is – obviously I missed out on this TV show. More still to come from this absent artist.
Natural adventures 