The Hass, Lower Maudlin Street, Bristol, June 2025
Since the Covid lockdowns, I have worked from home pretty much all the time, apart from occasional visits around the country. Every once in a while I do go to the office and in doing so, walk different routes, in the hope that I will encounter some pieces of street art I’ve not spotted before. I got lucky the last time I made the trip a couple of weeks ago, with this outstanding mural by The Hass.
The Hass, Lower Maudlin Street, Bristol, June 2025
I have a feeling that the mural, which is painted on a hospital building, must be in celebration of 75 years of the National Health Service. The impressive commission is quite different from some of The Hass’ more creative work, and demonstrates that he has a talent not only for his art work but also for sticking to a brief. A wonderful piece that I had been blissfully unaware of. Perhaps I ought to walk into work more often.
There is something very comforting about wandering around a place that I don’t know very well, and stumbling across the familiar artist, in this case, not just familiar, but Bristol’s fabulous Mr Penfold.
Mr Penfold, Wharf Street, Leeds, May 2025
Mr Penfold has had a great deal of success with his commissions, and being invited to decorate this large building in the heart of Leeds must have been a real feather in his cap. It is interesting that alongside his colourful designs there is a lot of ‘white space’ which acts as a perfect counterbalance to his shapes and patterns. The building could risk looking too busy if all of it was ‘pimped’ a la Monsieur Penfold.
Mr Penfold, Wharf Street, Leeds, May 2025
I felt very much at home in my ancestral city, in the company of artwork from a Bristol artist, and the sun was shining. What’s not to like about such an occasion?
I am having way too much fun skiing to write comprehensive posts this week, and am completely worn out when I do have a moment. So this is a quickie.
Aspire, Mina Road, Bristol, February 2025
I have known about this stunning Octopus piece by Aspire for a while, but simply haven’t found myself an a situation where I could park up and photograph it. A little late to the party, but I made it in the end. Aspire used to keep us very happy in Bristol when he lived here with his regular bird pictures, but he does come back from time to time, and obviously still has contacts in the city. I guess that this was a commission for the restaurant below. Superb artwork.
Molly Mural, Lower Approach Road, Bristol, October 2024
Street art is often overlooked, especially if it is functional in nature and woven into our ordinary lives. This unusual piece from Molly Mural is just outside Temple Meads station, and looks like it is a commission from TCN, whoever they are. Perhaps the notable thing about the location is that it is virtually outside the best bakery in Bristol – Hart’s Bakery.
Molly Mural, Lower Approach Road, Bristol, October 2024
The colourful strip looks like a guiding path from a building to the bottom of the steps up to the station. There is plenty of colour and a tight design in this piece, but the overall effect is to brighten up the otherwise unexceptional tarmac. A wonderful piece from Molly Mural.
On the corner of Cheltenham Road and Elton Road, is a rather progressive funeral parlour (we used to call them undertakers when I was growing up) called Divine Ceremony, and recently they commissioned Farrah to paint a large mural in the car park behind their business. Farrah’s abstract work lends itself so very well to this kind of commission.
Farrah, Elton Road, Bristol, July 2024
There are a handful of artists who land a whole lot of commissions in the city, and perhaps the best known are Andy Council, Alex Lucas and Farrah, who between them have a great many intact pieces on both sides of the river. I could attempt to put my take on the wonderful mural, but I thought it would be better coming from Farrah herself, and the following was taken from her Instagram feed:
Such a pleasure to paint this mural for @divineceremony – a female owned and run business for such a beautiful and honourable service for humanity.
It was like a godsend for Dee Ryding at Divine Ceremony to find and connect with me last year. She said I was the perfect fit to paint the walls for her funeral business and now I truly understand why it was meant to be!
I love to bring joy to people through my art. And they bring joy too when it is so much needed in immensely difficult times. They celebrate a persons life and care for them and their families in such a gentle and beautiful respectful way, for the next part of the journey. What beautiful people! Wow.
I have come to realise myself recently that there is so much beauty in sadness too. And hope in the unknown. I believe life always continues in this beautiful divine universe. Hence my mural is like the flow of life, never ending, forever flowing. It may seem like the end on this planet for people that have passed on. But I think it’s only the beginning and that there is another beautiful and divine place beyond what we see. Beauty and eternal joy beyond the darkness, beyond that portal. It is always with us.
Thank you Divine Ceremony for choosing me to paint for you. It was a absolute privilege 🙏
Farrah, Elton Road, Bristol, July 2024
I had to return to the car park a second time, because there was a car parked right in front of the left hand end of the wall the first time I visited. This is probably the nearest street art to where I live, and I will see it most days, which is a great thing really. The perfect commission perfectly executed by Farrah.
This piece by Zoe Power would be equally at home in my street art posts or as part of the Thursday doors series (watch this space, because it will eventually appear in the latter). Zoe Power is a successful artist i Bristol, whose commissions can be found on walls all over the city. Her style is clear and simple and overtones of the Fauvist school of art which was known for its bold use of colours and expressive brushwork. Henri Matisse, I am convinced, is an inspiration behind some of Zoe Power’s work.
Zoe Power, Wilder Street, Bristol, May 2024
This door is an absolute beauty which blends colours and shapes seamlessly. There are plenty of recognisable icons and motifs, such as an eye, a pencil, a mouth, a heart and a plant all presented in an abstract format. The colour palette works well and the door is surely one of the prettiest in the area. A fine commission from Zoe Power.
At the moment, North Street is awash with new pieces that have been painted for Upfest, Europe’s largest street art festival, which continues until the end of this week. This piece, however, by Yoliws above the Café ‘Nook’ has been here for a little while and should not be confused with an Upfest piece.
Yoliws, North Street, Bristol, January 2024
Yoliws is a regular participant in the Bristol Mural Collective paint jams, but this is the first time I have seen a full-scale commission from her. The piece really sets a tone of relaxed café culture, and her white scribbly characters set on a black background tell a calm and comfortable story of what occurs within. Her highly designed style really lends itself to this kind of shopfront commission, and I am sure that there will be more to come. Great fun, well executed.
Mr Penfold, St Augustine’s Parade, Bristol, May 2024
At my work, there is quite a strong push to bring people back into the office, after an extended period of being enforced, then encouraged, then allowed to work from home. It seems that the Government direction (driven by Rishi Sunak’s conviction that we aren’t buying enough sandwiches in Pret a Manger, leading to the collapse of urban economies) is to get folk back into those empty buildings. My personal view is mixed. It seems mad that loads of office buildings are empty, but it also feels that we work in a new era, where for many office jobs, we are set up to work from home. I expect that this is a debate that will run and run, and then be overtaken by AI replacing our jobs in any case.
Mr Penfold, St Augustine’s Parade, Bristol, May 2024
I mention all of this because I am now starting to return to the office, which gives me a chance to explore and seek out street/graffiti art on my walks to and from work, which are not on my more usual ’rounds’. I saw, for the first time walking to work recently, this commission piece by Mr Penfold in St Augustine’s Parade. It is a wonderful piece of corporate design, but so distinctively Mr Penfold, who has managed to blend his design work with his street art passion – great work if you can get it.
Continuing with the late release of prisoners from my archive, I bring you this extraordinary piece from April this year by Zase. The commission was one of two pieces that he painted and is at the back of Marlborough House, a student accommodation. Bristol has two universities and a whole ton of students, which is part of what makes Bristol so mixed and interesting, but the expansion of UWE in particular has led to a massive growth in student accommodation and many of the recent developments in the centre have been built by the universities.
Zase, Barton Road, Bristol, April 2019
I guess it is great to see the university promoting Bristol’s artists with a commmission like this, so I can’t really complain. Zase is a truly gifted artist who seems to be able to turn his hand to pretty much anything and here he has painted a fabulous seascape with racing yachts. I particularly like the pixellated effect of leaving a few bricks unpainted at the top of the piece.
As the crow flies, this might just be the nearest mural to my home, although there are one or two others not too far away. For years, this wall has had a rather sad looking old mural on it, which had faded somewhat, so to see this fabulous refresh from local artist Bex Glover was a wonderful surprise.
Bex Glover, The Arches, Bristol, March 2019
I have only seen her work at Upfest before, so it is brilliant to come across this commission right in my manor. Her work has this wonderful illustrative style with line drawings of wildlife scenes in her preferred characteristic colours.
Bex Glover, The Arches, Bristol, March 2019
In this piece she gives us a Bristol fox which will always go down well with the locals. I will be keeping my eyes peeled for any further commissions she might get on the back of this one as it is in a prominent corner with a whole ton of road and pedestrian traffic passing it daily.
Natural adventures 