Cumberland Basin – Page 17 – Natural adventures

5996. Cumberland Basin

Fishlock, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, April 2024

This is a bright and fun piece from Katie Fishlock was painted at the Bristol Mural Collective paint jam back in April. I have featured her work a few times in Natural Adventures, and have several more of her pieces in my archives, but perhaps don’t ‘big her up’ as much as she deserves.

Her art studio creative designs translate very well onto walls, which provide a great showcase for her design work. If you’d like to know more about Katie Fishlock, her biography on her website is well worth a read. The portrait piece here plays on the confusion of double sets of eyes, which the brain quickly dismisses and accepts as a normal face, a device used a lot in street art. I rather like the bold statement and way it is presented. Note to self – dig out more of her work from the archive.

5991. Cumberland Basin

Ejits, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, April 2024

The tragedy of Bristol Mural Collective paint jams is that all too often the pieces go unsigned and so many of them fail to make it into the pages of Natural Adventures. Fortunately, this piece by Ejits was signed, but she is also an established street artist, and I recognised her work in any case.

This cheeky little character piece is cleanly painted onto a graffiti wall, with part of a Klashwhensober piece behind it. Technically, it might have been polite to paint out Klashwhensober’s piece rather than leave half of it, but I don’t think he is the kind of writer who minds all that much. The adorable character has, it would seem, dropped a fart of toxic gas as described by the skull and crossbones in the ‘speech’ bubble.

5989. Cumberland Basin

Minto, Cumberlan Basin, Bristol, April 2024

The return of Minto to Bristol has, without doubt, been a highlight of the last six months as his unique graffiti writing style has significantly impacted on the already wide spectrum of styles on offer. Although Minto doesn’t follow a fixed formula, there is a lot that is distinctive about his work, in particular, it is often vertically quite compressed.

This dazzlingly colourful piece seems to have a trainer theme going on, with at least three trainers depicted in the MINTO lettering. There are also a couple of characters peering over the top of the letters, something that Minto builds into much of his work. This is a fine example of his work and an outstanding piece.

5977. Cumberland Basin

j9449j, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, January 2024

The artist formerly known as j9449j is obviously a person who enjoys anonymity, and has been incredibly hard to track down. I still know nothing about the artist, and just to add to the confusion, j9449j has changed their Instagram handle to @dr3amcore, this leaves me with the dilemma I have faced before which is do I stick with the first name I was familiar with or change to the new name. The convention on Natural Adventures is to stick with the first name unless the artist requests otherwise, so that is what I will do.

This piece was photographed back in January (I was doing a bit of archive-hopping), and features writing that I have struggled to read, but to me, it looks like “L I ? A T E R”, but I can’t make sense of that, so I must be wrong. Whatever the letters, the fill patterns are full of the wonderful plant shapes that typify work by j9449j. The colour palette is not my favourite, but in my view saved by the vibrant green/yellow flashes through the piece. I have many other pieces by the artist and hope to unearth them as the months and years go by.

5973. Cumberland Basin

Nips, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, April 2024

Although she has only relatively recently come under my radar, Nips is a definite favourite whose work I always feel pleased to see. I often wonder whether I would be able to identify writers’ work if they didn’t use their customary letters, and the truth is I don’t know, some have a style that is easier to recognise than others. I would like to think that I would always recognise a Nips piece even if other letters were used.

Nips’ graffiti writing here has used a wonderful palette of colours that work incredibly well together and, as ever, her fill patterns and ideas are superb. The character ‘dot’ on top of her ‘i’ is one of the identifying features of her work. This is a great piece that stands out well from the noise of the messy background wall.

5965. Cumberland Basin

Stivs, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, April 2024

I don’t know who or what CLANCY is, but it makes for some fabulous calligraffiti by Stivs, who has been having something of a purple patch this spring. The colours that Stivs has chosen for this piece are rather regal and opulent, but also a little garish in a fairground kind of way, if that makes sense.

As ever his letters are beautifully crafted and have that regularity and discipline required for calligraffiti. There are three tones of purple used in the letters, each in the same orientation to create depth and a 3D effect, and this is offset by the yellow tones, looking like gold, for the drop shadow. This is a highly accomplished piece of writing from a master of the craft.

5959. Cumberland Basin

Nina Raines, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, April 2024

A piece by Nina Raines can only mean one thing, and that is a Bristol Mural Collective paint jam. There were several excellent pieces painted by artists of Bristol, unfortunately most unsigned, during the paint jam, and this one stood out. Nina Raines paints scenery for productions as a profession, and her skills have certainly come to the fore in this small piece.

One of the things I like about artists swapping a day in the studio for painting public walls is that they have a very different take from regular street/graffiti artists, not having any rules or conventions to follow, and often their work is incredibly creative. This piece is simple… a pair of arches, one with a cloudy scene and the other with something a little bit more cosmic, a nighttime sky, perhaps. I will try to post some other pieces from the paint jam, because the work of the Bristol Mural Collective definitely has loads of appeal.

5955. Cumberland Basin

Marckinetic and Kid Krishna, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, April 2024

Two things to notice immediately about this wonderful collaboration from Marckinetic and Kid Krishna. The first is the diabolical weather – it feels like it has been raining all winter, and is something of a miracle that artists have been painting in quite the frequency that they have and the second is the bright yellow background drawing attention to the pieces.

Marckinetic, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, April 2024

On the left, Marckinetic has painted one of his FFS pieces in his unusual writing style using elongated straight-lined squares and rectangles to form his letters. The letter fill has a clever marbelled effect, and the very deep black drop shadow is filled with an inky night sky with yellow stars and suns. Lovely and original work from Marckinetic

Kid Krishna, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, April 2024

To the right is a rather more densely packed array of shapes and forms making out the letters CRIE. There is loads of colour and activity in the letters, which at times is almost overwhelming, and this is sometimes what you get with his work. Other times he will paint something so simple, he has it all in his armoury. There are lots of FFS tags all over the piece and a little “Four Five Six” to help us along with one of the acronyms for FFS.

5936. Cumberland Basin

Mr Crawls and Mote, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, March 2024

One of the great joys of the last six months has been the thriving partnership between Mote and Mr Crawls. Rarely do you get the chance to watch on as two artistic talents arrive at a confluence and thrive as collaborators, while maintaining their individual identities.

This collaboration, on the ‘wet wall’ on the north side of the river underneath Brunel Way features two toothy monsters set on a chrome background (a strong feature of their recent work). On the left, Mr Crawls has a go, and smashes it, at painting a monster, which is a bit of a departure from his birds. The purple-faced monster, in spite of the array of sharp teeth, looks gentle enough. On the right Mote has created a monster, also with sharp teeth, in which the fill patterns give the piece away as one of his. As I have said before, they tend to bounce ideas off one another, and you can see how they have both shared an approach to painting the eyelids. So much fun from these two.

5933. Cumberland Basin

Conrico, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, March 2024

Conrico has been turning out some sensational pieces lately, and what is interesting about this one is that he posted on his Instagram feed some sketches of the animated Chinese lantern before painting this wall, which goes to show how much thought goes into the pieces that artists paint.

The letters CONRICO are superimposed on what looks like an afternoon landscape with the lantern on the left and a building on the right. As ever, Conrico’s artwork looks like it is painted with a brush rather than a spray can, and I imagine he paints with lots of short controlled sprays to achieve this effect. There is character writing on the side of the building, hinting at an East Asian scene. Wonderful stylised clouds finish off this fine combination piece from Conrico.

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