When I first met Jeviossoul, he was just starting up with his character portraits, but he promised me then that he would be hitting the city hard with his ‘slow lane’ pieces. True to his word, he has been productive, particularly on the fringe spots, but occasionally hitting some of the more popular walls like this one in Dean Lane.
Jevoissoul, Dean Lane, Bristol, June 2024
I like to think of Jevoissoul as a bit of a diamond in the rough, who has an interesting style that he is improving. It is not only his style that is getting better, but his technique is definitely on the up too. This piece might be his tidiest yet, and features his character with an orange cap, swallowing an acid tab, with the words ‘one love’ in accompaniment. Watch this space to see how he progresses.
Well, well, well, this outstanding dragon character piece came a little bit out of the blue. It is by Cheo, one of the godfathers of Bristol street art, whose frequency of painting has declined a little in recent years, but whose work is always to be celebrated.
Cheo, Dean Lane, Bristol, June 2024
In this game, if you snooze you lose, and I arrived a littler too late to photograph the piece before it had been dogged. The blue cock and balls (one of the most ancient forms of graffiti), probably sprayed by kids, slightly ruins the flow of the piece, but takes nothing away from the enormous talent of Cheo. Every little detail is perfectly worked, such as the folds in the clothing, the dragon’s face, and the crispness of the flame sprite. The signature bee rounds the scene off nicely. So good to see, albeit a little late.
Cheo, Dean Lane, Bristol, July 2024
I went back to Dean Lane a few days later and the blue tags had been removed, although another one appeared to the right of the piece.
Werm and Noise are no strangers to collaborating with one another and in May, painted this wonderful collaboration in Dean Lane. Both artists have a distinctive style, and although they use different colour palettes in this collaboration, they are joined together with some connecting background characters.
Werm, Dean Lane, Bristol, May 2024
The writing from Werm is busy and electrifying, with brilliant use of contrasting colours and some highly technical skills used to spell out WERM. There is a lot of depth in the piece, with layers sitting on layers. The bright star spots on some of the letters add a twinkle – classy work.
Noise, Dean Lane, Bristol, May 2024
Noise, has been smashing it lately with a host of new pieces during the spring, and does it again with this piece and his characteristic fat letters spelling out NOISE. The two-colour fill transitions nicely using some symbols and patterns where the two colours meet . Both pieces are bookended with little grey characters painted in a cartoon style, but I am not too sure who painted them. All in all a fine collaborative wall from the pair.
Unfortunately, I missed Soker when he was painting this unexpected piece in Dean Lane, because he had disappeared for a break, and I couldn’t hang around too long. This was extra unlucky (so near and yet so far) because he doesn’t paint all that often these days.
Soker, Dean Lane, Bristol, June 2024
As I would expect, the writing from Soker is outstanding, with some quite thin script-like letters spelling out his name. What transforms a good piece into a great piece is the attention to small details, such as the yellow and orange tips to the letters. A beautiful drop shadow lifts the letters away from the luscious pink background, and the whole piece is an exemplar of great graffiti writing. Soker remains one of the very best in Bristol.
You don’t often see the PWA crew paint this particular wall in Dean Lane, I guess because there are usually three or more of them painting together, but this time it is only Chill and Zake, so there is room here for both of them. The two portraits, in very different styles, are interacting really well together and integrated using a common background.
Chill and Zake, Dean Lane, Bristol, June 2024
Chill’s portrait is both colourful and full of fine detail, and has that accuracy that is common in artists who are also tattooists. He is also responsible for the wonderful silhouette plants and signature song bird. Zake’s portrait, is a little softer and full of depth, with a slightly odd scene of fish and water flying out of the character’s mouth. While I am not too sure what is going on, it makes for entertaining viewing. The pairing is great to see, and this is certainly a memorable collaboration from them. I’m not too sure it lasted very long though, which is a pity.
Just because I have been paying quite a lot of attention to Upfest 2024 recently, id doesn’t mean that the world of Bristol street/graffiti art has stood still, on the contrary, it continues at the same ridiculous pace as usual. At the vanguard of high quality high productivity are the machine that is Dibz and Fade, and in this instance Jody too.
Fade, Dean Lane, Bristol, May 2024
This ET tribute triptych is typical of the classy collaborations these artists have been churning out for well over a year now, since Fade returned to Bristol. On the left is a beautiful and perfectly presented piece of graffiti writing from Fade, that is notable for the drop shadow lifting upwards, which makes it feel like the letter block is moving downwards, if that makes sense – clever stuff.
Jody, Dean Lane, Bristol, May 2024
The filling of the sandwich has been created by Jodi and portrays the most iconic scenes of the movie and possibly one of the most iconic images of the early 1980s. Not only has Jodi recreated Elliott and ET, but also the amazing landscape and moon shot. I like the way that the artists have put their signatures onto the box which ET is sitting in, as if they were written in felt-tip.
Dibz, Dean Lane, Bristol, May 2024
Rounding off the collaboration is a perfect piece of writing from Dibz which mirrors Fade’s writing on the other side. The drop shadow that Dibz uses is more conventional and acts as a counterbalance to Fade’s. This is an awesome ET collaboration, worthy of great praise.
The philosophical pondering of #DFTE is a constantly refreshing aspect of his work, indeed a central one too. It is only a few years ago when his small framed musings started appearing in spots all around the city, becoming something of a street art hunter’s ‘pot of gold’. More recently he has taken to upscaling his work into large walls, adopting the same font, and managing not to lose the unique proportions and sentiment that typifies his earlier work. You can see the transition of his work in this gallery.
#DFTE, Dean Lane, Upfest 24, Bristol, May 2024
I guess that #DFTE is stating the obvious here with his “if you change, you will be different” statement. I imagine that this prompts the clichéd response “well, it makes you think… doesn’t it?”. Whether it makes you think or not, this is another wonderful piece of stylised writing and words from the Bristol-based artist.
There is something rather unique and weirdly charming about Awkward’s character pieces. There really is nothing like it out there in Bristol or anywhere else I have been. Not only are the characters unique in style, but his use of strong primary colours grabs the attention and draws the eye.
Awkward, Dean Lane, Bristol, May 2024
In this piece two characters are exchanging thoughts, one with a speech bubble saying ‘Awkward’. underneath the conversing heads is the simple message ‘stop war’, which places the piece very much in the context of the present, with the terrible wars in Gaza and Ukraine ongoing. Although his interventions are infrequent, Awkward’s characters are always welcome.
This is another striking piece from Katie Fishlock which I had meant to post back in March, but it simply didn’t happen. Fortunately my regular trawls through my archives allow me to unearth special pieces like this one.
Fishlock, Dean Lane, Bristol, March 2024
Fishlock’s punchy pieces tend to be quite modest in size, but usually make up for it in both attitude and message. These big red lips contain the words ‘self-sabotage is misguided self-love’, which I think I get. Katie Fishlock’s art punches above its weight because of its arresting combination of design and message, and I am a fan.
There was a time, not so long ago, when Mr Crawls could be identified easily because all of his pieces featured quirky birds. That is most definitely not the case now, and his association with Mote appears to have encouraged him to branch out into painting all sorts of weird and quirky monster characters.
Mr Crawls, Dean Lane, Bristol, May 2024
This quick one on the swimming pool building wall, behind the hedge, is a case in point. The green monster, looking a little bit like a hard-hat, is blessed with enormous eyes and an array of razor-sharp teeth. The eyes have no pupils, giving it a bit of edge. Pupils in eyes always soften a character and conversely their absence creates a hollow, even sinister appearance. This is a nice solo piece from the imaginative Mr Crawls
Natural adventures 