Back now to some Bristol street art after my brief excursion to Shoreditch in London with this fine writing by Ugar. I haven’t seen too much of his work of late, but this is a wonderful piece painted alongside a Laic217 piece back in November 2018.
His style is highly distinctive with asymmetric lettering and wonderfully creative fills and decorations, the letters spelling out UGAR. I like his rather organic and unconventional approach to writing.
When these two get together, it is always a recipe for something interesting, rarely missing the mark. Sled One and Smak have collaborated on this wall before at least once and possibly many times, but this is an absolute peach.
The two have used a McDonald’s theme for this collaboration, using the corporate colours of the food giant. I confess that I find it a slightly curious brand to celebrate, but that is my snobby bias coming into play, which I am not particularly proud of. Sled One has incorporated some fries and bubbling cheese into his writing which is utterly sharp and brilliant.
Smak takes the fun a little further with a little slogan ‘the big Smak and cheese’… very droll. Again, this is a supreme piece of writing, so sharp and clean. A great coming together of ASK and RAW. I rather like the bicycle, which I had to keep moving out of the way, but it kind of goes well with the yellow of the piece. So good.
Recently Face 1st has been teaming up with an artist I have not been aware of before who likes to paint elephants, Junk. I don’t yet know much about the artist, but I like his simple style which goes so well with a very similar style used by Face 1st.
I have actually posted a collaboration by these two before fairly recently, but thought that the whole thing was by Face 1st and that he had branched out into doing elephants…he corrected me via Instagram.
I hope to see more of this pairing…there is something rather calming and meditative about this collaboration… maybe it is an elephant thing.
It is such a pleasure to come across something new in Bristol, and visiting artists are always very welcome. This is an easy piece to miss, as it is on one of the ramps at Dean Lane skate park which is easy to walk past while focussing on the larger walls behind. The stencil of Kurt Cobain (from a photo shoot for a hat retailer) is by Cartoonneros, an Argentinian artist who appears to reside in London, judging from his Instagram posts.
Although I have pictures of his work from my London trips, I haven’t yet posted anything by him… but finding this one in Bristol recently might be just the prompt I was looking for to post his London stuff. The stencil itself is nicely composed with a basic black outline and areas coloured to bring the whole thing to life.
The style reminds me a little of Bristol’s Hoax, but only a little. I am so pleased with this find, especially as any art sprayed onto skate walls become scuffed very quickly and this still looks relatively fresh. I hope Cartoonneros makes another trim to the west of England again soon.
Long before Bristol became inundated with Nevergiveup’s jolly bunny rabbits, there were some rather more moody, sinister even, rabbits lurking in dark corners. They were the creation of fellow Polish artist Hire. A little while back, Hire sprayed a few of these at Dean Lane, and this one with those scary eyes was, in my view the pick of the bunch.
I haven’t seen any of his work for a little while now, but that is the name of the game… artists, just like the rest of us have peaks and troughs in the spare time they have, and maybe Hire is in one of those troughs. I really do like his rabbits, they have an edge to them.
A couple of days back I posted a great piece by the lovely artist Cros, and said that I had seen some of his work before – this is that work. Back in September Cros and his friend Lorris took over two-thirds of the long wall at Dean Lane to produce this wonderful collaboration.
The letters Cros creates tend to be quite angular, but have a soft touch to them. His fills are really neat too with all sorts of nice patterns and shapes in green, orange and black. Everything is neat and tidy and I like his rings and arrows, both classic writing motifs.
This is the first piece (I hope of many) by Lorris that I have posted and it is a really charming piece. Now, I wonder if I would have said it has a feminine touch if I hadn’t known that Lorris was a woman. Difficult to know really – the lettering in soft and curvy, but the clincher is the hair bow on the ‘O’ of Lorris…I can’t imagine a male artist ever spraying a hair bow in anything other than a photorealistic portrait. All my unconscious bias being laid bare there. Anyhow I really like her style and can’t wait to see more.
I seem to be forever trying to play catch up with some of the artists in Bristol, such as Mr Draws, Face 1st, Deamze and in this example Tasha Bee. With only writing two posts each day and having to share as much as I can from Bristol streets and Upfest and occasionally London and further afield, inevitably some good works struggle to make it on to these pages. Often too good to leave out, I try to publish them, but often a long time after completion. Certainly I have enough material to last me for at least a year if I stopped taking pictures today.
This is a lovely example of Tasha Bee’s work from last year at the Dean Lane skate park with each of the two figures reversed out, so one green with lilac features and the other lilac with green features. All round a lovely calming work. See more in my Tasha Bee gallery.
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.
As long as Soker keeps turning out fabulous graffiti writing, I will keep photographing and sharing them. This one from a few weeks back was part of a wall shared with Dibz, which I have already posted. It is a beautiful chrome piece with blue and black shadows. Showy and subtle both at the same time.
It is interesting that when I post his pieces on Instagram, they generally get fewer likes than street art pieces, which leads me to conclude that graffiti writing is more of an acquired taste…that is except for his Upfest 2018 Simpsons piece, which was my all-time most popular Instagram post. I wish I knew how these things worked.
Back to home soil now and the warm and familiar sight of a Dean Lane piece by Laic217. This is the second recent piece that I have seen where he has been playing with these red eyes which are slightly disconcerting in their non-human (robotic) quality.
There is a slight shift in style too in this overall piece. To me it has a water-colour kind of quality and looks like it has been lifted from an artist’s sketchbook. This feels like Laic217 is moving on to a new level, where his confidence and competence is allowing him to experiment more.
I believe he was supposed to be painting this wall with Cort and Cros, but had arrived long before the others and had pretty much finished before they arrived. This is a pity, because it is a long time since I last met this elusive artist.
Natural adventures 