This piece by Decay on the M32 roundabout is from a short while ago, but my first atempt at photographing it was foiled by the sun casting the shadow of a tree across the whole wall and utterly confusing my camera. I had to wait for a dull day!
Decay, M32 roundabout, Bristol, February 2020
In keeping with Decay’s ‘new look’ for 2020 he has painted his customary moniker over another word in a full caps, the other word in this instance being DECAY, so we have here a double Decay. I am liking this new concept a lot and am looking forward to where it takes us for the rest of the year.
Forgive the rain spot on the feature image, it was a very wet day when I took these pictures, and no matter how hard I tried to protect the lens from the rain, I just didn’t meet with much success. Sometimes though you simply have to venture out in all kinds of weather to capture incredible pieces like this one by Decay for fear that they could be tagged or painted over at any time, especially in Dean Lane.
Decay, Dean Lane, Bristol, January 2020
I am loving the new direction that Decay is taking with his writing this year, with the inclusion of an additional set of letters behind his familiar ‘DECAY’. In this piece on the famous curved wall, he has written the letters HTM, which I believe is a crew name, possibly his partnership with Rezwonk, which stands for Hold the Mustard (thank you Paul). I look forward to January when it comes to Decay, because he seems to reinvent himself, not too much, and then kicks off for the rest of the year with the new idea. This particular idea has a lot of mileage in it and I can’t wait to see more.
Another rather lovely piece from Decay. It is funny how you can look at things and yet not see them. It wasn’t until I was preparing this post that I noticed the big DECAY in black on red in the background of this piece. I saw what I wanted to see, but not what was actually in front of me.
Decay, M32 roundabout, Bristol, January 2020
I do like the ephemeral nature of this piece of writing, almost as though it is made out of a mist or fog, with a very bright yellow ‘Chuck’ character the ‘e’ of Decay. Another nice one chalked up for 2020.
Another New Year collaboration, they are coming thick and fast, this time from Decay and Lens. Decay is of course well known to me and to readers of Natural Adventures, but this is a debut piece for Lens, which is perhaps not at all surprising given that he comes from Melbourne, Australia and is just visiting.
Decay, M32 cycle path, Bristol, January 2020
I do like it when artists from different places hook up and paint together, it makes for a terrific sense of community. This Decay half of this combo is everything we would come to expect from the artist and ticks so many boxes… the shapes of the letters, the extravagant fills and the little ‘motion’ highlights in black on the outside of the lettering to give a sense of movement and energy to the whole piece. Perfect.
Lens, M32 cycle path, Bristol, January 2020
Using a similar colour palette to Decay’s, Lens has an altogether different letter shape, much more angular with sharp edges and corners. Lens’ fills and decorations are absolutely magnificent, and this is an accomplished piece of graffiti writing. It is so good to see some work from an Australian artist, and it is great to see that Lens has included a little shout out to Rezwonk, who often teams up with Decay, a nice touch.
Of all the wonderful street art pieces that I write about on Natural Adventures, by far the most tricky are the ones linked to dates in the calendar, such as Christmas and Halloween. This is because I am pretty much always running with a backlog of posts and because I tend to write them in advance. This means that if I take pictures of a wonderful collaboration like this one by Decay and Rezwonk on Christmas Eve (which I did) it takes several days and sometimes weeks to process and write about them. What I am saying is that my system is not very flexible and I am not very agile in my approach. No matter, I get there in the end, and the artwork is no lessim pressive for the delay.
Rezwonk and Decay, Turbo Island, Bristol, December 2019
I couldn’t get a clean front-on shot of this piece at Turbo Island, because there were several homeless people sleeping just in front of it and I didn’t want to be insensitive to their privacy (not that you have any sleeping in the open air).
The collaboration itself is yet another from these two regulars who have painted together many times this year and seem to enjoy it – I think they paint together under the crew name HTM, but I don’t know what it stands for yet. The snowy scene is beautifully crafted by both artists, but it is the twinkling lights that top the piece off perfectly, and I love the socket and plug too, a great touch. A near perfect Christmas piece (I think it has already gone).
Taking coals to Newcastle. Bristol-based Decay originally hails from Cheltenham, so painting at the Cheltenham Paint Festival must feel rather like a homecoming each time he does it. This magnificent piece from the 2018 festival can be dated from its design, which has been superseded by his written word ‘Decay’ for the last year or so.
Decay, Paint Festival 2018, Cheltenham, September 2019
As I said in the last post featuring Inkie, Cheltenham’s large walls retain pieces from previous years, so visitors can benefit not only from the current festival, but from all of them. The only snag is that organiser Dice67 has to keep finding more walls every year. Painting the entire town.
How lucky we are to have two such magnificent writers collaborating for a November 5th Guy Fawkes piece.
Remember, remember the fifth of November, gunpowder treason and plot. So the nursery rhyme goes and in keeping with tradition, this collaboration reminds us about the near destruction of parliament in 1605 by Guy Fawkes and his associates.
Another thing that rather resonates at the moment is the face mask for Guy Fawkes which has been adopted by protestors, often subversive, who rally against sitting governments or administrations – something we are seeing a lot of in the UK at the moment, but also globally in relation to the climate emergency or, for example, the protests in Hong Kong.
Decay and Ryder, M32 spot, Bristol, November 2019
This piece is full of the fiery flames of bonfires and the two writing styles knit together rather well. It is unusual to see a writing collaboration arranged in this way, as we are more used to seeing the components side by side. I feel I ought to point out how stunning the flame fill in Decay’s letters is, quite awesome really. A nice seasonal collaboration.
