6190. Elton Road

Farrah, Elton Road, Bristol, July 2024
Farrah, Elton Road, Bristol, July 2024

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
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
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.

2352. Elton Road

Being in the right place at the right time is a tenet that chimes for street art hunters, and finding this Cheo piece on a yellow van as I hopped off my bus on the way home from work, is a great example of that.

Cheo, Elton Road, Bristol, July 2019
Cheo, Elton Road, Bristol, July 2019

I have never seen this van before, although I expect I’ll keep on seeing it now (that is the way of things) and the bee motif used by Cheo works so very well here. It is a subtle piece of van art, not too showy and only on this one wing of the van. Mobile street art at its best.