I have already posted a very striking Upfest piece by Brighton-based Mazcan but this one slipped a little under my radar until I recently started sorting through another batch of pieces from last year’s festival.
This is a superb work that looks like it has just dropped off the page of a rather dark comic strip book. There is drama and movement in the way the hair sweeps across the portrait… what is going on here? Her eyes give nothing away. Lovely piece.
In the dim foot tunnels of the M32 it is very easy to miss pieces as the walls tend to be very congested with tagging and bombing. It is the job of a hunter to keep eyes wide open and try to see everything. I had actually walked past these two faces by an artist new to me, Rinsulin, before doing a comedy about turn and taking another look.
The pair of colourful 3 eyed-skulls look rather better in photographs than they do in the tunnel and although naive in appearance are nicely thought out. I would guess that Rinsulin is reasonably new to street art, but I mugight be wrong about that.
It is unfortunate that both pieces have been tagged by Apeks, a nobody whose contribution is negligible, but i have to say that overall I rather like the colourful and anarchic faces that have a style all of their own.
It is great to be able to post this piece knowing that I don’t have to credit it with ‘unknown artist’ because thanks to the great investigative powers of Paulh121 I know it to be by Lobe (@lobe_ita). This is one of at least three pieces that I have photographed by Lobe (look out for the others coming soon) and each one of them is a cracker.
Lobe tends to use only a few colours in her work and creates these styalised faces which are typified by the solid bold fills and shadowing. If I were to describe her work I’d probably say that it is like a fusion of Tasha Bee and Kool Hand. I really like this piece, and it is the details I am drawn to, such as the little spike on the white outline to the left of the left eyebrow. I really hope that what we are seeing from Lobe is just the beginning and that there is more to come.
Although I can’t be sure, I think this ephemeral portrait might be the work of Annika Pixie… it certainly has many of the ingredients that are common to her work, the lightness of touch and delicate nature of the subject, but I have not seen her paint many walls like this one.
As I write this, my curiosity got the better of me and I had a look at Annika’s Instagram feed, and sure enough there is a little video of this piece, filmed in only the way she can do such things. I love her touch, which is full of subtlety and magic and in such stark contrast to the macho work one is used to seeing. Nice one Annika.
Wowzer… this is quite the best piece I have seen by Pekoe yet. It is beautiful and I truly believe that in this piece we are witnessing an artist reaching a new level, I see it as a really significant piece. The blue-faced portrait has something very special about it, the expression, the tone, the confidence and of course that amazing hair.
In this piece I feel that Pekoe’s naive style has transformed into something altogether more sophisticated and mature, and I love it. I would like to think that a lot of thought, care and effort went into this piece, it certainly looks really tight.
The patterns in the hair are so typically Pekoe, but the addition of three layers of base colour add an extra dimension. The eyes too work well with several dots in each creating a glassy effect, very clever. There is so much to like about this work. Bravo Pekoe!
Zake pretty much owns these columns under the M32, and what is amazing is that so many of them are still there after more than a year – a tribute to his work perhaps. In this piece, one head is being consumed by another which looks devilish/vampire-like.
I do like Zake’s work very much, especially the faces created out of three or four tones of paint, however this one misses the mark ever so slightly for me, there is something not quite right about the teeth in the top head that I find distracting. I think I am being a little picky because this is a good piece, but just not one of his best. Looking forward to more from Zake.
As someone who loves the work of Face 1st, I can honestly say that I don’t think that this is one of his best pieces. Admittedly it has been a bit tagged over the face which detracts from it a bit, but overall it doesn’t have the heart of some of his recent pieces.
What it does have though is hair, and the hair in this one is in a slightly different style from his usual work and much more obviously spells out FACE. Everyone has good and not so good days, and I know Face 1st can do better, but I am always charmed by his work, and even his ‘could do better’ stuff is great in my book.
I am enjoying the amount of work that DNT is getting through at the moment, and so much of it is within a stone’s throw of my walk to work, which makes it particularly easy to find.
This rather intimidating ‘otherworldly’ face is staring out of a set of doors that play host to so many wonderful pieces of street art and which I featured last week in my Thursday doors post. I rather like the way, deliberately or otherwise, DNT has managed to incorporate the work (underneath) of abstract artist Run Z into this by using the same blue to accent the eyes.
I found this wall quite by accident a couple of weeks back. I had spotted a whole ton of graffiti (nothing much to write home about) along the bank of the River Avon, but to access it I had to go through Sparke Evans Park. I had never been here before and didn’t even know it existed. On the outer boundary wall of the park I spotted some bright colours behind the trees and it turned out that there were several rather nice pieces here, including this collaboration between Face 1st and Tasha Bee from some time in 2018.
I had seen this piece on Instagram, but had no idea where it was, so it was good to get closure on it. I don’t really need to tell you how much I like the work of these two artists, and they have a style and preference for soft colours that makes their collaborations so easy on the eye. The two central figures are by Tasha Bee and the faces on either side by Face 1st. To have found this alone would have been reward enough, but on this particular walk I managed to find a bunch of other stuff too. I think the turnover on this wall is very slow, so I don’t think I’ll be returning too often, it is a bit out of the way.
It is the simplicity of Face 1st’s work that I am drawn to. It is unpretentious but full of joy and beauty – uplifting. This modest piece in a copper colour was neatly tacked onto the end of the long wall at Dean Lane skate park. I don’t think it lasted very long, but then nothing here does last very long.
I find this one particularly pleasing on the eye, the lines are good and proportions fantastic and the colour combination works very well. One of the features to look out for in his pieces is the ‘ƒƒ’ signature, often placed on the hair of his beauties. I love this piece.
Natural adventures 