Perched on the side of a five storey block and partially obscured by the building below is this fabulous pop art piece by London street artist D*Face. This was another nice surprise for me while out shopping in SoHo with my children, who I have just noticed are in the featured image.
DFace, Broome Street, New York, October 2017
The piece is called ‘double crossed’ and features a couple of his D*Face dogs. There is an interesting short article about the piece in street art news which talks about the little clown in the bottom left hand corner, which D*Face left there when he was asked to paint this wall.
Like so many excellent pieces in the area, this was organised by the LISA project.
Rewinding a little bit back to Upfest 2016 and a series of five more pieces that never quite made it into the blog…because Upfest 2017 happened! This is a lovely piece that was on the hoardings in North Street. It took me a long time to find out who the artist is, but it turns out that it is Pronk-Stukken who also produced this piece at the same event.
Pronk Stukken, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016
This piece has a strong connection with Mother Earth or nature in my view, and there is a calm serenity in the face. Curiously, this was one of my favourite pieces from the 2106 festival and remains embedded in my memory.
Perhaps better known for his smaller pieces, stencils and wheatpastes, this large blue face by Beastie came as a bit of a surprise to me at Upfest, so much so that I didn’t even know it was by him when I photographed it.
Beastie, Upfest, Bristol, July2017
This was a striking piece that stood out and grabbed the attention and would appear to have an environmental theme to it too. It is interesting that this year’s Upfest appeared to have quite a lot of large portraits, many in single shades of one colour – maybe it is a thing or maybe just coincedence.
Beastie, Upfest, Bristol, July2017
Looking forward to seeing what direction Beastie takes with his street art as his work is always interesting.
Now this is a beautiful recent piece by Jody, and make no mistake I rate this extremely highly. I am however slightly conflicted by its placement. As part of Government public spending cuts, Local Authorities have had to make some difficult choices. Closing under-used libraries has been one way of reducing costs, and generating income from sale of the land. This hoarding has been erected around the building site that was formerly the library.
I am not particularly conflicted about any of that though, my issue is that the construction firm have gone out of their way (it seems) to avoid attracting graffiti to the hoardings (in an area where hoardings quickly become ‘decorated’). As part of this, they have commissioned two great street artists to complete panels, of which this is one. I suppose what bothers me is that it is that the message this sends out is that these boards are ok for some artists, but not for others. Who decides? On what grounds? How do the artists feel about this? It all feels a little uncomfortable.
Jody, Cheltenham Road, Bristol, November 2017
Putting all of that aside though, I think that this is absolutely stunning, and I consider this piece by Jody to be as good as any other I have seen of his. He does beautiful women’s faces to perfection, and I like the way the hair morphs into a smokey cloud.
Jody, Cheltenham Road, Bristol, November 2017
What a treat for me to be able to walk past this every day on my way to work. It will be interesting to see how the graffiti community treat this. Jody is held in high regard, but there are some taggers out there who have no respect and they may take exception to this hoarding being for the select few and not the many.
This is the second piece by an unknown artist I have posted in the space of a week, which is really unusual for me, but I don’t think I will ever uncover the mystery of this one as it is so unlike anything I have seen in Bristol before.
Unknown artist, The Bearpit, Bristol, August 2017
There are two faces adjacent to one another that ahve the appearance of having been etched out of the thick layers of paint laid down on this tunnel wall. They are in fact painted but in this really unusual style.
Unknown artist, The Bearpit, Bristol, August 2017
The face on the right hand side appears to be more complete that the other one and is lighting up a ‘cigarette’. The shading and colours used for the piece are from an interesting and varied palette; for example the thumb is made up of greens, yellows, pinks and reds.
Not knowing who the artist is was not a good enough excuse for not posting this piece. I like it a lot.
I took this picture a couple of months ago in Bedminster, and of course it is instantly recognisable as a piece by Laic217. All the signature elements are there, a portrait, distortion, this time through broken glass, the bucket hat and smiley.
Laic217, Bedminster, Bristol, July 2017
it was after seeing this piece, that the frequency of work Laic217 was churning out decreased markedly. I am pleased to say that he appears to be back up and running and firing on all cylinders.
Laic217, Bedminster, Bristol, July 2017
Although this is not my favourite of his pieces, it is striking, and the colours really stand out.
On the hoardings in South Street Park, not far from the Miss Wah and Korp collaboration, was this exceptional piece by Hazard. I am not all that familiar with Hazard’s work, but she has been recognised by The Guardian as one of the top five female street artists in the UK, and you can see why.
Hazard, Upfest, Bristol, July 2017
Her pieces are often feature a female portrait with ornate hair ornamentation, and this is a really superb example of her work. It is interesting to see that she completed the portrait first and then went on to decorate the hair with scarves and feathers. The horns add another strange element to the whole thing.
Hazard, Upfest, Bristol, July 2017
I didn’t get a chance to meet her, but with any luck she will be back in Bristol before too long. I have a feeling, from reading her biography on her website, that she might live somewhere in the West of England, but that is just a hunch.
As long as FaceF1st keeps spraying, I will keep posting his work. This one looks like it is a tribute to someone called Minty. Perhaps this is why the face looks sad. This is yet another fine piece from FaceF1st and I particularly like the sprayed drips and the real black drips.
FaceF1st, M32 roundabout, Bristol, September 2017
I’m not sure if this is a Google algorithm feature linked to my computer or if it is a real thing, but when I type ‘FaceF1st Bristol’ into google images, I see an amazing gallery of many of the images I have taken of his work. I have to admit it makes me feel pretty good that I have been able to record his work over the last couple of years.
Just a quick canter back to last summer when I spent a while working in London and, of course, took quite a lot of pictures of street art in Shoreditch and Camden Town. Most of the pictures I took are so far unpublished, but I will try to post a few more.
Ananda Nahu, Rivington Street, London, August 2016
This amazing piece in Shoreditch is by Ananda Nahu. I will let her Facebook profile do her talking for her:
‘Ananda Nahu was born in Juazeiro, on Bahia, Brazil, in 1985. Moved to Salvador in 2001, in 2003 she attended College of Design abandoning it to start in 2004 to attend Fine Arts at the Federal University of Bahia. In this period, she became interested in studying photography and engravings, marked by time studies and research lithography, Serigraphs, metal engraving, and consequently a deepening works in references to these engraving techniques that are Posters.
In 2005 begins to develop the stencil, one type of engraving that is leaked into the mold to obtain shapes of and pictures. From the beginning of the fitting colors of the pictures, apply this combination on the stencil and began to work with multiple layers of color. Use these pictures in creating artistic compositions in urban environments and canvases, also begins to improve regional fabric painting, oriental and African, as well as calligraphy and sources together to compose the picture stencil.
The photographs used to make stencil or free hand painting of his (sic) characters are mostly written by the artist itself, which is done a photographic essay for construction work, or if not, are based on photographs from renowned photographers of Latin America.
In her references are album covers and movie posters, posters and banners, black culture, Latin, Islamic and Asian, urban and goticas calligraphy, printing and fabrics Brazilian, African, Chinese and Japanese, also classical and religious paintings.
Ananda has established itself as a reference in the technique of stenciling and painting, she maintains an international presence for the Arts since 2006, mainly in Holland, Germany, France and Brazil, having many collectors around the world.’
Ananda Nahu, Rivington Street, London, August 2016
This was one of the first pieces I saw in London and it had a lasting impression on me. There is something about it that reminds me of Gustav Klimt. It is a lovely piece.
A street artist I have long admired is Facef1st, about whom I still know practically nothing. He keeps a low profile and that’s that. I guess it is because he mostly does his work on illegal walls and hoardings (although such things are tolerated much more in Bristol than in other cities).
FaceF1st, M32 roundabout, Bristol, September 2017
In recent months he has taken to using muted colours that are much more subtle than some of the work you see around the place. This particular work is also rather larger than most of his pieces. It is difficult to judge from this picture, but the wall is probably about 12ft high.
FaceF1st, M32 roundabout, Bristol, September 2017
The wildstyle writing of this piece is much more disguised, but you can make out the word FACE if you look hard. As always, the simplicity of the face itself is part of what makes these pieces so effective. I still enjoy finding his work dotted about the place, and have quite a few in my archive yet to be published.
Natural adventures 