Since Kleiner Shames moved to London I have really missed his extraordinary pieces. It would appear that he recently visited his hometown, and this is the second of his new pieces that I have found. I particularly like this one.
The writing as always spellls out FOIS, but it is the cowboy hat and eyes, giving character to the S that really grabs me. I have two of his pictures hangng in my home, which perhaps indicates how much I like his work.
Another one from the archives, this time a collaborative pair of pieces from Kleiner Shames (now living in London) and Whysayit. I have a feeling that I may hove posted these pieces before, but if I did, I can’t find them.
There is something about the simple use of colours in these pieces that really makes them stand out…the red colouring in the Kleiner Shames piece is wonderfully worked.
Whysayit offers his usual curvy and distinctive lettering, spelling out YSAE. This was not the only time these two sprayed together and they obviously enjoyed working as a pair.
It has been a little while since Kleiner Shames packed his bags and set off for London to make his fortune. So it is with some cheer that he returned to Bristol at some point over the New Year period to remind us just how good his work is.
This piece is on the intersection with Upper York Street and Wilder Street and is in great company with other pieces by Deamze and Whysayit. The wildstyle writing spells out Fois (which for a long time I thought was the artist’s name – d’oh).
This two-tone work is actually quite simple in its construction, that is, there is no shading or over-the-top elaboration, but it disguises the writing really cleverly. I do like his work and hope this trip back to his home town is not just a one-off.
Well there’s a story to tell here. For such a long time I thought this Bristol-based street artist was called Fois, after all, most of his pieces contained the word, and many of the Bristol writers use their names, or corruptions of them and paint under those names…Deamze, Sled One, Epok, Soker, Inkie, and so on. Well not this artist.
The last time I featured him on this blog, I had established that he was actually called Kleiner Shames, Jimmy Kleiner Shames. Once again it was Instagram that came to my rescue. Then it gets a whole lot better. Kleiner Shames recently cleared out his studio because he is moving to London (booo!) and was offering some studio paintings for sale. I ended up buying two from him – he is an exceptional talent and I love his work. He is such a decent bloke, he even offered to deliver the pictures in person.
The piece he did for Upfest contains everything you would expect; architectural features, diagonal lines, hands, pastel colours and a wonderful retro feel. I wish him well with his move to London and hope he’ll be back in Bristol to brighten up our walls. We’ll miss him…Fois forever.
The fencing in Armada Place is a hotspot that is slightly off the beaten track, and can easily be missed. I make a point of taking the short diversion away from Stokes Croft on my way to work, to be able to capture gems like this one by Fois (Kleiner Shames).
It feels like Fois has become a little more active recently, or maybe I am just finding more of his wildstyle pieces. I don’t know, but I always feel good when I come across one for the first time. I like the way that he disguises the name Fois just enough to make it hard for the ‘untrained’ eye to read. This is really a wonderful piece that he calls ‘a quick one’.
Only recently I found out that Fois is actually Kleiner Shames – a rather respectable looking designer. It irks me that by calling him Fois all this time I look like a bit of an idiot. I suppose it is all part of being on the outside looking in.
A little while ago, I took the short loop into Moon Street – I do this about once a week – from Stokes Croft, just to see if there was anything new. It seems that turnover there has slowed a bit in recent weeks so I was pleased to find this collaboration. It is something quite different in light backwashed colours. It almost feels as if the pieces are incomplete…I have returned since, and thy are unchanged.
The right hand side of the two is clearly by Fois – the extra touch of the cowboy hat rounds this writing off perfectly.
The writing on the left hand side though is a mystery. I don’t know who it is by, and given that Fois seems not to use digital social media (at least publicly), it is hard to establish the artist. It is one I will have to return to if I find out anything more.
UPDATE: Thank you Duncan. The second piece is signed Ysae, and is similar to other writing by the same Artist in the Bristol/Swindon area. Unfortunately at this time I know no more than that.
Although nowhere near the site of Upfest, I fully expect most of the Stokes Croft and Bearpit areas to get complete make-overs during the festival weekend.
There is a good story to this piece. Some time before I started to blog about street art, and around about the time that I really started to get interested, I saw two artists working together on a small car park wall on Hill Street, parallel with Park Street. I surreptitiously took a couple of pictures and walked on. Since that time, I have returned to the wall many times and taken other pictures.
I am not sure who one of the artists was, and so his wall does not feature here, but the other was Fois. At the time, and for a long time afterwards, I didn’t know it was by Fois, but it became very clear when I wrote about his piece on Nine Tree Hill.
It is a wonderful work, spelling out his name with the characteristic colours and curves that have, to my mind at least, a strong feel of the 1930s. I will at some point find out who his collaborator on the day was, but it might be some time.
Sometimes you can hang on to a photograph for so long that it becomes a bit of an albatross. I took these pictures back in January this year, and I have some that are even older. The reason that I haven’t posted them until now is that although I know who the street artist is – Kleiner shames – who writes FOIS in his pieces, I don’t know anything about him, so I don’t have a lot to say.
I think I have actually photographed him working on a piece in Hill Street, but I’ll save that for another time. Other than that, Kleiner Shames remains a complete enigma. His work is very elaborate wildstyling of his name, with a touch of what I would call art deco influences…I think it is the curves. This work can be found on the corner between Nine Tree Hill and Armada Place, another Stokes Croft hotspot.
The observant viewers might see an iconic Rowdy crocodile on the building behind. More about that in a future post.
Natural adventures 