7248. Gloucester Road

Andy Council, Gloucester Road, Bristol, October 2025
Andy Council, Gloucester Road, Bristol, October 2025

Towards the Horfield end of the Gloucester Road you will find the Horfield Dry Cleaners. Above the shop is a wonderful mural by Andy Council that has been there for well over a year, I just haven’t had an opportunity until recently to photograph it.

Andy Council, Gloucester Road, Bristol, October 2025
Andy Council, Gloucester Road, Bristol, October 2025

In all honesty, the photographs don’t do this piece justice at all, because the colours and detail are a little lost. It might have been better to zoom in on different elements of the mural to convey the artwork more fully. If you look carefully, you might spot a turtle, an octopus, a manta ray, an ammonite and a manatee with a football pitch on its back. Each of the animals is crafted with Andy Council’s technique of stitching component parts together to create a recognisable whole. A great mural.

6553. Gloucester Road

Sepr, Gloucester Road, Bristol, November 2024
Sepr, Gloucester Road, Bristol, November 2024

As the crow flies, this is probably one of thee nearest pieces of street art to where I live, and I probably pass it a few times a week. I hadn’t noticed until recently that it had changed. Sepr painted a piece here back in February 2020, and you can just see a little bit of that black and white piece on the left of this banner on the Filthy XIII bar.

Sepr, Gloucester Road, Bristol, November 2024
Sepr, Gloucester Road, Bristol, November 2024

This new piece (although I don’t know how new) Features a man and a couple of birds chilling with some rather gaudy cocktails. Sepr has filled the thin horizontal strip perfectly, and his unique cartoon style is full of humour and warmth. Fabulous work.

Sepr, Gloucester Road, Bristol, February 2020
Sepr, Gloucester Road, Bristol, February 2020

5377. Gloucester Road

Alex Lucas, Gloucester Road, Bristol, July 2023
Alex Lucas, Gloucester Road, Bristol, July 2023

I have attempted to photograph this sumptuous piece by Alex Lucas several times, but always there were huge shadows cast across it. At last, a fortnight ago I managed to capture it in all its glory, and with a magnificent blue sky behind. Alex Lucas truly provides a special USP for Bristol with her nature-inspired designs and illustrations that she transposes onto walls so seamlessly, and which are present all around the city.

Alex Lucas, Gloucester Road, Bristol, July 2023
Alex Lucas, Gloucester Road, Bristol, July 2023

Painted above a flower shop, this stunning mural featuring what look like chrysanthemums, fuchsias and an iris is full of rich detail. A finch of some kind is hiding within the glorious floral display adding further interest. So full is the piece that you barely notice the two windows taking up a significant amount of space on the ‘canvass’. A rare beauty in this part of Gloucester Road.

4922. Gloucester Road

DNT, Tymb and Mr Klue, Gloucester Road, Bristol, December 2022
DNT, Tymb and Mr Klue, Gloucester Road, Bristol, December 2022

Not very far away from where I live is this magnificent new mural, which I only became aware of when I was doing a little Christmas shopping. The mural captures so much of why I love living in this city. It is not only a big bold piece, but it is a big bold statement too – ‘the free city of Bristol’, which tells you a lot about the independent sentiment that Bristolians have.

DNT, Tymb and Mr Klue, Gloucester Road, Bristol, December 2022
DNT, Tymb and Mr Klue, Gloucester Road, Bristol, December 2022

The mural is a collaboration between DNT, Tymb and Mr Klue. I know the work of DNT and Mr Klue intimately, but have not encountered Tymb before. The decorative border is the work of DNT, I would think, and the castle is probably by Mr Klue. The fact that it is uncertain who painted what makes this piece in my eyes a true collaboration between the artists, where their work merges. A piece to be proud of.

4149. Gloucester Road

The side wall of Bishopston Tiles has been a bit of a honeypot recently with several fabulous stencils by John D’oh, all with an environmental theme, something that the artist obviously cares about deeply. This sensational tiger stencil must have taken forever to cut and prepare. There are at least four layers that I can see, each using a greyscale tone from black to white.

John D'oh, Gloucester Road, Bristol, December 2021
John D’oh, Gloucester Road, Bristol, December 2021

I might be doing the piece a disservice because there was some text accompanying the wall as a whole reading ‘Extinction is forever – endangered doesn’t have to mean extinct’. So a message of hope and a stencil of high quality and extreme beauty from John D’oh. Still more to come from this magnificent spot.

4075. Gloucester Road

I said that I would be posting more John D’oh pieces from this wall outside Bishopston’s Tiles on Gloucester Road, and true to my word here is another. This wonderful single-layer stencil is so much more than just a cute cuddling Simpsons piece, it is a nod to the genius of Banksy with a John D’oh twist.

John D'oh, Gloucester Road, Bristol, November 2021
John D’oh, Gloucester Road, Bristol, November 2021

Some of you may recall Banksy’s amazing ‘Mobile Lovers’ which appeared on the door of a boxing club in Bristol. Well, this Homer and Marge embrace is a little pastiche of that piece and brought an instant smile to my face. On this occasion John D’oh is not being political, but his humorous look at popular culture and commentary on social behaviours is alive and kicking. Great piece – even down to the detail of placing it on a door.

Banksy, Bristol Museum, Bristol, May 2014
Banksy, Bristol Museum, Bristol, May 2014

4067. Gloucester Road

Since the first lockdown, my daughter and I have watched quite a few old shows by Bob Ross, and been mesmerised by them. Our viewing is interspersed with comments like ‘how does he do that’ or ‘that is just ridiculous’. As amazing as his landscapes are, they are not really my cup of tea, but watching him create them is truly awe-inspiring. This reference piece by John D’oh is a nice nod to the talent of Bob Ross.

John D'oh, Gloucester Road, Bristol, November 2021
John D’oh, Gloucester Road, Bristol, November 2021

This stencil is one of many by John D’oh adorning the walls of Bishopston Tiles, and if you are in the area, it is well worth stopping by for a few moments to enjoy them. The words are another witty commentary on the disastrous state of deforestation, something that the COP26 climate agreement might at long last be starting to address. Our role in all of this is not to let our Government off the hook, even for a moment, and to continue to campaign hard for systemic policy changes in how we do things in the UK. Plastic bag tax was just a start, but shows what can be done.

This is the first of many posts I’ll be writing about this wall.

3845. Gloucester Road

I ran past this piece from Kosc this morning, and in a curious way I felt rather proud that I live in a city where public art is embraced, albeit sometimes reluctantly embraced. When the artwork is as good as this, then surely a painted hoarding is better than a bare/tagged piece of construction infrastructure.

Kosc, Gloucester Road, Bristol, July 2021
Kosc, Gloucester Road, Bristol, July 2021

The most obvious thing about the piece is the striking contrast between the scarlet background and the grey-scale character and writing. The background is more than a simple backwash, it has been overprinted with a roller with the letters KOSC on it, giving a texture to the background.

The character and writing are absolutely exceptional. The lady in the photograph? Well it seems that she was selected by Kosc from a gallery of pictures on Instagram by @pit_lad, who was more than happy to have it used for this outstanding piece. Kosc is going from strength to strength.

3804. Gloucester Road

The wet fish shop on Gloucester Road is a bit of a landmark, and certainly you always know when you are walking past it. At weekends and in the evenings you might get lucky and see the shop when the shutters are down and enjoy this fishy mural from Nina Raines.

Nina Raines, Gloucester Road, Bristol, June 2021
Nina Raines, Gloucester Road, Bristol, June 2021

Although the piece has been here for some time, I only recently walked past it at the right time with a camera handy. As a marine biologist (by training and in my heart) I love seeing marine themed street art and these lobsters, crab and mackerel are just the ticket. Something of a contrast with Nina’s wonderful collaboration piece on the dental practice in Bedminster, showing off her versatility.

2790. Gloucester Road

I have waited a long while to photograph this mural from Mr Penfold, mainly because it is not in a place I frequent all that much, there isn’t any other street art to speak of just in this spot, so it requires a special trip or an occasion when I happen to be in the right place at the right time.

Mr Penfold, Gloucester Road, Bristol, February 2020
Mr Penfold, Gloucester Road, Bristol, February 2020

That time was about a month ago on one of those rare sunny days in an otherwise very wet (the wettest on record) February. This mural is what Mr Penfold does so well and so distinctively. In his ‘liquorice allsort’ colours and 1980’s designer patterns Mr Penfold presents with a pleasing abstract pece that turns a boring wall into a point of interest. This is most likely a comission from the shop or possibly from the Business Improvement District. A nice piece.