Tag: Graffiti

763. Upfest 2016 (120)

Si2, operating as ‘Hull Graffiti’ is a creative artist whose work is full of cartoon style characters. Look no further than his Facebook page to see the prolific high standard work he consistently turns out.

Si2, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016
Si2, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016

His upfest piece is full of fun and energy, something of a USP for Si2. His biography for Upfest 2017 (yes, the list of Upfest 2017 artists is now out) reads as follows (with grammatical corrections):

Hull based professional graff writer and member of long running Newcastle crew 3rd Teem Kingz. Apex predator character writer only paints original work for pleasure and profit. Lives and loves graff and prefers to let his vast body of work speak for him, although most will know him as ‘the guy who paints the bins’.

Si2, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016
Si2, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016

762. Upfest 2016 (119)

A pair of great wheatpasters occupuying the same space at Upfest, which is often the case when there are only a limited number of ‘public’ utility boxes of one sort or another to choose from.

Face the Strange, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016
Face the Strange, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016

The first of these excellent paste ups is by Losthills featuring his wonderful Jake the Dog, the second is a weird and wonderful pigeon headed gentleman by Face the Strange (I guess his name gives away his artistic direction).

Face the Strange and Losthills, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016
Face the Strange and Losthills, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016

These two artists really brought some colour and fun to North Street, along with all the other wheatpasters. I fear it is an underrated form of street art, but I am a big fan.

761. Upfest 2016 (118)

It was great to meet Dice 67 at Upfest, as we had communicated by Instagram before the festival, and I had arranged to say hello. His piece for Upfest was more of a collection of stencils pulled together into one place, and they are all really good.

Dice67, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016
Dice67, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016

In the first image, Dice 67 is touching up some of the breaks in the outline from the stencil with a pen.

Dice67, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016
Dice67, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016

I love the ideas that he has brought to this eclectic gallery – a Victorian lady spraying, and a girl roller-skating, sporting a SSOSVA t-shirt.

 

Dice67, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016
Dice67, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016

One of the things that Dice encouraged visitors to do was stick up a signature or small stencil on his wall. There are many artists who took him up on his offer. I also made my debut tag…in the picture below – can you see it?

Dice67, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016
Dice67, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016

My first effort, and it could do with a bit of work, but not too bad. This was a really fun piece by Dice 67, getting into the spirit of the whole festival.

760. Upfest 2016 (117)

You really know you are at a street art festival, when the bins that are provided for used spray cans are themselves sprayed. In this case by the talented and humorous The Agent. These minions were sprayed on bins around the Upfest site and added to the overall spectacle.

The Agent, Upfest, Bristol, July 2017
The Agent, Upfest, Bristol, July 2017

I met The Agent a day or two after Upfest, when Inkie was finishing off his piece on Dean Lane. He corrected me about the post I wrote about a Bearpit piece on the 12 July, a short time before the festival. He most definitely is from Bristol, and indeed I have a recent piece by him lined up for posting soon. All good fun.

The Agent, Upfest, Bristol, July 2017
The Agent, Upfest, Bristol, July 2017

759. Upfest 2016 (116)

Pooka, from Brighton is a relatively new entrant to the street art scene and has been spraying his monochrome portraits only since 2015. This wonderful freehand piece is, I think, a portrait of Nina Simone.

Pooka, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016
Pooka, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016

Really striking and a great debut piece for Upfest.

TMay Rex

 

Stubborn, obstinate,

uncompromising, severe,

arrogant old fool.

 

by Scooj

758. Armada Place (10)

Well this is a bright wall from Laic217 and Hire. Regular readers will be familiar with the work of Laic217, as I tend to feature a piece by him almost every week, however this is the first work by Hire that I have posted.

Laic217, Armada Place, Bristol, April 2017
Laic217, Armada Place, Bristol, April 2017

I think that this is another of those painting together walls rather than a collaboration per se. There is an element of sequence between the two pieces, but the main link is the background wash selected, and the skeleton spraying on the Hire piece.

Laic217, Armada Place, Bristol, April 2017
Laic217, Armada Place, Bristol, April 2017

No major surprises from Laic217, but consistent with his progress over the last year, the quality of his pieces improves with each work.

Hire, Armada Place, Bristol, April 2017
Hire, Armada Place, Bristol, April 2017

I know very little about Hire, except that I am certain I have pictures of other work he has done in my archive. I will try and dig some out if I can. This is a lovely wildstyle piece, with some similarities to the style used by Dibz. A great combination.

Sorry to say that I returned a few days later and the whole thing has been obliterated with this:

Throw up over Laic217 and Hire, Armada Place, Bristol, April 2017
Throw up over Laic217 and Hire, Armada Place, Bristol, April 2017

757. Stokes Croft, the Carriageworks (24)

You can always rely on ObjectØØØ to be very present when there is some political action going on. At the start of March he and DNT took over several of the arches at the Carriageworks and posted a huge and rather crude protest banner piece for a march in London, protesting against cuts in the National Health Service (NHS).

Object000 and DNT, Stokes Croft, Bristol, March 2017
Object000 and DNT, Stokes Croft, Bristol, March 2017
The highlight had to be the central picture of Theresa May kissing Donald Trump, obviously referencing their little ‘love in’ when May visited Trump shortly after his electoral triumph, also referencing the potential privatisation plans that the Tories have with American health insurance companies, also referencing this unforgettable image of Trump kissing Boris Johnson by the Paintsmiths prior to the Brexit vote. Who’d have thought we would be in this dreadful state right here right now. Grief.

While technically not as strong as the Paintsmiths piece, the image still has impact. Power to the people!

756. Cowmead Walk (1)

This is a fabulous collaborative wall by Deamze (on the left) and Sepr (on the right). I found the wall quite by chance on my wanderings and it is always so rewarding when you come across something as impressive as this. There is also a moment of anguish and doubt that questions your knowledge of the street/graffiti art spots in your patch.

Deamze, Cowmead Walk, Bristol, December 2016
Deamze, Cowmead Walk, Bristol, December 2016

I don’t quite know why I haven’t posted it before. Probably because I have a backlog the size of a small planet and this one just got stuck there for a while.

Deamze, Cowmead Walk, Bristol, December 2016
Deamze, Cowmead Walk, Bristol, December 2016

On the December day that I took these pictures, there was a gentleman with several little dogs that kept running backwards and forwards in front of me. I hope they don’t distract too much. The Deamze wildstyle piece is of the high standard turned out by the artist, and the pink colour selection stands out really well against the green background.

Sepr, Cowmead Walk, Bristol, December 2016
Sepr, Cowmead Walk, Bristol, December 2016

The Sepr end of the piece is an entertaining scene, which looks to be of mice cleaning the component parts of a head. This is a theme I have seen before from Sepr, and he has mastered the stretching out and dissection of the head really well. The shadows add a perspective to the whole piece too.

Sepr, Cowmead Walk, Bristol, December 2016
Sepr, Cowmead Walk, Bristol, December 2016

Although the two halves of the piece do not tell the same story, they are coordinated and complement each other well. Great work from two of Bristol’s finest.

755. Dean Lane skate park (45)

How on earth I stumbled on identifying this piece I genuinely can’t remember, but I am pleased to have done so as it has been in my archive for some while. It is a really nice piece of writing by Cokestd, an artist from Budapest in Hungary which he created in November 2016 while on a trip to the UK.

Cokestd, Dean Lane, Bristol, November 2016
Cokestd, Dean Lane, Bristol, November 2016

I do like it when visitors come and leave their mark in our city, especially when it is with a piece such as this – I like to think of Bristol as a welcoming place where we embrace our overseas friends with open arms. The piece itself is a beauty, nicely proportioned with great lines and colours.