Another Bristol writer with a distinctive style is Whysayit. His work appears all over the place and he often collaborates with other writers and appears as a pair of works in the same colour regimes but differing styles.
This cheeky little piece is in the doorway between two larger walls favoured by Bristol writers such as Epok, Deamze and Kleiner Shames. Whysayit shortens his style for throw-ups by just spraying the letters YS. Really worth taking a look at his Instagram account.
There is something comforting about seeing Laic217’s work. He tends to paint in two forms: writing of his name with a character incorporated or an acid-house melting face.
This is the third of these melting faces that I have come across and it is a great addition to the series of which the first and second have both been posted on this blog.
I like his work and see how it is getting sharper with each new piece I come across. Laic217 is a prolific artist and appears to favour Moon street and the M32 roundabout for his work. I love his stuff, and I think it really epitomises the Bristol scene – raw, edgy and fun.
It has been quite some time since I last featured a piece by Decay, but I came upon this one quite by accident recently whilst seeking out a large mural by Kleiner Shames.
I love the radiating geometry and colours that Decay uses in his work and love it that nearly always the pieces are uplifting and fun. Sometimes edgy and political, but always good to look at.
Since moving to Bristol about a year ago, Decay has really made his mark on the graffiti art scene. He is now part of the furniture here, and that is a good thing.
I’m trying to work through some of the pictures I have been meaning to post for a while…there is just too much talent in Bristol.
This is a subtle little piece by 3Dom on a small side path off Wilder Street, which I photographed back in June, long before all the Upfest excitement. The unusual work has an emphasis on mushrooms – what kind we can only guess, but the whole piece has an hallucinogenic quality to it.
3Dom is utterly brilliant – there is little more to say really.
One of the most striking pieces at Upfest this year was this incredible portrait by Title. There is something about this work that simply draws you in to take a closer look.
Title, emerged from the hip hop and graffiti writing culture in Birmingham in the eighties before moving onto canvass work in the ’90s and studying computer graphics and digital art.
Thankfully, he has returned to the streets with enthusiasm and appears to be enjoying himself returning to his first passion. It is difficult not to be intrigued by this piece. The face seems to be that of a young man…there was a #Alfie on the image on his website, maybe it was him.
An aside – a great many pictures by street artists seem to feature spray cans – the tools of the trade – note to self…write a special on spray cans.
I posted about this collaborating pair only a few days ago when I wasn’t sure who the artists were. Now I know who they are, I feel that I can write about them with a little more confidence. The work, which was one of the many in South Street Park, was a subtle collaboration between Serge KB and Simian Switch, surrounded by highly colourful and eye-catching pieces.
I loved the artwork in this, in particular Serge KB’s ‘deer’ which was extremely similar to the one he sprayed at the M32. Perhaps he was practicing for the festival? Simian Switches ‘octopus’ grappling with spray cans brings an element of humour to the piece too.
Both artists left ‘extras’ in the area which I will post about when I get through a little more of my ridiculous backlog of photographs. Street artists stop for nobody.
During Upfest 2016 there was agreat deal of activity in Luckwell Road. The hoardings, which the seem to have been there forever, were getting a makeover with a series of portraits, the southern-most of which was this beautiful work by Philth.
I was lucky enough to see Philth at work on both the Saturday and the Sunday and to photograph the completed piece on the Monday.
Philth, Philip Blake, is a graphic designer and illustrator who favours painting ‘hot chicks’, using spray paints or paste ups. I recall a lovely work by him from last year’s Upfest that I will post about some time. That location now has a beautiful Caro Pepe work in its place.
I love these two tone works with splashes of colour – Karl Read produced the same effect although with completely different techniques. Really great work.
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.
Tucked away on the Ashton Gate School playground wall is this subtle and intriguing piece by Feoflip. There is such wonderful detail surrounding the crow, with little figures climbing onto the top half, which has the appearance of a ship. A wonderfully imaginative piece and one that merits prolonged scrutiny.
Feoflip’s biography in the Upfest programme reads:
‘Feoflip means spray paint, latex, chalk,…on a wall, strange characters, bio-mechanical animals, botany, robotics and endless metamorphosis that recycle and pervert logic and reasoning’.
That pretty much sums it up! Great stuff.
Great to see that Feoflip also left a few extras lurking in Bristol during his visit to the city – more on these later.
A recent trip to W-s-M resulted in seeing much more street art than I had prepared myself for. I knew I would find a few stencils by local artist JPS, but wasn’t too sure what else I might find.
The Tropicana was the site of Banksy’s Dismaland last year, and this year the venue hosted the Hazy Days festival, which looks likely to be repeated and expanded for 2017. At the Hazy Days festival this year, several artists, including Dan Kitchener, My Dog Sighs and Osch gathered at the Tropicana and created some wonderful works. This is the piece by Osch, and shows a rather different style to the one in my previous post.
Osch is a highly accomplished artist with an incredibly distinct style. Plenty more of his works will feature in this blog before long.
Natural adventures 