Hire – Page 2 – Natural adventures

6566. Dean Lane skate park (785)

This is an absolutely gorgeous piece by Hire and although it is rather different from his usual style, it is unmistakably his work. There is something really attractive about the tone of the piece, perhaps generated by the colour selection and the fir trees. The serenity of the piece is rudely interrupted by an alien craft sending out a light beam into the forest.

The letters spell out HIRE, with the ‘I’ being cleverly represented by the spaceship. The bottom half od the writing is chunky and smooth, but the upper half is much more like Hire’s traditional pointy lettering style. I really, really love this piece and the story it tells.

6548. Frome Side (43)

Hire, Frome Side, Bristol, November 2024

The collaboration involving several artists under the M32, which is inspired by the World Wall Stylers challenge of the Japanese Animation ‘Ninja Scroll’, has turned out some highly memorable pieces, including this outstanding graffiti writing from Hire.

I’m not quite sure how he has done it, but Hire has managed to paint a fusion of his style with a strong Japanese influence. His signature, resembling Chinese character kanji (used in Japanese), mirrors the main piece, and is accompanied with the letters BF on the opposite side. The backdrop includes subtle hints at an ancient Japanese urban landscape. Cool piece.

6544. Dean Lane skate park (780)

Hire and Zake, Dean Lane, Bristol, November 2024

I really like Zake’s enthusiasm for teaming up with any and pretty much every graffiti/street artist in the city. It is probably easier to list those he hasn’t painted with. Here he has teamed up with Hire to create this interesting combination collaboration.

The writing on the left is by Hire and takes the form of his spiky angular letter style The letters, spelling HIRE and painted in a grey colour with rouge tints, has a hint of symmetry about it. I fear that the dark blue background rather dominates the piece and makes it a little hard to pick out the lettering, which would probably look better set on a different base colour.

Zake has painted another of his familiar round-face characters, so full of depth created by clever use of light and shade. The red underglow is so effective. The face is surrounded by plumes of smoke and white dots. The two pieces, although stylistically completely different, complement each other well.

6388. Cumberland Basin

Hire, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2024

It is quite unusual to find a Hire piece outside the Dean Lane skate park area, but here he is joining in the fun with the World Wall Stylers ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ paint jam, and although his piece isn’t as overtly on-topic as most of the pieces, it is nonetheless a part of the whole wall.

The wonderfully crafted letters spell out HIRE, but I was sorely tempted to fib and say they spelled RABBIT. A feature I haven’t noticed about his work before is the long shadows that have been cast from the tips of his letters, which seem to lift the piece a little. This is a nice reversion to his more spiky style that sets him apart from other writers.

6311. Dean Lane skate park (742)

Well, this is surely one of the more unusual pieces from Hire, that indicates he is enjoying pushing boundaries. When I first encountered his work a few years ago, his USP was his spiky, sharp letters that could poke your eye out if you weren’t careful. Contrast that with this organic green piece spelling HIRE.

Each letter resembles a bushy tree with green branches and canopy, in various orientations. The letters are set on a dark conifer woodland silhouette. This is a very nicely considered and executed piece from Hire – connecting with nature.

6223. Dean Lane skate park (735)

Recently I have managed to miss out on a couple of Hire pieces, because I have just been too slow, and for some reason, his work has been getting overpainted quite quickly lately. I think it is bad timing on his part more than anything more sinister than that. So I was particularly pleased to catch this one.

I have been an enormous fan of Hire’s since the first pieces I saw, many years ago. He consistently turns out brilliant graffiti writing and occasional rabbits to such a high level of precision. In this piece he has used the willing combination of pink and blue to create his HIRE lettering, but what I particularly like here is the interaction between the letters and the brown background, which is impacted by, and augments the letter shapes. Very nice work from Hire.

5878. Dean Lane skate park (695)

When I think about Hire’s art, I pretty much always visualise it in Dean Lane, and although he has painted other spots in Bristol, it is his favoured spot. This long piece of graffiti writing spells out ODIAH. I am not sure why Hire sometimes writes the word, and I have checked in Google translate that it isn’t a Polish word – something to ask him next time I see him.

Hire has prepped the wall nicely in this writing/character combination piece, creating something that is neat, clean and tidy. I suspect that writing on brick walls is a little easier as the uniformity of the letters can be measured on the brick courses, making things easy on the eye. I have no idea what the panda is all about, but it looks a little menacing, with its eye patch (clever) and broken bottle. It is always good to find Hire’s work, always.

5693. Dean Lane skate park (667)

Even when he paints a smaller, simpler piece, Hire puts in admirable effort, and I am not too sure that the words ‘quick one’ come into his vocabulary or thinking. In case it wasn’t obvious enough from the letters, Hire belongs to the BF crew, and occasionally substitutes his HIRE lettering for BF.

Starting with the background, Hire pretty much always paints on a prepped wall, to help his letters stand out from the surrounding graffiti ‘noise’. His chrome letters are lifted by the clever use of the green and purple patterning that sits behind them, and the fine white lines bring a little bit of definition to the piece. Fantastic, thoughtful work from Hire and a great shout out to BF.

5357. Dean Lane skate park (697)

I was a little lazy with photographing this magnificent fish piece by Hire, and decided to squish through the leaves of a thick hedge, rather than walk round the perimeter of the swimming pool area to get a clean shot.

Hire has cleverly disguised his writing BF into the body of a rather fierce looking fish, which isn’t a proper representation of a real creature, rather it is more of an archetypal fish, with an extra dorsal fin. I am always up for some fish graffiti’s although there is something about this one that makes me feel a little uneasy.

5298. Dean Lane skate park (609)

It might be the colour palette, I don’t know, but there is something about this piece that instantly grabs you and says ‘hey, I’m special’. Hire’s work will be a familiar to regular readers of Natural Adventures, and he is one of my favourite graffiti artists in Bristol, and I think that what he has done here is exceptional.

Three things stand out for me in this piece. The first is the colour selections for the letters and the background and the way they complement each other so well – very pleasing to the eye. The second is the almost imperceptible difference in colour shade used for the H and R, compared with the I and E of his name, so subtle and so clever. Finally, I think that the little squiggles surrounding the letters are brilliant and remind me of a visualisation of Brownian motion. Each of these elements lift the piece from being great to exceptional.

	beth on Shards
	scooj on Thursday doors – 8 Janua…
	scooj on Thursday doors – 8 Janua…
	scooj on 7391. Peel Street Green (…
	scooj on Thursday doors – 8 Janua…

	beth on Shards
	scooj on Thursday doors – 8 Janua…
	scooj on Thursday doors – 8 Janua…
	scooj on 7391. Peel Street Green (…
	scooj on Thursday doors – 8 Janua…

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