6773. Sparke Evans Park (125)

Hire and Ceus, Sparke Evans Park, Bristol, February 2025
Hire and Ceus, Sparke Evans Park, Bristol, February 2025

It looks like Hire and Ceus have formed a partnership, with a couple of recent collaborations, and although their styles are very different, it somehow feels right that these two should team up. This piece in Spark Evans Park was painted as part of the Space Jam themed World Wall Stylers challenge for February.

Hire, Sparke Evans Park, Bristol, February 2025
Hire, Sparke Evans Park, Bristol, February 2025

To the left is one of the letter variants that Hire uses, ODIAH, which although carrying many of the artist’s characteristic elements, is softer than some of his writing of the past. Great colours, and a subtle outline glow, are augmented by a central section of characters and the Space Jam logo. I am not sure who painted the characters, but they are brilliantly done.

Ceus, Sparke Evans Park, Bristol, February 2025
Ceus, Sparke Evans Park, Bristol, February 2025

Ceus, whose style is altogether more ‘heavenly’, has created a fabulous piece of writing with some of the best fills I have seen from him. The CEUS letters are largely pink and lilac, but are complemented with some red and purple touches. The whole piece is a thing of beauty. I have a feeling that the characters might have been painted by Ceus, as the clouds are in the shape of wings, which is a trademark element used by him. A fine collaboration.

6755. Cumberland Basin

Hire, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, February 2025
Hire, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, February 2025

This post has been written in advance, because I will be making an early start today departing for our skiing holiday to the French Alps. I will try to post every day while I am on holiday, but it all rather depends on how things go. Meanwhile, I’d like you to enjoy this beauty from Hire.

Hire, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, February 2025
Hire, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, February 2025

Although Hire’s work has been difficult to decipher from to time, the letters are always there, however, I have noticed that there he is drifting into a kind of abstract presentation, and this piece isn’t unlike some of Ments’ pieces, which I used to describe as organic/abstract. I love the colour selections, the shapes of the letters and the neon glow of the border green in this writing. First class stuff from Hire.

6710. Cumberland Basin

Hire, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, January 2024
Hire, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, January 2024

January is usually quite a quiet month for street/graffiti art, with activity building into the spring and summer months. However, this year it was an incredibly busy month, and I still haven’t posted more than half of the pictures I took – unfortunately they will likely not see the light of day, unless get more capacity to post in years to come (a retirement project?).

Hire, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, January 2024
Hire, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, January 2024

This rich piece of writing is by Hire, one of my favourite graffiti writers in Bristol, and spells out BF, although I am not entirely what it stands for. Set on a dark background, the letters are painted in black (blue-black?), with fine midlines in red. The sumptuous red border and drop shadow (in a slightly different tone of red) round off this very attractive work.

6566. Dean Lane skate park (785)

Hire, Dean Lane, Bristol, November 2024
Hire, Dean Lane, Bristol, November 2024

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.

Hire, Dean Lane, Bristol, November 2024
Hire, Dean Lane, Bristol, November 2024

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
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.

Hire, Frome Side, Bristol, November 2024
Hire, Frome Side, Bristol, November 2024

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
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.

Hire, Dean Lane, Bristol, November 2024
Hire, Dean Lane, Bristol, November 2024

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, Dean Lane, Bristol, November 2024
Zake, Dean Lane, Bristol, November 2024

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
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.

Hire, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2024
Hire, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2024

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)

Hire, Dean Lane, Bristol, August 2024
Hire, Dean Lane, Bristol, August 2024

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.

Hire, Dean Lane, Bristol, August 2024
Hire, Dean Lane, Bristol, August 2024

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)

Hire, Dean Lane, Bristol, July 2024
Hire, Dean Lane, Bristol, July 2024

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.

Hire, Dean Lane, Bristol, July 2024
Hire, Dean Lane, Bristol, July 2024

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)

Hire, Dean Lane, Bristol, February 2024
Hire, Dean Lane, Bristol, February 2024

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, Dean Lane, Bristol, February 2024
Hire, Dean Lane, Bristol, February 2024

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.