5977. Cumberland Basin

j9449j, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, January 2024
j9449j, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, January 2024

The artist formerly known as j9449j is obviously a person who enjoys anonymity, and has been incredibly hard to track down. I still know nothing about the artist, and just to add to the confusion, j9449j has changed their Instagram handle to @dr3amcore, this leaves me with the dilemma I have faced before which is do I stick with the first name I was familiar with or change to the new name. The convention on Natural Adventures is to stick with the first name unless the artist requests otherwise, so that is what I will do.

j9449j, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, January 2024
j9449j, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, January 2024

This piece was photographed back in January (I was doing a bit of archive-hopping), and features writing that I have struggled to read, but to me, it looks like “L I ? A T E R”, but I can’t make sense of that, so I must be wrong. Whatever the letters, the fill patterns are full of the wonderful plant shapes that typify work by j9449j. The colour palette is not my favourite, but in my view saved by the vibrant green/yellow flashes through the piece. I have many other pieces by the artist and hope to unearth them as the months and years go by.

5937. Greenbank (114)

j9449j, Greenbank, Bristol, June 2023
j9449j, Greenbank, Bristol, June 2023

This is a throwback piece to last June, which has remained dormant in my archives, because at the time of photographing the piece the artist was unknown to me. Since then, the artist’s identity has emerged and is known as j9449j, which is a bit of a mouthful. This is great news, because I have several more pieces in the archives to share and I really like their work.

j9449j, Greenbank, Bristol, June 2023
j9449j, Greenbank, Bristol, June 2023

The abstract piece hints at a rural landscape, certainly there are some organic forms in the piece. This artwork is so original, at least in the context of street art, that it is difficult to assess against any normal criteria or conventions. For example the small additional piece to the right works perfectly as a counterbalance to the larger piece on the left, There are some lovely shapes and patterns and a carefully thought out colour palette. Enjoyable and unusual stuff from j9449j.

5838. Brunel Way (254)

j9449j, Brunel Way, Bristol, February 2024
j9449j, Brunel Way, Bristol, February 2024

This is a great occasion. I have been trying to find out who this artist is for absolutely ages (I know I am not alone) and at last their name ‘j9449j’ appeared as a tag on an Instagram post a week or two back, and we are no longer in the dark. What this also means is that I can release a whole bunch of their work from my archives which has been itching to be posted.

j9449j, Brunel Way, Bristol, February 2024
j9449j, Brunel Way, Bristol, February 2024

j9449j has a very distinctive collage style with plenty of shapes, symbols and plants, bound together with clever use of colour ‘patches’. The work is original and quite unlike anything else we routinely see in Bristol. How nice it would be to actually meet j9449j and find out more about their art, style influences and so on. This is the first of many posts (retrospective and future) I hope.