Tag: Light

7280. St Werburghs tunnel (537)

Zake, St Werburghs, Bristol, October 2025
Zake, St Werburghs, Bristol, October 2025

This puffy-faced character piece is by Zake, painted in celebration of Kool Hand’s birthday, although officially his birthday was a month earlier. It seems almost impossible to exaggerate the features in a Zake piece, but he has managed to do it here, with the result that it is all a little but disturbing, the cheeks in particular.

Zake, St Werburghs, Bristol, October 2025
Zake, St Werburghs, Bristol, October 2025

As I have explained many times when writing about Zake’s work, he creates so much depth in his work by playing very skilfully with light and shade, using up lighting and down lighting to cast shadows and to emphasise features. Clever work from a quiet and unassuming artist.

Heaven is a place on earth

Kings Weston, Bristol, September 2023

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Vaulted canopy

in the distance a folly

shafts of light, moist air

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by Scooj

Glow worm


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Glow worm, Santa Illuminata, Umbria, Italy, July 2023
Glow worm, Santa Illuminata, Umbria, Italy, July 2023

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A light in the dark

pure bioluminescence

naturally bright

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by Scooj

4221. St Werburghs tunnel (275)

Another piece from the archive, and what an absolute belter it is. Taboo is known for his rather irregular writing and cartoon character combinations, so this piece of writing in St Werburghs was a bit of a creative outlier.

Taboo, St Werburghs, Bristol, November 2019
Taboo, St Werburghs, Bristol, November 2019

Painted in big block letters, the word taboo, in a mixture of upper and lower case, has a clever twist from the artist, with a character lamp shining across the letters, marking out light and shade. There is so much to love about this forgotten and rather untypical piece.

3876. Cumberland Basin

Watching Zake apply the light and dark shading to this fabulous piece during Eman’s birthday paint jam was a real pleasure. He has become something of a specialist at refining the effects of light and dark on his faces with the light source in this case coming from the left hand side. This clever shading exaggerates the features and created more of a 3D effect.

Zake, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2021
Zake, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2021

Although his English isn’t great, it was nice to be able to talk with him for a while about his technique. Like all the artists around him on the day, he really seems to enjoy what he does. My only regret from the day is that when I returned the next day to take photographs of the finished pieces, three of them, including Eman’s, had been painted over.

Cicada

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In the living room

Mediterranean sounds

Low dimmed lights buzzing

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by Scooj

Night Light

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Night time garden bright

blanket of cloud overhead

reflected street light

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by Scooj

3244. John Street (8)

I would like to capture more of Conrico’s work than I do, but he tends to paint a lot in places that I don’t go to very often or at all, so it is always great to find a piece like this one in an archway in John Street.

Conrico, John Street, Bristol, September 2020
Conrico, John Street, Bristol, September 2020

This open air gallery is one of the most refreshing things to happen on the legal wall side of things to happen in Bristol for a long time, and I hope that when the development is finished that the gallery is continued, although I am not optimistic. The piece itself is a little bit weird and I am not too certain what is happening. The central character with big hair appears to be telling the bugs not to touch the light, or he is being warned not to touch the light. Either way, touching the light seems to be a bad idea. This is an unusual pieceand I’d love to know more about the story behind it.

Shortest day in sight

 

The darkness will lift

daylight will return to us

things won’t feel so bad

 

by Scooj

Yonder window

 

The window is small

and only pallid fragments

of light penetrate.

 

by Scooj