A gallery of outstanding character pieces by Bristol artist Ulow.
All photographs by Scooj.
Ulow
Tag: Light
7678. Cumberland Basin
I forgot to paste this beast of a character face by Zake back in March when he painted it, but found it on a little delve in my archives. Such has been the unbelievable turnover in Bristol this spring, that I have dozens and dozens of superb pieces in my February-April folders that might never see the light of day.
This cheeky face has been stretched out laterally to fill the long rectangular space. The character is slightly creepy, most of Zake’s characters are, but beautifully presented. His command of light and shade to create depth has been put to full use in this piece using a shade of blue to great effect. Nice one.
7280. St Werburghs tunnel (537)
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.
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
.
Vaulted canopy
in the distance a folly
shafts of light, moist air
.
by Scooj
Glow worm
.
.
A light in the dark
pure bioluminescence
naturally bright
.
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.
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.
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
.
In the living room
Mediterranean sounds
Low dimmed lights buzzing
.
by Scooj
Night Light
.
Night time garden bright
blanket of cloud overhead
reflected street light
.
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.
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.
