Tag: Love

7007. Cumberland Basin

Andy Council and Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, June 2025
Andy Council and Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, June 2025

Andy Council and Acer One are a classic painting duo, with utterly different styles and subject, but their work, counterintuitively, seems to be wonderfully complementary. There is no jarring of styles, or competition for space or the limelight – the two artists seem to be comfortable with themselves and each other.

Andy Council, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, June 2025
Andy Council, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, June 2025

Andy Council has painted one of his gorgeous dinosaurs, selecting some beautiful colours and stitching the whole creature together with small components, like a Lego model. The little dots of green add so much to the piece. The collaboration was painted as a tribute to Tickz, who will be very much missed by the graffiti community in Bristol.

Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, June 2025
Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, June 2025

Acer One, who has been relatively quiet this year, has painted one of his iconic peace and love stamps in yellow and white or gold and silver, depending on your interpretation. This is a difficult wall to paint, especially with a designed graphic like this one, and the recesses in the walls present a challenge that Acer One has risen to. A fine collaboration and fitting tribute.

6704. Cumberland Basin

Andy Council and Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, January 2025
Andy Council and Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, January 2025

There is never a time when it isn’t a genuine pleasure to come across an Acer One/Andy Council collaboration. These two have been painting together for a long time, and although their styles couldn’t be more different, there is a harmony in their work that is probably supported by their familiarity with one another.

Andy Council, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, January 2025
Andy Council, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, January 2025

This wonderful composite creature piece by Andy Council is stitched together in his unique style. Andy has said that he is aiming to paint one dinosaur piece each month to celebrate 20 years since he painted his first. If this feathered velociraptor is anything to go by, we are in for a treat in 2025. I like the way that the cloudy puffs span across to Acer One’s piece.

Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, January 2025
Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, January 2025

Acer One is constantly inventing ways to dazzle us with his graphic lettering and design. Always executed to perfection, his pieces are quite different to anything else we see in Bristol. In this piece he has combined peace and heart symbols to come up with a single entity. It is beautiful and meaningful, and I expect we’ll see more of this icon from Acer One. A fine collaboration.

6447. Stapleton Road

Logoe and Silent Hobo, Stapleton Road, Bristol, October 2024
Logoe and Silent Hobo, Stapleton Road, Bristol, October 2024

Logoe and Silent Hobo are good friends and on his most recent visit to Bristol, it looks like Logoe found time to hook up with his mate and collaborate on this wonder wall. The combination of writing and story telling is original and eye-catching, and goes straight into one of my favourite collaborations of 2024. Logoe has pulled out all the stops with his distinctive script writing and produces a very tight and tidy piece with transitional coloured stripes filling the letters.

Silent Hobo, Stapleton Road, Bristol, October 2024
Silent Hobo, Stapleton Road, Bristol, October 2024

Sitting on top of the writing, Silent Hobo is telling us a story of what looks like heart break, but without the context is difficult to be sure. Rather ominously, the first panel has a woman saying ‘We’ve been through this already…’

Silent Hobo, Stapleton Road, Bristol, October 2024
Silent Hobo, Stapleton Road, Bristol, October 2024

In the next frame, a woman, is it the same woman, is saying ‘love is not enough’, a phrase that would wilt the heart of anyone on the receiving end of the comment

Silent Hobo, Stapleton Road, Bristol, October 2024
Silent Hobo, Stapleton Road, Bristol, October 2024

The final part has a man, looking a little worse for wear, saying ‘OK’, which probably means not OK. The three panels could be stand-alone pieces, or part of a continuous conversation, and I guess that it is for the viewer to decide which. A magnificent collaboration from this pair.

6302. Cumberland Basin

Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2024
Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2024

I’m not entirely sure how Acer One finds the time to paint so much, but I am glad that he does. One of the upsides of self-employment I guess. This is a really classy design piece in one of his favoured spots, which he pretty much ‘owns’ these days.

Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2024
Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2024

The word ‘love’ is written in the same format as the background, and emerges from it due to the curves in the lettering where they depart from the horizontal background pattern. If the letters were to straighten out, they would disappear into the wall altogether. The piece is nicely conceived, and as always with Acer One, beautifully executed.

5156. Elton Street (19)

Zubieta, Elton Street, Bristol, April 2023
Zubieta, Elton Street, Bristol, April 2023

This is another wonderful piece by Zubieta, and I really like what I have seen of her work so far. I know that I have at least one unpublished piece in my archives, which I will need to dig out, because we don’t get to see her stuff on the streets nearly as often as I’d like.

Zubieta, Elton Street, Bristol, April 2023
Zubieta, Elton Street, Bristol, April 2023

Painted as part of the recent paint jam in the Elton Street gallery, Zubieta is telling a story about how ‘love stings’, featuring a woman and a stinging insect masquerading as a butterfly full of love. Perhaps this is a tale of failed relationships of deceitful partners – who knows? The colours follow the paint jam theme, and the piece is beautifully executed. Tidy work from a great artist.

St Valentine’s Day

.

What is love? They asked

a million answers came

interpretation

.

by Scooj

4658. Upfest 2022 (45)

Diff, Upfest 22, Bristol, May 2022
Diff, Upfest 22, Bristol, May 2022

Diff is a Bristol street artist who is horribly under-represented on Natural Adventures, and although I have published a few of his pieces before, I still have several in my archives. I will have to dig them out. This most recent piece, for Upfest is a real winner in my view.

Diff, Upfest 22, Bristol, May 2022
Diff, Upfest 22, Bristol, May 2022

There is something rather tender and touching about the stencil piece, and the positioning and posture of the kissing characters is just about perfect. Young love beautifully captured in a contemporary way. Such a pity this piece was only on view for two days – perhaps he could recreate it somewhere else in Bristol… hint, hint.

4562. M32 cycle path (179)

Felix Braun or FLX as he is known is one of the godfather’s of street art in Bristol and author of the wonderful ‘Children of the Can’ books. His street work these days tends to be commission-based or the occasional appearance at a festival. He has been rather busy in Bristol lately, which is obviously good news.

Felix Braun, M32 Cycle path, Bristol, June 2022
Felix Braun, M32 Cycle path, Bristol, June 2022

This piece on the M32 cycle path is highly unusual because it appears to be a sanctioned commission (who else gets to paint behind temporary railings?) on a wall that normally plays host to high turnover graffiti and tagging. I don’t know how Felix Braun has swung this, not do I know how long it will remain untagged, but for the meanwhile it is a case of sitting back and admiring this huge piece.

Felix Braun, M32 Cycle path, Bristol, June 2022
Felix Braun, M32 Cycle path, Bristol, June 2022

The overall message is ‘Love Bristol’ or ‘Bristol loves you’ which is preaching to a converted audience. The piece itself is a showcase for FLX’s themes of silhouetted people, and of overlapping letters in different colours, creating third colours where the overlap occurs.

Felix Braun, M32 Cycle path, Bristol, June 2022
Felix Braun, M32 Cycle path, Bristol, June 2022

In the heart section, the word love appears in several different languages and scripts, most of which I cannot read, but I am pretty sure they all say love. This is a positive message and one that we are in desperate need of in the UK right now.

Felix Braun, M32 Cycle path, Bristol, June 2022
Felix Braun, M32 Cycle path, Bristol, June 2022

Let’s hope that the positive messaging translates into positive outcomes, starting with a total change in government… that would be nice.

4306. Cumberland Basin

This recent collaboration by Sepr and Acer replaces a Valentines Day piece by this pair last year. I wonder if this piece had been planned to be a repeat to mark the day of lovers, but got delayed for a while. Whatever, it is a truly outstanding collaboration, sharp, clean and tidy.

Sepr, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, March 2022
Sepr, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, March 2022

On the left is a rather clumsy Cupid figure who has somehow managed to shoot himself in the foot with an arrow. Sepr has an amazing ability to bring his characters to life, and tell big stories. The shadows are supremely well painted and lift the character right off the wall.

Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, March 2022
Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, March 2022

To the right, Acer has written LOVE in a lettering style that he appears to be playing with a lot at the moment, judging by recent posts on his Instagram feed. Rainbow colours on nicely designed regular letters… a fabulous font design. Altogether brilliant.

Sepr and Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, March 2022
Sepr and Acer One, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, March 2022

That time of year

.

Disproportionate

noise of lovemaking foxes

upsetting the dog

.

by Scooj