Given that Zake is knocking out his stylised face pieces at an alarming rate at the moment, there is a strong likelihood that you’ll be seeing lots of his work on Natural Adventures. For example, this is the third piece I have featured here since the start of the month.
Zake, M32 roundabout, Bristol, February 2023
This glorious face, especially impactful due to the black background, was painted over one of his previous pieces, and this is a spot particularly favoured by PWA artists. Zake is using his specialist skills, when it comes to light and shadow, to create great depth and exaggerated features in this smiling character’s face. Beautifully done and definitely memorable.
Stivs has been absolutely smashing it with his character pieces lately. Better known for his calligraffiti writing, who knew that his artistic skills are so much broader than that. He really is an exceptionally talented and diligent artist.
Stivs, M32 roundabout, Bristol, February 2023
This beautiful girl character piece forms the letter ‘S’ in the middle of DSC, his crew letters and he has named this piece Dodgy Sheila Crew – playing with the letters. Stivs is using these orange tones in his character pieces at the moment, and they are extremely effective, in a way that greens, blues and greys etc might not be.
Stivs, M32 roundabout, Bristol, February 2023
I am including an almost complete piece that Stivs painted a day or two before this one, which had been painted overt by the time I went back to get a clean shot of the finished work. It is another stunning portrait piece. In recent weeks Stivs has taken his work onto another level.
Kool Hand is another artist who has been keeping things ticking over nicely pretty much for the last year. His characters have been diversifying a little over that time and new favourites have emerges, like the dog in this piece. There was a time when his work was almost entirely confined to orangutans and crocodiles.
Kool Hand, M32 roundabout, Bristol, February 2023
The letters KH are book-ended with two characters, his trusty orangutan wearing a cap on the left and a toothy dog on the right. Both characters have wings, although I am not sure of the significance of this addition. The colour scheme has focussed on blues, and works really rather nicely. The piece was painted as part of a larger paint jam a few weeks back.
Face 1st has come up with this belter during this PWA paint jam on the M32 roundabout recently. Not one laughing girl, but three, and of course, one of them has an exploding head.
Face 1st, M32 roundabout, Bristol, February 2023
It would appear that Face 1st has been experimenting recently with finding ways of breaking up his heads, with explosions or slices. I’m not too sure what his unconscious mind is doing here, but it certainly makes for a creative display that is never presented in a gory way, more as a passing interest. Face 1st continues to delight.
This is a cracking Soap piece from another recent PWA paint jam – these guys are certainly getting busy, and with the days starting to get noticeably longer I would expect to see quite a lot more from them in the coming weeks and months.
Soap, M32 roundabout, Bristol, February 2023
Soap appears to have moved on quite a bit from his skull/mouth days and has been having fun writing SOAP with a combination of characters and incredible fills and details. The Ice King cartoon character is becoming a regular feature in his work, and in this piece the ‘A’ of SOAP is a lovely nod to his PWA friend Face 1st. This is a dazzling and fin piece from Soap.
This is another wonderful greyscale/chrome piece from Kosc, in a series of pieces that he has been working on recently. The elaborate letters spell KOSC and are presented on a KOSC printed background, a technique I have seen the artist use before. I guess he must have a roller with the letters on it, or a print block, to cover the whole wall… it could be a stencil, but it doesn’t quite look like it to me.
Kosc, M32 roundabout, Bristol, January 2023
Once again Kosc has included his rivet theme which makes it look like the letters have been made up of metal plates welded and riveted together, which is a clever illusion, considering the whole thing is flat paint on a flat wall. A nice shout-out to the NTS crew and XXIII round off the piece nicely.
Hypo and Hemper, M32 roundabout, Bristol, February 2023
It has been a joy to watch some recent collaborations from Hypo and Hemper, and this is the most recent on the M32 roundabout. What is immediately apparent is that their styles are quite different, and that this is less a collaboration and more a painting together, and that is part of the gig, knowing that friends paint together having fun.
Hypo, M32 roundabout, Bristol, February 2023
The Hypo piece is a rhapsody in green, accompanied by four graffiti arrows, adding a bit of dynamism to the letters. Due to the recent burst of activity by Hypo, I feel I now have enough of his pieces to post a gallery of his work, so watch this space.
Hemper, M32 roundabout, Bristol, February 2023
Hemper has absolutely smashed it again with this outstanding HEMS piece, which is technically (and visually) brilliant. The burst of colours cross-faded through the lettering is masterful, and filling in the gaps between the letters with little green spheres in genius. Hemper has a knack of creating perfectly unique graffiti writing pieces every time he splashes paint on a wall. Love it.
More writing on the roundabout, this time from Corupt. Over the last month or so, I have come across far more graffiti writing pieces than street art or character pieces, and that will necessarily be reflected in my posts. I usually try to get a fairly even balance of different artwork, but it can be a struggle sometimes.
Corupt, M32 roundabout, Bristol, January 2023
Corupt, writing his STICK letters, has chosen a rather low-key colour palette for this piece, and it doesn’t quite hump off the wall as much as some of his other pieces, but the handiwork is just as expert. The letters pull out from the wall, thanks to the grey vertical 3D drop shadow. The letters themselves are notable for the colour transitions and decorations in which there is an organised pattern, but unless you look for it, the whole thing looks a bit random. Another fine piece from the Hungarian artist.
Mommynature and Nugmoose, M32 roundabout, Bristol, January 2023
What a whole ton of fun in this collaboration from Frog and Nugmoose. At this point, I feel I need to update my blog, because I gave Frog her name a little while back, on account of her preference for painting frogs. It turns out that her Instagram name is Mommynature, and so that is what I shall be calling her from now on. (I might need to go back into my archive and change the name in previous posts).
Mommynature and Nugmoose, M32 roundabout, Bristol, January 2023
To the left, Mommynature has painted a fabulous banana, a fruit you don’t see enough of in street art (IMO). The banana is beautifully painted with some nice bubbles drifting about too. To the right is a curious piece of alien writing (perfectly executed) with a box of stuff – alien matter?, which is plugged into letters. The collaboration is an enjoyable and imaginative creation from these painting partners.
Bogat is an artist who is underrepresented on Natural Adventures, so this flurry of pieces that I photographed in March last year should go some way to addressing this. Although I took the pictures in March 2022, some of the pieces in the M32 J2 tunnels may have been there for a while.
Bogat, Brunel Way, Bristol, March 2022
Bogat, who often painted alongside Asre, has a thing for open-mouthed portraits and the occasional octopus. The piece above, from Brunel way, is rather nicely done, with some nice shading on the octopus and its tentacles providing some depth. I rather like the bubbles rising off the writing, too, and filling the black space.
Bogat, M32 roundabout J2, Bristol, March 2022
The rest of the pieces were photographed in the tunnels of the M32 roundabout junction 2, a few hundred meters North East of the junction 3 roundabout, which is a much more popular spot.
Bogat, M32 roundabout J2, Bristol, March 2022
These tunnels are quite narrow, and dark, making photography something of a challenge. Somehow I managed to capture these pieces reasonably well, perhaps because they are in a portrait orientation rather than landscape.
Bogat, M32 roundabout J2, Bristol, March 2022
It feels good to have posted these pieces, even if they have been collected together into one post. If I didn’t do that, then there is a real possibility that they would remain in the archives forever.
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