Tag: M32 roundabout

3475. M32 roundabout J3 (280)

Many street artists and graffiti writers have dual or multiple personas when they throw paint at a wall. There are many reasons for this, for example sometimes it is to obfuscate their identity as most of this activity isn’t strictly legal, other times it is to separate out professional from personal identities. Here we have an artist who I have met before under a different name, but here he is with his new moniker ‘SERM’.

Serm, M32 roundabout, Bristol, January 2021
Serm, M32 roundabout, Bristol, January 2021

I was fortunate enough to bump into SERM when he was half way through painting this piece and we chatted for a little while. It is interesting to see how he works and that the little smoke wisps along the top of the piece are one of the first bits he paints, which is counterintuitive for a non-artist like me.

Serm, M32 roundabout, Bristol, February 2021
Serm, M32 roundabout, Bristol, February 2021

This is a very nice piece of writing with some great colour selections and the yellow 3D shadow works particularly well. I hope this is the first SERM of many.

3469. M32 roundabout J(3) (279)

The story behind this unusual and unsigned piece is that I photographed it a little while ago… I photograph most of the graffiti art that I find, and if I don’t know the artist will keep it in my archive until a moment of good fortune reveals their identity. This was one such piece.

Last week I was doing the rounds and I encountered an artist painting over this piece. Having not met him before I politely introduced myself and asked him what name he painted under, ‘Smoke Perfume’ was his reply. Furthermore he told me that the piece he was painting over, the subject of this post, was also by him. What luck.

Smoke Perfume, M32 roundabout, Bristol, January 2021
Smoke Perfume, M32 roundabout, Bristol, January 2021

The design of this piece is neat and tidy and the colours have something of a ‘look at me’ quality. The transition of the two red fills is beautifully done with dancing red flames and there is a black splatter surrounding the piece. I don’t yet know what the letters spell out, but I am working on it. I like this very much and there is another piece from Smoke Perfume coming soon to Natural Adventures.

3448. M32 roundabout J3 (278)

Just recently there has been a very welcome spate of PWA collaborations from Soap and Face 1st, including this beauty on the M32 roundabout. These two have a connection, a bit like Sheringham and Shearer, which produces great results, and when they collaborate, they often adopt the same colour scheme as they have done here.

Face 1st, M32 roundabout, Bristol, January 2021
Face 1st, M32 roundabout, Bristol, January 2021

To the left is one of those familiar smiling girls with her hair spelling out FACE. There is a lot of decoration and detail in the letters and plenty of the trademark teardrop shapes that Face 1st favours. There is a lot of energy and joy here.

Soap, M32 roundabout, Bristol, January 2021
Soap, M32 roundabout, Bristol, January 2021

To the right Soap has continued the colour scheme and letter style to spell out SOAP with one of his mouths in the ‘O’. This is also full of decoration and detail and fully deserves a long look to get the most out of it. The collaboration is a great example of how well these two work together. Bristol would be all the poorer without them.

3433. M32 roundabout J3 (275)

When all else in the crazy world we live in is kicking off and our landmarks and routines are blown apart, there is a beating heart, metronome-like, tick-tocking in the background and that is the quiet, modest, ever-present production line of graffiti writing from Corupt. It is rather comforting when you think about it.

Corupt, M32 roundabout, Bristol, January 2021
Corupt, M32 roundabout, Bristol, January 2021

In this outstanding piece Corupt has written STICK, which is one of the two common letter combinations he uses. His humour shines through with this “Happy New Tier” story to welcome all of us into 2021 in a lockdown situation. The letters are beautiful, the fills are beautiful and the colour combinations are beautiful. A beautiful cheery piece.

3427. M32 roundabout (276)

I have only met Hemper on one occasion and that was last summer. My first impressions were that he is an unassuming and modest fellow who has put in the effort and has a gift for graffiti writing and does it extraordinarily well.

Hemper, M32 roundabout, Bristol, December 2020
Hemper, M32 roundabout, Bristol, December 2020

Hemper is a freestyle writer, which means that he doesn’t paint from a sketch in a black book but rather from his imagination. Combine that natural creativity with the fine motor skills that he has developed over the years, and you get outstanding pieces like this one. A little beauty.

3424. M32 roundabout J3 (275)

This is a classic example of Face 1st doing what Face 1st does best and that is spraying an enormous face in a tunnel that is near impossible to photograph. I had toyed with the idea of not posting this piece, but that would be admitting defeat.

Face 1st, M32 roundabout, Bristol, January 2021
Face 1st, M32 roundabout, Bristol, January 2021

Face 1st seems to favour the M32 roundabout tunnels and it is rare for one of his pieces not to be present in one of the four tunnels 24/7/365. This piece is a trademark one from the artist with a happy girls face and hair composed of  the letters FACE. Face 1st and his PWA crew mate Soap typify the vibrancy and energy of the Bristol street art scene.

3418. M32 roundabout J3 (274)

Over the last three or four months, Slakarts has been rather busy with his three-quarter profile throw-up character, and probably produced more of these than his regular and rather more complex faces. This one is on one of the tunnel entrances of the M32 roundabout. There is an interesting artefact of photography, light and paint in this piece… in the feature photograph you can see the ghosts of old graffiti underneath the white parts, but in the content photograph below, the white fill is simply white. Curious.

Slakarts, M32 roundabout, Bristol, December 2020
Slakarts, M32 roundabout, Bristol, December 2020

I rather like this one from Slakarts because it is a little bit more finessed than some of the others in this series. The black lines are clean and the blue outlines work very well indeed. More of these in the archive!

3414. M32 roundabout J3 (273)

Here is a recent fun piece from Ryder down at the M32 roundabout featuring characters from the Willo the Wisp children’s TV programme from the 1980s. There is always something that makes me smile about incorporating children’s characters into the subversive world of graffiti art.

Ryder, M32 roundabout, Bristol, December 2020
Ryder, M32 roundabout, Bristol, December 2020

The writing is, as always, perfectly painted, with nice letter shapes and horizontal colour fills that complement each other well. The 3D shadow has a vanishing point in the centre of the piece which is less common than the shadow going in one direction.

Ryder, M32 roundabout, Bristol, December 2020
Ryder, M32 roundabout, Bristol, December 2020

The piece is bookended with characters from the show, with Willo on the right and on the left Evil Edna, the TV set. A very nice holiday piece from Ryder.

3409. M32 roundabout J3 (272)

I’ve had this Dott Rotten SPOILT piece in my queue for a little while, mainly because I thought I’d already posted it… turns out I hadn’t. It is yet another demonstration of this artist’s graffiti writing skills. I’d like to make comparisons with other artists in Bristol, but I have decided not to simply because we are so very fortunate in having so many outstandingly talented graffiti writers in our city. There surely cannot be another city in the world with such a collection of top drawer writers… suggestions please…

Dott Rotten, M32 roundabout, Bristol, December 2020
Dott Rotten, M32 roundabout, Bristol, December 2020

In this piece Dott Rotten spells out SPOILT in fabulous letter shapes with his trademark spots adding interest to the fills. The piece is complex, with joins overlapping one another… I don’t quite know how he keeps on top of it, and the subtle shadows add to the overall 3D effect. The piece doesn’t stop at the red boundary, but is set on cosmic cloudy background. Brilliant.

3385. M32 roundabout J3 (271)

Coming across a Soker piece is never disappointing and when it is a variation away from his usual letters SOKER or SOKEM it is especially noteworthy. This wonderfully colourful burner spells out Super FREAK. I don’t know what the reference is, but I do know that the result is superb.

Soker, M32 roundabout, Bristol, December 2020
Soker, M32 roundabout, Bristol, December 2020

I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there is something about Soker’s style that is uniquely his and that makes identification relatively easy… maybe it is the curves in the letters or the 3D shadow, I don’t know, but most of the time it is possible to get it right. The fills in the letters are to die for, and overall this is the work of a craftsman at the very top of his game.