This is an interesting work by the very prolific Sepr. I am not too sure what the story is with this, but the pigeon has the ring! The work is immediately adjacent to the Andy Council mural featured in a recent post.
57. Nelson Street hoarding (2)
Tag: Mural
56. Jubilee Street (1)
This mural rather dates itself with its portrayal of the obsession of the selfie. I guess it is called ‘I’m taking a selfie’. It is one of several works in the immediate vicinity that have the ASK signature on it.
OK, so I am new to all of this, but it took me quite a while to find out who or what ASK is. It turns out that ASK is a Bristol crew, the acronym stands for After School Klub. As far as I can work out, there are four members of the ASK crew, and they are Epok, Sokem, 3Dom and Sepr. I am not sure which of them is behind this particular work, which is perplexing.
In addition to ASK, some of their individual or collaborative works are tagged with ASK KTF or ASKTF. The KTF is another TLA (Three Letter Acronym) which I understand to be ‘Keeping Things Fresh’. I will feature more of their works soon.
UPDATE June 2016 – There are at least 14 or so members of ASK, but I still don’t know which members are responsible for this piece.
54. Midland Street (1)
While shopping today in an old Bristol department store, Gardiner Haskins, in an area I don’t often visit, I discovered a whole area of street art that I haven’t seen before. So many murals.
I love this Sepr mural ‘no petting’ it is quirky and humorous. He is incredibly prolific in Bristol, and I am pleased to have found this work. More from this area to follow.
8/10
53. Nelson Street hoarding (1)
There is a lot of building work going on in the old centre of town, mostly the construction of accommodation blocks for students. Of course this means that there is a fair amount of permitted street art space on the hoardings around the sites.
Andy Council is an artist who lives in Bristol. His works usually incorporate dinosaurs or other animals and architecture, and much of it is about Bristol. You can see his work all over the place, frequently in community spaces that need brightening up. He is also the ‘go to’ designer for all sorts of leaflets and other communications material.
This work painted in 2014 is a typical piece. It is temporary and likely to be gone soon.
52. Broad Street
During the ‘See no Evil’ event in Bristol in 2012, Conor Harrington dropped over from his native Ireland and painted this mural in his distinctive style. It is called ‘the Duel of Bristol’.
Harrington now lives in and has a studio in East London. Like so many before him, he started off as a graffiti artist, but is now a celebrated muralist gaining worldwide acclaim. There is more about him in this excellent Frankie Beane post.
This mural happens to be located in one of my favourite parts of Bristol, tucked away behind the church of St John the Baptist and through the old city gate – I love the way it is framed by an ancient/modern setting.
8/10
51. Frogmore Street (3)
Standing on the bridge at the bottom of Park Street looking North East, you are treated to the most wonderful stencil by Banksy.
‘Man hanging’ which probably goes by several different names was sprayed in 2006, and led to something of a watershed in a permissive stance from the Bristol City Council regarding what was then called graffiti. There is a lovely article written at the time from the BBC website. How things have come on in relatively few years.
I am fortunate enough to walk past this iconic Banksy twice a day at least, and I am never bored by it. In 2009 the work was attacked with blue paint, calling into question all sorts of difficult conversations about street art and graffiti and vandalism and ‘he had it coming to him for selling out’ etc etc. For me it is just a pity. It seems that with his art, if you are not there in the first day or two, it will get damaged or removed.
9.5/10
50. Culver Street
It is only right to mark my 50th street art post with my favourite stencil artist. JPS, an adopted son of Bristol is from nearby Weston-super-Mare, where several of his works adorn the holiday town streets.
This incredibly detailed stencil, ‘Spartacus’ is a tribute to the Welsh actor Andy Whitfield who played the star role in the Starz TV production of Spartacus. He died in 2011 aged 39 of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
I was lucky enough to photograph this work a day or two after it was completed on 13 April 2015. It is the detail of the clothing and belt that I think marks out JPS as an incredible talent.
The ‘Spartacus’, on the wall of the Queen Shilling night club, is only yards away from another JPS I posted on 8 July 2015.
9/10
48. Charlotte Street, above Vincenzo’s
This mural by Nick Walker probably gets more exposure than most in Bristol, simply by virtue of being visible from Park Street and it’s incredibly high retail foot-fall. However, I am not sure many people register it because, in my experience, most people don’t look up, especially when they are shopping.
This work is rather corny if you ask me, a bit of a schoolboy joke, but it does show Nick Walker’s range.
46. Greville Road
Jodi, who painted this mural, lives in Brislington, Bristol. He is a direct contemporary of Banksy, and started as a graffiti artist in 1987 at the age of 15 at the Barton Hill Youth Club.
He left the graffiti behind him and studied design and is now an established designer and brand consultant. In 2008 he came out of ‘retirement’ and started working on street art commissions. This mural was completed for this year’s Upfest, and is a treat for those who like incredibly detailed and realistic work.
Jodi also took a commission in Millennium Square this year above the drinking water fountain, depicting the source of the water that the fountain is fed from. This commission was part of European Green Capital 2015.
44. Stokes Croft, corner wall (1)
Heading North on Cheltenham Road from the centre, you will see arguably the most striking and iconic mural that Bristol has to offer.
This beautiful portrait is by the Colombian artist Stinkfish, and is at the hub of so much other brilliant street art in the area. It is funny how we become accustomed to just seeing things but not noticing them. Today I stopped and took a really good look at this and it is absolutely outstanding.
There is a bit more background to this mural, which was painted in June 2012, here.
9/10
Natural adventures 