Tian, a gallery.
Tian is a stencil artist and wheatpaster from Paris whose sepia-tinted paste ups add mystery and wonder to the streets of Bristol on his occasional ‘tour’ visits.
All photographs by Scooj
Tian
Tag: Paste up
2942. Dean Lane skate park (311)
Last year, Georgie had a few paste up sessions concentrated around the Dean Lane and Stokes Croft areas. This is a really nice Brexit piece and so simply sums up the divided nation along the lines of I’m ok with this and I’m not ok with this.
I’m alright Jack plays on the disgusting appropriation of the Union Jack by the Brexiteers whose portrayal of remainers as unpatriotic was quite disgusting, but a very powerful narative that underpinned the whole debate. Only the future will tell us whether the experiment is a mistake or not and in any case, many of the problems will be masked by the imppacts of coronavirus, giving this Brexit government the perfect excuse to waffle their way out of uselessness.
Feeling a bit political this morning.
Thursday doors – 14 May 2020
Doors 106 – Some more archive street/graffiti art doors
Although I did manage to snap a few doors over the last week, I haven’t yet had time to download them from my camera, so for today’s Thursday doors I am trawling through images I have previously posted on Natural Adventures of street/graffiti art that feature doors. Up-cycling if you like.
Most of these doors have not appeared in Thursday doors before, so unless you read my street art posts as well, most will be new to you. These ones are from 2016 (so expect plenty more to come for future posts).
That’s it for another lock down week. Look after yourselves and keep posting those doors.
If you have made it this far, you probably like doors and you really ought to take a look at the Norm 2.0 blog – the originator of Thursday Doors where there are links to yet more doors in the comments section at the end.
by Scooj
2917. The Bearpit (188)
I miss The Bearpit street art so very much, particularly when I find pictures like this one of a Tian wheatpaste in my archive. Using his favoured sepia tones, Tian presents us with another glamorous lady… possibly famous, possibly not. All of his work is designed to get us thinking about the central character, even if we can’t help ourselves.
I am a very big fan of paste ups, and finding them in Bristol is a bit of a treat, because unlike other parts of the country/other countries, the scene is pretty small here, and most wheatpastes are from visitors like Tian or qWerT or Upfest artists. It was Kid Crayon’s wheatpastes that drew me in to being more curious about street art some five or six years ago, and I haven’t looked back.
2912. The Bearpit (187)
Looking back to May last year when The Bearpit was nearing its end as a street art spot, (shame on Bristol City Council) and the visiting French wheatpaster Tian, left us several fabulous pieces in Stokes Croft and the roundabout.
This fabulous piece, printed from a stencil, is of a boxer, I have no idea who, and is one of his larger paste ups at about three-quarters life size. The yellow tones work really well on the red background and the piece is full of life and movement. If and when Tian returns to Bristol he may struggle to find as many spots to paste his work as he has been used to on previous visits as the pace of gentrification accelerates.
Thursday doors – 30 April 2020
Doors 104 – New York City paste up and sticker doors
Lock down continues and the weather has become a little unsettled, which adds up to a failure to find some new fresh doors for you this week, so it is a return to my archives and some doors from a family trip we took to New York in October 2017.
Each morning I would rise early and wander around the East Village area where out holiday appartment was and snap up some street art before the rest of the family got up – I combined shopping for breakfast with getting my street art fix, a win-win situation.
Many of the doors in the area were peppered from top to toe with wheatpastes and stickers. Here are a few of them to give you a flavour of the district:
You can spot a paste up by Phoebe New York to the right of the door buzzer.
There are two more Phoebe New York paste ups here, one above the boxer on the left and one at the bottom right of the door.
I hope you enjoyed this little tour, brief I know and I am sorry about that.
If you have made it this far, you probably like doors and you ought to take a look at the Norm 2.0 blog – the originator of Thursday Doors where there are links to yet more doors in the comments section at the end.
by Scooj
2864. Stokes Croft
I thought I had posted all my pictures of French artist Tian’s wheatpastes in Bristol from a visit he made in May last year, but I was mistaken, and the opportunity that Covid-19 has given me to ‘look back’ has unearthed a whole bunch more of which this is one.
I love Tian’s work and that he has twice visited Brisol in recent years and left us these wonderful pasteups is a real privilege. I’m not sure who the sepia-tinted woman featured is, it might be Jane Fonda? Or possibly it isn’t anyone famous. No matter, it is beautiful in my eyes. More to come, and possibly a gallery soon.
2785. Christmas Steps
I don’t ascend or descend the Christmas Steps all that often these days and perhaps if I did I might have seen this great wheatpaste by #DFTE sooner. The switch from framed installations to pasteups has worked well for the artist and perhaps offers a little bit more scope for locations and a second string to their bow.
The words of wisdom on this one read:
Be yourself, people do not have to like you and you do not have to care #DFTE
Fine words indeed from the self-styled urban philosopher.
2750. Leonard Lane (24)
Do you know what? I think this piece is in Leonard Lane, or at least I think I thought it was, but now I am not so sure. No matter, it is somewhere in Bristol. It is of course by the very original #DFTE whose philosophical musings are scattered around the city.
In this wheatpaste, #DFTE seems to have abandones his framed picture approach in favour of a slightly less labour intensive regular paste up. So here he says:
Never underestimate the healing power of listening to your favourite music on full blast while jumping around the house like an idiot.
This is a sentiment I can absolutely identify with as my rather ashamed kids might testify. Nice paste up and nice words frrom #DFTE.
2699. Shoreditch, London (36)
I was inspired by a recent post from Dosenkunst to go back through some old folders and pull out these amazing wheatpastes by Sten and Oli from a trip to Shoreditch in London back in November 2018. I have already shared some of their paste ups in two previous posts and still have more on file (watch this space).
The rather forlorn characters remind me of childhood toys who have long since been forgotten by their owners, and have grown up sad, bitter or resentful – there is something unsettling about them, but also very endearing. I guess the word I am looking for is ‘outcasts’. These little characters are outcasts.
Each wheatpaste is so beautifully crafted and carefully cut out before finding the perfect spot to paste them. This one looks like he has just discarded the orange peel, or maybe is just about to pick it up… who knows?
I know nothing about the artists, or is it just one artist? And there is very little information on the Interweb, so we’ll just have to wonder who they are.
All of the characters in this set are wearing crowns (a symbol used a lot in street art), and this last one is having a bit of fun exposing himself.
Natural adventures 