Tag: PWA

5091. Sparke Evans Park (65)

Face 1st and Soap, Sparke Evans Park, Bristol, February 2023
Face 1st and Soap, Sparke Evans Park, Bristol, February 2023

Not many artists are painting the long wall at Sparke Evans Park these days, since the arrest of an artist about six or seven months ago. Slowly but surely people are drifting back to the wall, but unusually for Bristol, having to keep their eyes peeled and wits about them at all times. This is a great pity, because this would be a perfect candidate for a legal wall. There is no tagging here, and the colourful wall is an added attraction for people who use the park for recreation. It has become a bit of a ‘wall of fame’, well respected and curated in a self-policing manner.

Face 1st, Sparke Evans Park, Bristol, February 2023
Face 1st, Sparke Evans Park, Bristol, February 2023

This far end of the wall was recently painted by Face 1st and Soap in one of their PWA pairings. To the left, Face 1st continues to explore different ways in which he can slice a face up. Very rarely for the artist, he has not tried to work in the letters FACE into the piece, rather he is focussed on the task in hand, the slicing.

Soap, Sparke Evans Park, Bristol, February 2023
Soap, Sparke Evans Park, Bristol, February 2023

Soap too continues to explore a theme he has been enjoying recently, spelling out his name with the ICE King for an ‘A’ and a Face 1st face for the ‘A’. Although the colours the artists have chosen are a little muted on a dull day, they are nonetheless attractive and have been beautifully worked into both pieces. Great to see something new on this wall.

5090. M32 roundabout J3 (457)

Zake, M32 roundabout, Bristol, February 2023
Zake, M32 roundabout, Bristol, February 2023

I have said in recent posts featuring Zake that his work is getting ever more adventurous and zany, well this piece on the M32 roundabout pretty much supports my assertion. This is Zake pushing boundaries and having fun.

Zake, M32 roundabout, Bristol, February 2023
Zake, M32 roundabout, Bristol, February 2023

This piece was painted as part of a PWA crew paint jam, and combining with the crew has certainly nudged his work along, perhaps being inspired and encouraged by his friends. The face is huge and green and slightly unsettling, due to the absence of pupils. Zake’s mastery of light and shade conveys real depth and creates definition of features. This is an excellent character portrait from Zake – where to next for this artist? Whole bodies? Photorealism?

5070. M32 roundabout J3 (456)

Zake, M32 roundabout, Bristol, February 2023
Zake, M32 roundabout, Bristol, February 2023

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
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.

5043. Greenbank (74)

Soap, Greenbank, Bristol, February 2023
Soap, Greenbank, Bristol, February 2023

This is the final piece from a joyful collaborative paint jam from the PWA crew a few weeks ago. This section is by Soap, and rounds off the whole thing perfectly. It will be a sad day indeed when the last remaining hoardings are removed from Greenbank, and this creative space is returned to bland indifference.

Soap, Greenbank, Bristol, February 2023
Soap, Greenbank, Bristol, February 2023

Soap spells out his name in chrome and yellow, with a thick blue and thin white border, set on a pink background shared by all the pieces in the collaborative space. The inclusion of the Ice King and a Face 1st inspired girl, making up the ‘O’ and ‘A’ respectively is something Soap seems to be working on at the moment and is consistent with a piece of his that I posted a few days ago. This was a rip-roaring PWA paint jam.

Soap, Face 1st, Chill and Zake, Greenbank, Bristol, February 2023
Soap, Face 1st, Chill and Zake, Greenbank, Bristol, February 2023

5037. Greenbank (73)

Erika 0007 9-11 Feb 2023_edited
Erika 0007 9-11 Feb 2023_edited

The PWA crew have had a few joyful paint jams this year, and this wonderful piece from Face 1st is part of a collaboration on the Greenbank hoardings. I cannot express how much pleasure it gives me to chronicle the work of Face 1st, and since I first started writing about street art in 2015, Face 1st has been an ever-present, growing and adapting his style.

Face 1st, Greenbank, Bristol, February 2023
Face 1st, Greenbank, Bristol, February 2023

I have no idea what the ‘spicy beef’ thing is all about, but it made me smile. Face 1st’s cheeky girl is having a lot of fun, and like so many of his pieces in the last year or two, her face is covered in mess, but it doesn’t seem to bother her. There is so much to enjoy in this piece.

5034. M32 roundabout J3 (452)

Soap, M32 roundabout, Bristol, February 2023
Soap, M32 roundabout, Bristol, February 2023

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, 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.

5029. Greenbank (71)

Zake, Greenbank, Bristol, February 2023
Zake, Greenbank, Bristol, February 2023

Every time I visit Greenbank, it seems that the long wall of hoardings gets shorter. Soon, as the major housing development nears completion, this spot will cease to exist and there will be only our memories and photographs left to remind us of what a superb spot for graffiti writing and street art this has been.

Zake, Greenbank, Bristol, February 2023
Zake, Greenbank, Bristol, February 2023

Right up there with my fondest recollections will be the regular PWA paint jams, of which this piece by Zake is a part of the latest. Zake has recently taken his work up a level or two, with some much more adventurous character portraits than he was painting 18 months ago. This skull in a hood draws on his strengths of using light and shade to create texture and depth. This is a really striking and memorable piece from Zake.

4977. River Avon (38)

Soap, River Avon, Bristol, December 2022
Soap, River Avon, Bristol, December 2022

This piece by Soap, was so good, I had to photograph it twice. The first time I tried, the results were terrible on account of strong sun and shade scattered over the piece. I made sure that my return visit was on an overcast day, with some better images.

Soap, River Avon, Bristol, December 2022
Soap, River Avon, Bristol, December 2022

Soap likes painting this character, which I think might be based on the cartoon character Ice King from the animated TV series Adventure Time, although I am not completely sure about that. This creation is a thing of beauty, and not only features the chrcter, but also spells out SOAP. A few gems thrown in for good measure, this is a masterclass in contemporary writing from Soap.

4962. Dean Lane skate park (599)

Face 1st, Dean Lane, Bristol, January 2022
Face 1st, Dean Lane, Bristol, January 2022

I had a great catch up with Face 1st as he was assessing where to paint this stunning little design. He had thought about using one of the flat walls on the buildings, but instead chose this curved wall instead, and what a great choice he made.

Face 1st, Dean Lane, Bristol, January 2022
Face 1st, Dean Lane, Bristol, January 2022

Any piece on the ramps of a skate park get scuffed up pretty quickly, naturally, and when I photographed this it was only a day old, and you can see immediately how worn parts of it have become. Face 1st has painted a laughing girl’s face sliced through vertically, exposing the letters F, A and E, with the C sitting proudly on the girl’s pink bow. A wonderful piece from a lovely artist.

4939. M32 roundabout J3 (445)

Face 1st, M32 roundabout, Bristol, February 2022
Face 1st, M32 roundabout, Bristol, February 2022

I simply fail to understand how I managed not to post this absolute cracker by Face 1st back in February 2022. It has been lurking in my archive, screaming to be released and shared, and now at last is liberated, and just look at how happy those girls are.

Face 1st, M32 roundabout, Bristol, February 2022
Face 1st, M32 roundabout, Bristol, February 2022

I definitely noticed that nearly all Face 1st’s work last year was overflowing with joy, and this piece early on in the year certainly set the tone. To me this is brilliant, and one of my favourite Face 1st pieces ever. The colours are sensational, and the positive and mischievous energy flying off the wall is a pleasure to observe. What an absolute blast!