Doors 119 – more doors of street art past
Packing for a short holiday, so this is a very rushed archive selection of Street art/graffiti doors:
I’ll be on my jollyberries next week, so might not be posting Thursday Doors for a week or two – have a great break.
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
The last of this sequence of five pieces from a trip to Shoreditch in November 2018 is this magnificent dorway work by Stik (who else). The simplicity of his work tells stories far greater than many more complex pieces and certainly backs up the saying ‘less is more’.
There is something very human about these two stick figures and although the only features they have are eyes, we understand what the piece is saying and for that alone it should be admired. Stik has hit upon a style that taps into our core senses and feelings at the most basic level and elicits emotions in ways that sophisticated pieces sometimes fail to do. I love this.
I’m not entirely certain that this wonderful piece by Zabou is strictly speaking in Shoreditch, but it was certainly on the way on a very long walk I took back in November 2018. It is on Kingsland Road on the wall of the By the Bridge café beside the Regent’s Canal, I think the area is called Haggerston.
Zabou’s protrait pieces are rarely matched by anyone in both scale and quality, she really is a street artist at the top of her game, and finding her work is always such an exciting thrill. I think the piece was painted in April 2018 and features the model Yara Shahidi. Beautiful.
Another piece from Shoreditch in November 2018, this time in the distinctive guise of Osch. Part of his yellow circle series, this one adopts his ribbon work with a map of central London and a smiley face, although the Thames mouth is a little crooked.
Finding pieces like this by Osch is always a complete pleasure and because of their distinctiveness, they feel like a ‘collectable’ series. I have found a few before, but not living in London I guess each one discovered is very special indeed. I may have posted this one before, but I think it was in a different place. How is that even possible?.
Continuing with a trip I took to Shoreditch, London back in November 2018 when I was lucky enough to come across this magnificent and rather dark halloween (I presume) fox by Irony at the Allen Gardens spot.
Irony’s work is nearly always breathtaking and I have yet to see a ‘dud’ from this artist. This chilling scene is of a fox (and possibly several other creatures of the night) clutching a severed arm in its mouth the hand of which is holding a hot dog. It is clever how the whole atmospheric piece has been achieved using only a few green, brown and black tones. Weird and wonderful.
Street art posts in Natural Adventures are dominated by Bristol artists, I know and understand the culture (a little) in the city and feel comfortable writing about the art I see. The same cannot be said for other places. I tend to hold back on writing too much about the work I see on my trips outside Bristol because there are other chroniclers who do it so much better with so much more knowledge. Most of the photographs I take in London never get posted, but the break in new art in Bristol imposed by lock down means that I can visit my London archives and share some nice art with you.
This is a gorgeous piece by Mr Cenz in Shorditch that I photographed in November 2018, and I have a feeling that it was still pretty fresh and clean and probably not that old. Everything you expect to see from a Mr Cenz piece is here and it is absolutely stunning. It would be great if he could pay us a visit in Bristol some time – we’d have to find him a good wall though.
This picture was taken in August 2016 during one of my reasonably infrequent trips to Shoreditch. I am beginning to think I need another trip there, but for the moment I’ll be staying put. This gorgeous piece is by Mr Cenz, whose etherial portraits are emblematic of the London street art scene.
There is something about the colors green and purple that work so well together and Mr Cenz has worked his magic in this piece, creatinng a metallic sheen to the whole thing with carefully positioned white highlights.. The strange thing about this piece is that the familiar female features are held together by shades and abstract shapes that on their own wouldn’t look like anything. Clever work.
I have encountered Zabou’s work in London, Bristol (at Upfest) and in Cheltenham at last year’s paint festival, where I was lucky enough to meet her and have a quick chat, in which I basically gushed about her work and probably made a bit of a fool of myself. I seem to recall that I said I would send her some posts I had written about her work, but typical of my general uselesness I haven’t done it.
This is a fabulous piece in Soreditch of two angelic figures looking like they are going to get up to no good with spray cans at the ready. The piece has a kind of ’50s retro feel about it, maybe it is the hairstyles. If one took a look at it today, it might be easy to assume that the masked ladies were protecting themselves from the Coronovirus with their facemasks. It is interesting how things can be seen in different ways depending on the context or socio-political landscape.
In a small way, the lack of new art being sprayed in Bristol due to coronavirus lock down, has enabled me to dip into my archives and share with you some pieces that I simply didn’t have space for at the timw I took the pictures. The next three posts are from a trip to Shoreditch, London in August 2016.
This amazing piece of widlstyle writing is by Tizer who I understand is generally considered to be one of the best graffiti writers in the old smoke. Spelling out TIZER, the green,yellow and gold metallic-looking fill is given depth by the cleverly lined 3D shadow. Nice too be able to share this one from Tizer, an artist that when I originally saw this was completely off my radar (living in the provices as I do).
A stencil artist whose work I have always admired is London’s Unify. Unify’s work, for me has a real human touch, grabbing the viewer’s attention through an emotional draw. These works are more than illustrations they are stories, sometimes political, sometimes satirical, sometimes child-like and they are all pretty powerful.
This beautiful small stencil depicts a young girl painting some little red hearts that collectively form a peace symbol, something that is used a lot in Unify’s work. It is a touching piece full of hope, and beautifully presented between these two flowerpots.
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