A gallery of outstanding faces from Bristol artist Slakarts.
All photographs by Scooj
Slakarts
Tag: Slakarts
3597. St Werburghs tunnel (232)
Slakarts has been ever so busy in recent months and I have enjoyed meeting him a couple of times lately. I think it says so much about my age that street artists, like doctors and teachers, seem to be so very young. In my mind’s eye I expect them to be so much older and am always surprised when I meet them. DFC1848 is a rare exception to this perception.
In this piece in the tunnel, Slakarts has reverted to his front face projection rather than three-quarter profile that he has been painting a lot lately. This character has crazy hair, maybe he is waiting for the barber’s to reopen, and rather dodgy teeth. Not the most attractive, but nicely done.
3583. Purdown HAA Battery (25)
Although Purdown is a beautiful part of Bristol and has some stunning views over the city, the old HAA battery has a rather strange feel to it. It is a historical ruin that has been allowed to decay and in recent times has become a very popular spot for graffiti. Walking around the place though is moving and one’s mind drifts back to the ghosts of the past defending the city against the blitz. Some of the bunkers, like this one with this fine Slakarts piece, feel a bit dingy and creepy and to be honest I don’t like going down there much.
Obviously such matters don’t appear to phase Slakarts too much and this is another fine addition to his series of monochrome pieces that he has been enjoying painting over the last year or so. The simplicity of the parallel lines on the glasses is so effective and a tick he likes to use a fair bit. It is always great pleasure finding pieces by this gentleman.
3545. Dean Lane skate park (398)
It was while he was completing this piece that I met Slakarts for the first time, and then the following week in the same place I met him again, both while he was painting collaborations with Nugmoose and Mudra. There three appear to have formed a tight group, and I look forward to many more collaborative walls from them.
Slakarts is developing and evolving this character all the time with each iteration bringing together themes he has been working on, such as the doubling of some features and the addition of glasses with reflective stripes on them. Thoroughly fun to observe and Slakarts seems to derive a lot of happiness from his work. All good.
3519. Lawrence Hill roundabout (16)
On my most recent visit to Lawrence Hill roundabout there wasn’t too much to write home about, there are a lot of throw ups and tagging in the tunnels and not so much ‘classy’ stuff that you get to see in other spots about the city. This character from Slakarts is a definite highlight.
I met Slakarts for the first time as he was finishing off a collaborative effort with Mudra and Nugmoose at Dean Lane and I would just like to say what a lovely bloke he is. We stopped and chatted for quite a while and it was a genuine pleasure. As is always the case he was a lot younger than I had expected. He is enjoying painting this character at the moment, but said he’d really like to go big, so that is something to look forward to.
3439. Cumberland Basin
As gentrification in the city picks up pace, traditional graffiti hot spots are becoming fewer and fewer – there is often a stay of execution while hoardings go up around a development, but eventually these come down revealing pristine new student accommodations or other unaffordable housing, inappropriate for the communities that live near these developments. One of the knock-on effects is that the turnover of street art/graffiti on the remaining walls has increased considerably. This wall in the Cumberland Basin is a great example of a wall that is changing more and more frequently.
Slakarts gives us a double-vision version of his smiling three-quarter profile mega-tag in this happy piece alongside Rezwonk, just to the right. Slakarts has been turning these out on a reasonably regular basis over the last six months or so but they all face the same direction – it would be interesting to see if he could replicate them looking the other way. There is something quite seductive about this piece – it is unusual and set in a vibrant context. Expect more like this before too long.
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.
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!
3374. St Werburghs tunnel (213)
Slakarts has been very busy lately, especially with his three-quarter cartoony profile throw up pieces, so it was great to come across this rather more traditional-looking piece from him in the tunnel recently.
Slakarts’ work is very distinct and rather different from most of the character pieces you see around Bristol. This particular face is rather austere and serious and contains some nice detail, such as the lines around the eyes. Some great shading and spots round this piece off nicely. I definitely feel a Slakarts gallery coming on very soon.
3348.St Werburghs tunnel (211)
I had to have two goes to get photographs of this piece because it was raining the first time and when I got home to check the images, they were obscured by a rather annoying water drop on the camera lens – it happens from time to time.
On the left of this collaboration is a rather tidy piece of graffiti writing spelling out MES from Mes One. I’m not sure if I have posted anything by the artist before, but he seems to do the odd piece occasionally, and he has collaborated with Slakarts on more than one occasion. I love the red dots at the base of the letters, a very nice touch.
On the right, Slakarts gives us another of his three-quarter character portraits that he seems to be so fond of at the moment. Together these two fill this particular space at the entrance to the tunnel really well. Looking forward to more collaborations from these two.
3300. M32 Cycle path (55)
On one of my favourite and rather tatty doors alongside the M32 is this newish piece from Slakarts in his newly perfected style of a three-quarter portrait in cartoon style. This particular version has a kind of melting head effect to the right-hand side.
I think that Slakarts had a long weekend with a little bit of time on his hands and a new concept he wanted to try out, because four or five of these characters appeared around Bristol at about the same time. It is a pity that some idiot got to the piece before I did and inserted a K on each eye, but in this game, you snooze, you lose.
