A gallery of fabulous anti-style graffiti writing from Bristol artist Solar.
Crew PLB (Placebo)
All photographs by Scooj
Solar
Tag: Solar
5505. Brunel Way (229)
I really enjoy the work of Solar, and his work feels all the more enigmatic because I have never met him and know practically nothing about him other than his artwork. His lettering verges on anti-style, without going the full hog, it touches on abstract, but not quite.
It is often the colour palette that first invites you to look closer at Solar’s pieces, and this scorching colour combination has an earthy, lava, fiery feel to it, tempered by the green fragments around the edges. The piece spells out Solar, and by chance the yellow patches reflect the sun splashed dapples of light to the bottom left of the wall. Great stuff from Solar.
5425. Sparke Evans Park (78)
Solar is definitely an artist I would like to know more about, as he is something of an enigma to me, and I have never had the fortune to meet him, or indeed most of his elusive PLB friends. His work is quite unique and touches on the anti-style, but not in a way that is similar to others who paint that way. Although he changes his fonts from piece to piece, there is a consistency about his letters within a piece.
The most striking thing about this work is the colour combination and contrast between the blue and black letters and the red and orange surround, set on a blue buffed background. I can’t really describe the letter forms, but can say that somehow they are typically Solar, and the gentle way he has of almost disguising his name. I will soon be able to pull together a gallery of his work which will be a great showcase of his individual style.
5301. Peel Street Green (12)
As mentioned in a previous post, I am trying to give Solar a bit more of a profile on Natural Adventures, because I believe his work provides another strong element on the vast spectrum of graffiti writing in the city.
I’m not quite sure how I would describe Solar’s style, but I think ephemeral and free are words that spring to mind. Like Lee Roy’s work, it is tending towards anti-style, but perhaps in a more passive way. The letters in this piece, spelling SOLAR and with a PLB crew tag, are written in a mixture of upper and lower case, breaking any formal conventions. The blues are uplifting, and unusually the background is also the fill. The letters are disrupted by vertical streaks of cloudy something. The whole piece is rather atmospheric and compelling in a modest presentation.
5261. M32 Cycle path (218)
Some artists manage to keep themselves very much to themselves, and that is true of most of the PLB crew, including Solar. I have been featuring Solar’s work for a few years, but have never met the artist and have never found out anything about them. That is fine and how some like to keep it, as anonymity is an important part of illegal graffiti and street art.
I like to post pieces by Solar because they are very different to most of the stuff you see from day to day, often writing with thick letters in a blocky style but with an organic feel to them. Solar has gone full-solar on this one, with a sizzling sun-drenched background around the strong white letters. Nice work from an artist slightly underrepresented on Natural Adventures.
4995. Cumberland Basin
This is not the first piece I have seen by Solar on this particular wall, and it seems to be a place where he can express himself a little bit better with a bit more space than some of the more congested walls he has painted about the place.
Solar’s work is improving each time I see it, with a confidence and boldness to try new things all the time, such as the character face in the O of this piece. This has a nicely worked horizontal transition from red to orange to yellow and added interest with cross hatching to break up the piece. Nice work from Solar.
4814. M32 roundabout J3 (435)
I am reall
y pressed for time this morning, as I am attending a two-day conference, one day online and the other in-person, but it means my whole day is pretty compressed.
I said I would share more work by Solar, and true to my word, here is a recent one from the M32 roundabout.
Solar has a fairly organic approach to his writing, pushing the boundary beyond conventional lettering, fills and borders. The overall effect is tidier and more considered than it might be at first inspection. Nice work from Solar.
4772. Frome side (18)
I checked through previous posts before writing this piece about Solar, and it appears that I have only written about his work twice before on Natural Adventures. This is in spite of having taken plenty of pictures of Solar writing about the place. I will need to rummage around in my archives to post more Solar pieces, as they offer an antidote to more conventional graffiti writing.
In this ethereal piece under the M32, Solar has written out his letters, which have a transparent look to them, over a background pattern of red, purple and black ‘marbelling’ of the wall. A lovely piece in a place where it won’t get as much exposure as it deserves.
4399. Cumberland Basin
Solar is an artist who is horribly under-represented on the pages of Natural Adventures. I have dozens of photographs of his graffiti writing, but very little of it has seen the light of day. I have no idea why this has happened, because in my mind’s eye it feels like I have posted a lot of his work.
Solar is one of those ‘it does what it says on the tin’ artists who spells out Solar in most, if not all, of his pieces. His letters are quite boxy and the holes in the ‘o’ and ‘a’ are distinctively low and squished. This is a rather fun throw up that uses the space well. I really must dig out more of his work and share it.
3674. New Stadium Road (31)
This is one of several recent eye-catching pieces from Solar, who goes by the Instagram handle of @super.lunary. I only became aware of this rather special writer fairly recently, but I am enjoying the style very much.
The regular sized block letters are presented with some interesting free-form fills with strong colours and themes. The overall effect is rather calming and pleasing. It is interesting that different writing styles can stimulate different emotional responses, from calmness to anger to anxiety and so on, this is definitely at the gentle end of the spectrum. More to come from Solar soon.
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