This is a wonderful one-off piece that simply appeared in Exeter Road recently, and is something of an enigma. It is by an artist, Greg Stobbs, who from what I can make out is an illustrator. It turns out on digging a bit deeper that Greg Stobbs is Squirl of Squirl Art, who has appeared on these pages in the context of his Upfest pieces.
Greg Stobbs, Exeter Road, Bristol, September 2024
I am guessing that the piece is a commission, perhaps brokered by the Upfest team. However it came to be painted, it is absolutely wonderful and straight out of the children’s picture book style of street art. The branch and bird look very much at home on this rather tatty wall, and I very much hope that we see more of Greg Stobbs’ illustrative work in Bristol before too long.
This was the first completed piece from Upfest 2022 that I saw this year and was the piece that alerted me to the fact that many artists were already out and about in Bedminster painting static walls as a precursor to the main event in Greville Smyth Park at the end of May.
Squirl, Upfest 22, Bristol, May 2022
The large mural is by Squirl, who has painted a few times in Bristol, mostly at Upfest, but also in collaboration with SPZero76 as part of the Gums and Tongue crew. This is a beautifully designed landscape scene in a highly stylised and colourful form. A stunner, and as fortune would have it, the roadworks in front of it made it easier to photograph as there are usually cars permanently parked in front of this wall. Great piece from Squirl.
The Upfest 2021 75 walls in 75 days event has been notable for the number of fabulous abstract murals on the front and sides of both commercial and residential buildings. Several of these murals have majored on natural themes and this one from Squirl is another beauty.
Squirl, The Nursery, Bristol, JUly 2021, Upfest 21
Squirl has smashed this wall with a bright and vibrant piece featuring mountains, trees and clouds. He is no stranger to Upfest, but I don’t think he has done one of these big walls before. I am always tinged with a little jealousy of the occupants of these houses with murals. I would love a mural on my house, but the stone surfaces are all wrong, and what would the neighbours say? 😁. Unfortunately, this house will probably always have a car parked outside it, so this is the best Photograph I could manage.
Roughly every six months or so this wall on the side of Domestic Drain Services gets a makeover. It is not a commission as such, more like permission and the cost of the paint thrown in, the payback is that the company get a beautifully sprayed landmark that can just about be seen from this busy motorway junction.
This piece is a collaboration between SPzero76, Squirl and Kid Crayon.
SPZero76, Millpond Street, Bristol, October 2019
On the left is the highly detailed work of SPZero76 full of busy action and cartoon capers. The words ‘Lost Eats’ on the side of the rocket is a conflation of two crews, the Lost Souls, which SPZero76 and Squirl belong to and Eats which is the pairing of SPZero76 and Kid Crayon. A nice touch.
Squirl, Millpond Street, Bristol, October 2019
The central part of the collaboration is a much more tranquil almost abstract space idea going on from Squirl. I have seen a little bit of his work on his occasional visits to Bristol for Upfest so it was nice to see this contribution from him.
Kid Crayon, Millpond Street, Bristol, October 2019
Finally, on the right is a rather splendid space woman alien kind of thing with the astronaut clad in terrestrial clothes holding the earth with a little space shuttle breaking through the atmosphere. Great, imaginative stuff.
This whole collaboration seems to have the brief of space, but beyond that each artist has absolutely done his own thing, so this is a three-way individual collaboration loosely based on a single idea.
This is a small section of a larger wall which was sprayed by the Lost Souls crew for Upfest 2017. The concept for this wall was for each of the artists to produce a kind of playing card with a character piece on it. Here we have a pairing of SPZero76 and Squirl.
SPZero76, Upfest, Bristol, July2017
SPZero76 has created an incredible skeleton figure, rather disturbingly holding a whole bunch of lollies and sweets. It would seem that he enjoys using these blues and purples in his work, as I have seen them in many many of his pieces.
Squirl, Upfest, Bristol, July2017
The Squirl piece is also a skeleton but of something altogether different…a horse maybe or perhaps a dog (see the flying bones) but the dentition is all wrong. What is it with street artists and death? The horse/dog is interacting with the female skeleton, maybe he wants the sweets.
Both of these pieces combine well and are technically beautifully sprayed. More from the Lost Souls to come.
Natural adventures 