5867. St Werburghs tunnel (409)

Kid Krishna, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2024
Kid Krishna, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2024

A little earlier in the year, Kid Krishna announced his return to the streets after a bit of a quiet period. Since January, he has been super-active and smashing it on walls all over the city, so much so that I am having to consider bunching a few of them together into a single post.

Kid Krishna, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2024
Kid Krishna, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2024

One of the things that Kid Krishna brings to his pieces is an incredible sense of colour, sometimes subtle and other times overt, but always carefully matched and incorporated. I have been puzzling over the character, and feel like I should know who it is, more than that, he was on some posters which I spotted in Nottingham, or something very similar. It will remain a mystery. This is a lovely fresh piece from Kid Krishna in the tunnel.

5836. St Werburghs tunnel (407)

Face 1st, Zake and Chill, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2024
Face 1st, Zake and Chill, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2024

It is great to see the PWA crew continuing their high-energy and frequent collaborations into 2024, although I dread to think how much money has been spent on spray paint by the team already this year. This is a tidy collaboration squeezed into the end wall of St Werburghs tunnel, united by a chrome and blue colour scheme. The piece, painted on a common background, is by Face 1st, Zake and Chill.

Face 1st, Zake and Chill, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2024
Face 1st, Zake and Chill, St Werburghs, Bristol, February 2024

To the left Face 1st with a couple of happy ‘rag doll’ girls, one of them falling from the sky, contributing both fun and movement to the collaboration. In the middle Zake has painted one of his characteristic faces, full of texture and depth created by clever use of light and dark shading, and Chill rounds off the piece with a cartoon character, looking a little worse for wear, painted in his illustrative tattoo style, and rounded off with a couple of little birds in the corner. Great work from PWA.

5825. St Werburghs tunnel (406)

Werm and 3F Fino, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024
Werm and 3F Fino, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024

What a nice surprise it was to find this collaboration from Werm and 3F Fino, who I thought may have left Bristol (which he might have done), given the almost total drop-off in his work in the city. It felt coincidental, too, that I found this piece only a day or two after publishing a gallery of 3F Fino’s work.

Werm, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024
Werm, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024

To the left, Werm has worked a wonderful piece of writing painted using a fabulous colour palette of purple shades and gold. This sumptuous colour scheme creates an interesting effect, where the letters, counterintuitively, are a little more disguised than you might expect. The gold colour, although contrasting with the purple colours, doesn’t ‘pop’ the piece as much as you might expect, instead it has a rather more subtle impact.

3F Fino, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024
3F Fino, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024

To the right, a character that 3F Fino has painted many times, is holding up letters that are painted in the same colour scheme used by his neighbour. The letter fills are very nicely painted and go a long way to obscuring the letters themselves. I would like to think the letters spell FINO, but can’t be certain, and have a feeling that the fills might also spell something out. Altogether, this is a very nice collaboration from the LRS pair.

5816. St Werburghs tunnel (405)

Mr Klue, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024
Mr Klue, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024

I am very short of time today, with lots to do, having spent the whole of yesterday in London at a wonderful wedding of a cousin of mine. Still feeling a little worse for wear, and tired, as we were on the last train out of London, and then had to endure music and a party in our next door neighbour’s flat which continued until 4am. A little bit of Mr Klue magic is the perfect antidote to this.

Mr Klue, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024
Mr Klue, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024

Mr Klue has been a little quiet over the winter, but seems to be cranking things up a little. This piece is in one of his favoured spots, and is probably one of his clearest renditions of the letters KLUE in his ephemeral abstract style. A perfect piece for a Sunday morning.

5808. St Werburghs tunnel (404)

Kid Krishna, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024
Kid Krishna, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024

Whenever I see the number 404, my heart sinks, thinking of some kind of computer error code. Fortunately no such disappointment with this fine piece from Kid Krishna at the end of the tunnel, it what is proving to be a fruitful and exciting comeback after a few lay months.

Kid Krishna, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024
Kid Krishna, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024

I have to take it on trust that the letters spell out CRIE, because, although it is what he usually writes, the letters are very well disguised and obscured. I love the way the greyscale piece draws in a puddle of colour towards the middle, a little reminiscent of those blotting paper colour separations we did at school in science lessons.. Great to have Kid Krishna firing on all cylinders again.

5801. St Werburghs tunnel (403)

Silent Hobo and Mr Riks, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024
Silent Hobo and Mr Riks, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024

Flying out of Grenoble today, so no time to write much about this magnificent collaboration from Silent Hobo and Mr Riks. The former has been rather quiet on the streets of late, but the former a little more busy than usual. A classy collaborative effort, with some contemporary commentary thrown in for good measure.

Silent Hobo and Mr Riks, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024
Silent Hobo and Mr Riks, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024
Silent Hobo and Mr Riks, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024
Silent Hobo and Mr Riks, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024

5798. St Werburghs tunnel (402)

Mr Crawls and Mote, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024
Mr Crawls and Mote, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024

With this double collaboration from Mote and Mr Crawls, we are treated to some outstandingly creative monster characters, demonstrating that this relatively recent pairing is thriving, and their partnership is becoming one of the most interesting in Bristol at the moment.

Mr Crawls and Mote, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024
Mr Crawls and Mote, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024

While I have met Mote on this many occasions, I have not yet met Mr Crawls, but hope that I will catch them painting together before long. The left-hand side pairing of bird monsters are painted in rich colours and superbly designed. The different styles, as always, complement each other perfectly, and to date this is my favourite piece by the two artists so far.

Mr Crawls and Mote, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024
Mr Crawls and Mote, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024

To the right, two more imaginative creatures hang out side-by-side, set on a chrome background. As these two paint more often together, they are clearly bouncing ideas off each other and incorporating elements of each others’ work. For example Mote’s monster horns are straight out of the Mr Crawls song book. What a fabulous collaboration.

5795. St Werburghs tunnel (401)

 

Minto, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024
Minto, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024

There are some pieces that stick in the memory, for one reason or another, and this unusual piece by Minto is right up there, and to be fair, quite a lot of his pieces are memorable, because of his design ideas and concepts.

Minto, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024
Minto, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2024

The letters have an organic look to them, almost melting down the wall, like wax from a candle. Accompanying the letters are a couple of characters and a bird’s head. I don’t really know what it all means, but I’m not too sure I need to. The whole thing looks great and has a touch of class about it.

Hitting the slopes hard tomorrow, so heading to bed now (written last night)

5774. St Werburghs tunnel (400)

Zaenone, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2023
Zaenone, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2023

I did another bit of digging through my archives, something I like to do from time to unearth some overlooked or ‘left behind’ pieces, and found this beauty by Zaenone, which I photographed in St Werburghs tunnel a year ago before I had clocked the artist.

Zaenone, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2023
Zaenone, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2023

The large, bold letters spell ZANE, but in this one are not accompanied by character bookends, unlike the other pieces I have posted by the artist. The fill is simply magnificent, incorporating a range of blue and green colours that drift into one another, and decorated with dozens of little symbols and marks. The whole thing is a really beautiful piece of graffiti writing, and I am so pleased to have found it in my archive and put a name to it too.

5773. St Werburghs tunnel (399)

Raid, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2023
Raid, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2023

At around the time that this piece is published, my beloved Arsenal FC will be a few minutes into their first league match in a couple of weeks, against Crystal Palace, and I will be at the Emirates Stadium cheering them on. The result of the game could determine my mood for the next few days, so I am keeping my fingers very firmly crossed. Naturally, I have had to plan my day carefully, and I wrote this post last night, to provide continuity of publishing my daily two street/graffiti art posts at around 11.55 and 12.55 UK time.

Raid, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2023
Raid, St Werburghs, Bristol, January 2023

Raid is another artist who has been regularly hitting the walls of Bristol throughout last year, constantly adjusting and refining his letters to great effect. This one in the tunnel is a little bit more like some of the first pieces I saw of his, back in March last year, with an ornate lower case ‘a’. There is a very nice colourful fill with a cosmic feel to it, and enough of a background to help the letters pop. Definitely time for a gallery, even though I have less than one year’s worth of photographs of Raid’s work. Watch this space.

Come on you Gunners!