Elvs is another very consistent artist whose work continues to brighten up our Bristol walls. With this recent piece he includes a fabulous character which some might recognise from the TV cartoon series Top Cat, I think it is Brain or Fancy.
The writing is vertically striated with three colours, pink, purple and yellow and spells out ELVS as you’d expect. The whole piece is framed nicely on a blue patterned background bounded with a yellow border. A fine piece from Elvs.
This is a really nice example of two artists who like to paint together switching things up a little. Kool Hand and Daz Cat have painted a lot together, but not so much over the last six months or so. When they collaborate, Daz Cat normally paints a character and Kool Hand provides the writing.
In this recent piece in the tunnel, the leopard on the left is by Kool Hand and is superbly done, I think it might be one of his best characters yet and Daz Cat has thrown up the letters DKAT. It must be fun painting with friends and playing with styles and methods and it certainly keeps things interesting for the likes of me.
Pekoe’s portraits just keep getting better and better and seem to flow with the ease of an artist really enjoying their trade. There is something just a little bit special about this one, Maybe it is the RBF T-shirt, maybe it is something else, but it works very well for me.
The lighting in the tunnel, as I have said countless times, is dreadful, and I had to adjust the colours to be a truer representation, because my original photograph was ‘yellowed out’. No tears on the face of this young lady, but an emphasis on cheeks and lips. Big hair as always and an all-round wonderful portrait piece.
I have a feeling that this playful piece in St Werburghs tunnel was the first time that I became aware of the work of Ugloe, way back in October. I have stumbled across one or two others and each of them is carefully thought out and beautifully executed.
Ugloe’s style is a clever mash up of graffiti writing combined with illustration and is very effective. It merges the edgy with the safe. In this piece, the colourful letters spelling UGLO are being decorated and given some sparkle by three of her distinctive characters. A joyful piece.
This wall at the Farm end of St Werburghs tunnel has been ripe for a refresh for some time and who better to bring about some colour and joy than Mr Draws? As night follows day, Mr Draws will be out there brightening up our walls with his unique style.
This one is a simple affair using blues, purples and red laid out as horizontal fills in a DRAW outline. There is a deep 3D black shadow and the whole thing is given added interest with some yellow bars. Bold and shouty – this piece has Mr Draws written all over it, literally.
There are a bunch of writers in Bristol who have one thing in common, they write the same letters in roughly the same letter style, but add creativity in the colour selections and fill styles that they choose. Phour is one such artist, and this is a recent piece of his from St Werburghs tunnel.
The tunnel is a great place for rainy day painting and there is a rich seam of, in the main, great graffiti and street art. In fact the only problem with the tunnel is the light conditions, which mean that photographs from there never do the artwork justice, with a lot of orange and yellow polluting the images. With a little adjustment, I managed to get as close as possible to the true colours of this Phour piece. Nice letters, nice 3D work and a very good background. Good to see.
There has been a surge of activity by Mr Klue over the last month, most of it at the farm end of the tunnel which he seems to favour. This one is a tribute piece, and the first of several from an assortment of artists, to the late rapper MF DOOM whose passing in October last year seems to have been made public only recently.
MF DOOM was famous not only for his music, but also for his face mask which is the central Icon in the tribute pieces being paid to him. In this ephemeral work by Mr Klue, the mask is picked out in the middle in reds and whites, emerging from the wispy swirls all around. A fine tribute piece.
One of the most consistent Bristol graffiti writers (plus characters) of 2020 was Taboo, whose imaginative and unconventional creations brightened up walls all over the city. Although not to everyone’s taste, his unique style and obvious (underplayed) talent brought us a succession of notable and humorous pieces.
This one in St Werburghs tunnel takes us deep into his root style of oddly shaped letters (spelling TABOO), his favourite pink and black colours and a sense of anarchy that I really like. I had to auto-fix the colours on Photoshop for this one, without which the whole thing looked yellow from the horrible lighting in the tunnel.
Holiday breaks are good for so many reasons, especially the opportunity to free up some time to do the things we love. There has been a big upsurge in productivity of street/graffiti art over the Christmas period in Bristol and my photograph folder for December is heaving. Having only seen a few pieces this year from Mr Sleven and Mr Klue, it was great to see this collaboration, the second in as many weeks from this pair in the St Werburghs tunnel.
These two create fully integrated collaborations, which I love, where their art becomes a synthesis of their styles, rather than two adjacent pieces in similar colour schemes. The Grinch has made a lot of appearances on the walls of Bristol this year, perhaps as a conscious/unconscious reference to COVID-19 spoiling things a bit. Here, Mr Sleven’s nicely drawn Grinch is emerging from a wispy Mr Klue atmosphere. This is a fine piece and there is a nice reference to COM.64 – the crew that these two belong to.
A nicely disguised signature on this two-tone piece reveals it to be the work of Mind Control, whose work is becoming more frequent in Bristol, in particular in the St Werburghs area.
There is an element of optical illusion work going on in this piece where the central character appears to be cradling a rabbit, although looking at it another way it might simply be the folds in his jacket. A clever piece from an artist with great ideas and lots of attitude.
Natural adventures 