With this piece by Asre in the tunnel, he reverts to what he had been painting before he took a protracted break. These cheeky faces were his signature pieces, and frequented a host of North Bristol spots.
Since his return, Asre has been concentrating on his writing and spread his wings to more spots in the city, so it was great to find this ‘traditional’ piece in the tunnel. He has kept the piece simple, with only three colours, and used nice solid lines throughout. Great stuff from Asre.
Fishing calls. Very quick one.
Mr Crawls and Mote have been at it again with these tunnel-end pieces on each side of the archway. The pigeon by Mr Crawls is his latest character favourite, and is getting better with each rendition.
On the other side, Mote has painted this unusual moustachioed character. I haven’t seen too many people portrait pieces by Mote, and it is interesting to see how his style comes through. Looking forward to seeing more of these sophisticated pieces from him.
The return of Zinso to the streets of Bristol has been something of a revelation this summer, and his characters from a few years ago betrayed his talent as a graffiti writer. His style and use of bright colours has made a significant contribution to the scene this year and continues to do so.
This piece, in St Werburghs tunnel, is like sunshine in the sky with clouds. Whether that was a conscious colour palette decision or not I don’t know, but it works really well for me, especially in the gloom of the tunnel. The solid fills are nicely blended in horizontal stripes and there are some nice reversed-out patterns too, but generally it is not over-fussy. A blue shadow around the piece complements the letters and generally reflects the crisp and tidy feel to the whole piece. Nice work from Zinso.
Jee See doesn’t paint too much these days, but it is always great to find one of his SEISMIC pieces. This one from earlier this year in July was part of a Free Palestine paint jam, once again using street art as a place to comment on the issues of the day. This and other pieces offer a commentary and through this blog, I record them, archiving a little slice of our local and global history.
Jee See has been writing his angled SEISMIC letters for as long as I have known him, which must be ten years or so. In this piece the letters are draped in the colours of the Palestinian flag. No further words are needed. We all know what is happening. We all know that the Israeli state is committing genocide. We just want it to stop and to bring peace to the region.
I can’t quite remember if this combination piece from Mr Klue was painted in one session or two, but since they are by the same artist, it doesn’t really matter that much. It is quite unusual to find writing and the Mad Hatter character by Mr Klue adjacent to one another, so this is quite special.
Mr Klue’s gift for creating ephemeral graffiti writing is unparalleled in Bristol and his character is iconic, especially in this area. There are some great colours here and a lightness of touch that is a signature of his work. A real treat in the tunnel.
This is another fabulous collaboration from Hypo and Minto, who seem to team up reasonably regularly and clearly enjoy painting together. The little tag – ‘Hypo Minto combo’ captures the friendship really well.
Hypo has smashed it with his writing. The colours are magnificent and transition through the piece with grace and style. The shading, and in particular the white highlights, help the piece to pop and create a superb 3D effect. Truly outstanding. Alongside the letters, Minto has painted a contrasting greyscale character portrait, and a tribute to Dave I guess. The combination piece just works – a classy collaboration.
Inkie is back in town and has been painting a little. This is a rather nice little piece of classic Art Nouveau/funky graffiti writing, and what makes it a little unusual is that he appears to have painted it alone.
when you see a quick piece like this, you know just by looking at it that you are in safe hands and looking at the work of a master craftsman. The red fills of the letters are brought to life with the application of a thin white border. Classy.
I guess that it was fairly inevitable that tribute pieces to the late Ozzy Osbourne would start to emerge, although in Bristol, I have only found two, of which this impressive piece by Tera is one. I see how much the musician meant to so many people, but I’m afraid I don’t count myself amongst them. I always thought he was a bit of an arse, and I was less than captivated by the puerile ‘fly on the wall’ documentary series about the Osbournes, but each to their own.
What is incredible about this large portrait is just how quickly Tera has adapted to upscaling his tattoo skills to large walls, literally in a mater of months. There is some great use of positioning bright colours against the greyscale portrait, which creates a certain dynamism. This piece captures the mood of Ozzy perfectly, and I rather like the epitaph ‘Rest in Darkness’.
I am assuming that Smak has slowed on his graffiti writing due to demands on his commercial work, or at least I hope it is something positive like that. He hasn’t lost his touch in the slightest, and this is a complete banger painted during a paint jam for Frazzled Magazine.
The beautifully disguised letters spell out SMAK, and it is the architecture and design of the letters that is so admirable. Every element and shape, colour sequence and detail is meticulously thought out and skilfully painted. Smak really is one of the very best graffiti writers around and can turn out exquisite work like this with apparent ease. An outstanding example.
A short while back, Kid Crayon organised a paint jam for Frazzled magazine and assembled a fine line-up of artists, including Ejits. There is something very charming about her stylised cartoon characters, which tend to have a cheeky side to their personality.
This is a wonderful eye-catching cat, beautifully illustrated and perfectly finished. There is two-tone texture in the cat’s face and a strong dark pink border to keep everything neat and tidy. I am an admirer of her work, and would love to see (find) more of it on our streets.
Natural adventures 