Rory Paints, Nine Tree Hill, Bristol, November 2024
I have a feeling I should have clocked this wonderful stencil piece by Rory Paints some time ago, and maybe I had, but I never got round to posting it. It is obvious that it has been around for a while, because rather unfortunately a bench has been attached to the wall in front of it.
Rory Paints, Nine Tree Hill, Bristol, November 2024
The charming black and white stencil features a little boy in a stripy top holding his hand up, perhaps holding something, but it is a little obscured. I love this kind of street art that just gets absorbed into its environment and becomes part of the furniture. I don’t know the artist, and don’t believe I have seen any of his work before, although I may be mistaken. Great piece.
Northbanksy, (Mikel Arteta), Hornsey Road, North London (Forever), September 2024
A short while ago I went up to London for my first football match of the season, to watch the mighty Arsenal play at home to Leicester City. I had arranged to meet a friend in a pub before the match and passed by a wall of black and white stencil pieces by the brilliantly named artist Northbanksy. The North Bank was the north stand at Highbury, the former home of Arsenal FC, where the nosiest home fans would congregate. You can see what Northbanksy has done with his name. This first piece features the Arsenal Manager Mikel Arteta, and the quote is from his song, which is as follows:
We’ve got Super Mik Arteta,
He knows exactly what we need,
Kieran at the back, Gabi in attack,
Arsenal on the way to Champions League.
I have seen better stencils if I am honest, but I can’t help loving this.
Northbanksy, (Emile Smith-Rowe and Bukayo Saka), Hornsey Road, North London (Forever), September 2024
There are about a dozen or so stencils and this one features two of Arsenal’s home grown players, starboy Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith-Rowe, who moved to Fulham at the start of this season. Northbanksy has selected a shot of the two that epitomises their friendship and reproduced it for all fans to admire. More to come from Northbanksy soon.
Hardy, Upfest 2024, Greville Smyth Park, Bristol, May 2024
It was a real pleasure to catch up with Hardy at Upfest 24 at the time that he was painting this piece, and he had plenty of kind words to say about my posts on Natural Adventures, which I always find a little bit surprising, because I really have no idea (beyond the core readership of the blog) who reads this stuff, and whether they value it. The function of my street art/graffiti posts is to keep a living record of contemporary street art in Bristol, if people visit and enjoy, then I am doubly satisfied.
Hardy, Upfest 2024, Greville Smyth Park, Bristol, May 2024
Hardy has used this space well to spray four of his distinctive stencils, in two sizes and in different colours, and decorated the rest of the area with symbols and patterns, without which the stencils might look a little stark. Brightening up this space for Upfest.
Stephen Quick, The Tobacco Factory, Bristol, September 2024
I am on a bit of a tight time schedule this morning because I have to get a train to London to watch my beloved Arsenal taking on Leicester City in the Premier League. Actually I don’t ‘have’ to, I want to. This is going to be a quick one, in more ways than one… it is a recent panel piece by Stephen Quick.
Stephen Quick, The Tobacco Factory, Bristol, September 2024
Stephen Quick has been a favourite of mine for many years, and manages to transition between his studio work and his street work seamlessly, appearing to be equally comfortable with both. His stencil work is outstanding and he augments his pieces with a little brush work to tidy things up. The piece was painted as part of the South Bristol Arts Trail and is exhibited in the outdoor cafe at the Tobacco Factory. The piece honours the strong females in his life. Very nice work.
Curtis Hylton, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, Barnyard Close, Cheltenham, July 2024
A couple of weekends ago I managed to spend a day at the Cheltenham Paint festival, which was amazing, and organiser Andy ‘Dice’ Davies and his team should be congratulated for building the event into one of the best paint festivals in the UK, and in a town that has quite a small graffiti/street art sub-culture. I took so many pictures of pieces from this year and previous years, that I will be bunching them together in my posts of the festival, due to sheer volume of photographs in my folders.
Curtis Hylton, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, Barnyard Close, Cheltenham, July 2024
Here we start with a wonderful piece from Curtis Hilton on the edge of the town, with a signature piece of a bird composed of flower petals.
DFC1848, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, Honeybourne Line tunnel, Cheltenham, July 2024
Next up is a large piece by local artist DFC1848. How magnificently the gold colour on the diver’s helmet picks up the texture of the wall and appears to glisten. Really nice cartoon character fun.
Stephen Quick, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, North Place car park, Cheltenham, July 2024
Finally, for this first burst of three pieces from the festival, a stunner from Stephen Quick, a Bristol Stencil Artist, who I caught up with for a moment. He said the he left the peeling white paint on purpose to add texture and interest to the piece. Such a nice man by the way. More of these Cheltenham compilations to follow.
I met Hardie while he was painting at Upfest, and what a friendly fellow he is. Although I think I have only ever posted one or two of his pieces on Natural Adventures, he seemed to know who I was and was familiar with my blog, which was most encouraging.
Hardie, Purdown, Bristol, July 2024
The Bristol-based artist doesn’t tend to paint the streets all that often the odd shutter or wall here or there but rarely in the popular hotspots, so it was a super surprise to find two of his pieces side by side in the wartime gun emplacement. His characteristic character portraits are made up of a patchwork of crosshatches, creating a really interesting effect. As you can see from these two pieces, Hardie uses a stencil to create his faces, and it also demonstrates how using different colours can create a different look from essentially the same template. What a pleasure to come across these rarities.
Lemak, Upfest 2024, The Tobacco Factory, Bristol, May 2024Lemak, Brunel Way, Bristol, November 2021Lemak, North Street, Bristol, February 2019Lemak, North Street, Bristol, February 2019Lemak, Upfest, Bristol, July 2018Lemak, Park Street, Bristol, October 2018Lemak, Park Street, Bristol, October 2018Lemak, Raleigh Road, Bristol, June 2018Lemak, Raleigh Road, Bristol, June 2018Lemak, The Bearpit, Bristol, October 2017Lemak, The Bearpit, Bristol, September 2017Lemak, The Bearpit, Bristol, September 2017Lemak, The Bearpit, Bristol, August 2017Lemak, The Bearpit, Bristol, August 2017Lemak, Dean Lane, Bristol, July 2017Lemak, Dean Lane, Bristol, July 2017SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURESLemak, Raleigh Road, Bristol, May 2017Lemak, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016Lemak, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016Lemak, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016Lemak, Dean Lane skate park, Bristol, June 2016Lemak detail, Dean Lane skate park, Bristol, June 2016Lemak, Cheltenham Road, Bristol, April 2016Tribute to DJ Derek by Lemak, Cheltenham Road, Bristol, April 2016
I’m not too sure how it happened, but somehow this piece by the fabulous John D’oh got caught up in my production line, and was supposed to have been posted quite a while ago. Perhaps it feels appropriate that I should post it today, coming so soon after President Biden has said that he will not stand for the presidency in the forthcoming election.
John D’oh, M32 Spot, Bristol, May 2024
This simple ‘spot the difference’ stencil, highlights Joe Biden’s apparently inconsistent approach to the bombing of Gaza by Israel and the bombing of Ukraine by Russia. Turning a blind eye (sponsoring) one and condemning overtly the other. Heaven only knows what might happen if Donald Trump gets a second term. What a mess. Nice commentary piece once again from the talented Mt John D’oh.
Lemak, Upfest 2024, The Tobacco Factory, Bristol, May 2024
There was a time when Lemak, a Bristol-based artist used to paint his stencils reasonably regularly on the streets. These days he concentrates on his studio pieces and electronic art installations and only occasionally paints outdoors, however, an invitation to Upfest is usually enough to winkle him out of his studio work.
Lemak, Upfest 2024, The Tobacco Factory, Bristol, May 2024
This is an utterly outstanding multi-layered stencil of a woman in a space suit, a theme that Lemak has returned to for this piece. To add depth, quite literally, Lemak has added a couple of free standing pillars in front of the piece as bookends to help frame it. Goodness only knows how many hundreds of hours it would take to prepare all the layers for this piece, but the end product is overwhelmingly brilliant. It was noticeable that there weren’t too many stencil artists at this year’s Upfest, perhaps because they tend to work smaller walls, and the focus this year was on large feature walls that suit muralists more. It is so good to see Lemak’s work like this, and I hope that maybe he will treat us to another street piece before too long.
Stewy Stencils (to give him his full handle) is one of a handful of talented stencil artists in the Bristol area, and many of his iconic pieces can be found dotted around the city. His style is almost always black and white single layer stencil portraits of well known or influential people, or sometimes animals. In this piece, which is rather annoyingly behind a gate, Stewy depicts Tricky, a British record producer and rapper.
Stewy, Grevile Smyth Park, Bristol, May 2024
One of the features of many stencils by Stewy is that they can be a bit rough at the edges, and there is sometimes a bit of blurring, but in my view, that adds to the authenticity of these street pieces. I have a few Stewy pieces in my archive and need to do better to post them – something for a quiet moment perhaps (huh!).
Natural adventures 