6266. Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024 (1)

Curtis Hylton, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, Barnyard Close, Cheltenham, July 2024
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
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
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
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.

6265. Purdown (65)

Hardie, Purdown, Bristol, July 2024
Hardie, Purdown, Bristol, July 2024

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
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

A gallery of outstanding stencil art from the Bristol artist Lemak

Instagram: @lemak_art

all photographs by Scooj

Lemak, Upfest 2024, The Tobacco Factory, Bristol, May 2024
Lemak, Upfest 2024, The Tobacco Factory, Bristol, May 2024
Lemak, Brunel Way, Bristol, November 2021
Lemak, Brunel Way, Bristol, November 2021
Lemak, North Street, Bristol, February 2019
Lemak, North Street, Bristol, February 2019
Lemak, North Street, Bristol, February 2019
Lemak, North Street, Bristol, February 2019
Lemak, Upfest, Bristol, July 2018
Lemak, Upfest, Bristol, July 2018
Lemak, Park Street, Bristol, October 2018
Lemak, Park Street, Bristol, October 2018
Lemak, Park Street, Bristol, October 2018
Lemak, Park Street, Bristol, October 2018
Lemak, Raleigh Road, Bristol, June 2018
Lemak, Raleigh Road, Bristol, June 2018
Lemak, Raleigh Road, Bristol, June 2018
Lemak, Raleigh Road, Bristol, June 2018
Lemak, The Bearpit, Bristol, October 2017
Lemak, The Bearpit, Bristol, October 2017
Lemak, The Bearpit, Bristol, September 2017
Lemak, The Bearpit, Bristol, September 2017
Lemak, The Bearpit, Bristol, September 2017
Lemak, The Bearpit, Bristol, September 2017
Lemak, The Bearpit, Bristol, August 2017
Lemak, The Bearpit, Bristol, August 2017
Lemak, The Bearpit, Bristol, August 2017
Lemak, The Bearpit, Bristol, August 2017
Lemak, Dean Lane, Bristol, July 2017
Lemak, Dean Lane, Bristol, July 2017
Lemak, Dean Lane, Bristol, July 2017
Lemak, Dean Lane, Bristol, July 2017
Lemak, Raleigh Road, Bristol, May 2017
SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES
Lemak, Raleigh Road, Bristol, May 2017
Lemak, Raleigh Road, Bristol, May 2017
Lemak, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016
Lemak, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016
Lemak, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016
Lemak, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016
Lemak, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016
Lemak, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016
Lemak, Dean Lane skate park, Bristol, June 2016
Lemak, Dean Lane skate park, Bristol, June 2016
Lemak detail, Dean Lane skate park, Bristol, June 2016
Lemak detail, Dean Lane skate park, Bristol, June 2016
Lemak, Cheltenham Road, Bristol, April 2016
Lemak, Cheltenham Road, Bristol, April 2016
Tribute to DJ Derek by Lemak, Cheltenham Road, Bristol, April 2016
Tribute to DJ Derek by Lemak, Cheltenham Road, Bristol, April 2016

6209. M32 Spot (187)

John D'oh, M32 Spot, Bristol, May 2024
John D’oh, M32 Spot, Bristol, May 2024

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
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.

6192. Upfest 2024 (37)

Lemak, Upfest 2024, The Tobacco Factory, Bristol, May 2024
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
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.

6126. Greville Smyth Park (3)

Stewy, Grevile Smyth Park, Bristol, May 2024
Stewy, Grevile Smyth Park, Bristol, May 2024

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
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!).

6119. Leonard Lane (47)

John D'oh, Leonard Lane, Bristol, June 2024
John D’oh, Leonard Lane, Bristol, June 2024

It is rather pleasing to be posting another stencil piece, there have been a rash of them lately, and especially one from John D’oh, who has been a little quiet over the last six months or so. This is one of a couple of pieces by the artist currently in Leonard Lane.

John D'oh, Leonard Lane, Bristol, June 2024
John D’oh, Leonard Lane, Bristol, June 2024

This philosophy, I am not sure if it is a quote (Update: it is a quote from the brilliant Chrisopher Walken) or a wisdom from John D’oh himself, is perhaps a message of our times and our collective obsession with consumption, upgrade and appearance. It reads:

“If you knew how quickly people forget the dead, you would stop living to impress people”.

I think that this is aimed at people with outer-directed values, a segment of our society that has ballooned since Thatcher came to power. The statement is accompanied by a skeleton character holding a spray can. Great work from John D’oh.

6116. Leonard Lane (46)

Man-X, Leonard Lane, Bristol, June 2024
Man-X, Leonard Lane, Bristol, June 2024

My sister and brother-in-law had a wonderful West Highland white terrier, or Westie as they are commonly known, called Jessie, who died a little over a year ago at a ripe old age. She was very sweet, and although I didn’t much like dogs when they first got her, I did warm to her over the years. When I saw this beautiful little stencil at the entrance of Leonard Lane by Man-X, my mind immediately turned to Jessie.

Man-X, Leonard Lane, Bristol, June 2024
Man-X, Leonard Lane, Bristol, June 2024

I believe that Man-X AKA Alix Lemetayer is a French stencil artist, but I can find little more information about him. This is a lovely stencil, so full of personality, and captures the animal perfectly. I believe that he may have placed another stencil in the Lane during his visit to Bristol, which I think I missed when I found this Westie, so I rather need to go back. Dogs and stencils, what’s not to love?

6115. Moon Street (106)

Goin, Moon Street, Bristol, June 2024
Goin, Moon Street, Bristol, June 2024

Ooh! This is a superb ‘extra’ stencil piece painted by Goin while he was in Bristol for Upfest. It is pieces like this that separate out the ‘circuit muralists’ from the everyday street artists. Although Goin is often a featured artist at paint festivals, he likes to paint on the streets too, which is something I like and appreciate.

Goin, Moon Street, Bristol, June 2024
Goin, Moon Street, Bristol, June 2024

This is a telling stencil piece, and I don’t think that you need to be a genius to work out what is going on. A soldier is pointing his rifle at a tiny ladybird, and the latter obviously doesn’t stand a chance in this contest. There are many ways of protesting against war, and this piece from Goin is a very powerful image making the point. The red colour of the ladybird in a strange way offers some hope and beauty to this horrific scene. Thank you Goin for this wonderful gift to Bristol.

6092. Upfest 2024 (19)

Karl Read, West Street, Upfest 24, Bristol, May 2024
Karl Read, West Street, Upfest 24, Bristol, May 2024

Karl Read is something of a regular at Upfest, which is a great thing, and with each passing festival his work gets better and better. Painted over a stunning piece by Irony (one of my favourite of all time) cannot have been easy, but what Karl Read has replaced it with is worthy of this spot.

Karl Read, West Street, Upfest 24, Bristol, May 2024
Karl Read, West Street, Upfest 24, Bristol, May 2024

Karl Read uses large stencils for his work, and certainly in the past I have seen him struggle in windy conditions, but he has absolutely nailed his technique in this piece. The contrast between the black and white figures and the colourful peace sign made out of ‘Lego’ building blocks is a clever mechanism to bring focus to different parts of the work. The message is a poignant one in a troubled landscape of conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine. This is a stunning stencil from a great artist.

Irony, West Street, Bristol, October 2021, Upfest 21
Irony, West Street, Bristol, October 2021, Upfest 21