It has been rather a long time since I saw anything from Eraze. There was a period when he used to do the odd piece in Dean Lane, but I can’t recall anything there for ages, so it was a nice surprise to see this in St Werburghs tunnel recently.
I am more familiar with his character pieces, but this is a fine bit of writing with bright colours on a black background. I rather like the white edging and the way it cuts into the letters. Altogether a rather uplifting and happy piece.
Well you have seen a couple of these now in recent posts, so you should be able to tell me the artist’s name. It is of course yet another sensational wheatpaste by French artist Tian who visited Bristol in early May, I think. Once again I am left uncertain who is featured in this stencil paste up, but the detail on the tattoo is incredible.
I absolutely love this one, not only for its technical brilliance, but also for the interesting pose and picture selected and more so the exact spot where the piece was pasted. A window that was already fairly heavily fly-posted and stickered is no dominated by this beautiful woman. One of my favourites of his great portfolio of work. Still many more to come.
A lovely artist who managed to stay under my radar until last year has become rather busy of late. I refer of course to Nightwayss whose pieces seem to focus around a monkey, either as the central character of a work or by reference.
In this piece Nightwayss has painted a wonderful monkey hanging by its tail and gently scooping at what looks like a large flower. The monkey is set on a black ‘NIGHT’, a great way to combine writing with a character. The modest colours and size of the whole thing emphasise its delicateness in the urban bustle of The Bearpit. I love this piece – a little oasis of peace and calm.
This remarkable and rather large piece adjacent to the M32 roundabout is one of Seven Saints of St Pauls, a project conceived by Bristol artist Michele Curtis to celebrate key people who shaped Bristol’s black community. This mural features Roy Hackett, a Jamaican, who arrived in Britain in 1952 and became co-founder of the Commonwealth Co-ordinated Committee (CCC) which was started 1962.
His story of employment in Liverpool, Wolverhampton, London and Bristol is fascinating. He went on to become one of the founders of the famous St Paul’s Festival and took part in the bus boycott in 1963 which protested against the bus company’s refusal to recruit black drivers or crews. This mural recognises Roy Hacketts part in this boycott. A wonderful history of Roy Hackett can be found in this Bristol Archive record.
The Paintsmiths are a group of artists who work on commissions, paint at events and support workshops, and include Felix Braun and Sled One. This piece, whichever way you look at is is utterly awesome and perfectly reflercts the amazing St Pauls community.
This is one of my favourite Smak pieces of the year so far, and my goodness there are a lot to choose from. This is another of his ‘double vision’ pieces where he has written SMAK twice and in this instance has played around with fonts and styles reminiscent of another brilliant graffiti writer, SkyHigh.
Often when photographing street art, I am confounded by parked cars or wheely bins that wind me up a treat. It is funny how I am somehow much more forgiving of a tree obscuring the art, although being a naturalist at heart it shouldn’t be a surprise. Wonderful piece by Smak on a great wall.
Earlier on this month, this fabulous Disney Robin Hood piece appeared in Dean Lane. I would have posted it sooner because it is a really classy work, but it has taken me a little while to uncover the artist. I would guess that I could probably identify about half of all the street/graffiti art I see in Bristol, which sounds good until you turn it around… I struggle with about half of it. Instagram and Google searches are my most valuable tools in finding out more about ‘unknown’ pieces, and in fact one of the reasons I started doing these posts is to help others facing the same difficulties and who simply want to know more. This I can confidently say is by Warp.
Warp, also known as Sam Giles Art and Design, is an artist whose work I haven’t consciously registered before, but whose name I am familiar with through Facebook. He works in Devon and Bristol and is a self-taught graffiti artist and designer. I think the letters here spell out SEBA and the whole piece is nicely executed with King John and Sir Hiss bookending the whole thing. Nice fun piece – I look forward to seeing more.
Other than promotional hoardings outside the Full Moon pub in Stokes Croft, I don’t think I have seen an Inkie piece since Upfest last July, so it was great to see this one on a Construction site deep in St Pauls. As one of the godfathers of Bristol street art, it is a pity that we don’t get to see as much of his work as we would probably like to, but I suppose the old maxim ‘treat em mean to keep em keen’ might apply here.
This piece is a blaze of colour, spelling out INKIE. Interestingly there isn’t any 3D effect on the lettering, which I would usually asssociate with his writing. I don’t think that this is the best piece I have seen from Inkie, but the bar is so very high, and I imagine that this was probably a ‘quick one’. Always great to find anything by this celebrated artist.
Another stunning piece for Upfest Summer Editions (in lieu of no festival this year) is this beautiful tiger by Bex Glover. Located on Raleigh Road on the wall of the Souk Kitchen and opposite the Tobacco Factory, this spot is highly sought after and one of the highlight walls for Upfest, so it is great to see Bex Glover having a presence here.
You may recall a recent piece she did near the Arches on Cheltenham Road, and if so you will recognise her distinctive style. Everything I have seen by her has a wildlife theme, and this one is no different, with a spectacular tiger set on a turquoise background with trees, foliage and birds. I particularly like the yin yang motif on the rear quarter of the tiger, if fact, I pretty much particularly like everything about this mural. There is a sense of peace and dignity in the work. Beautiful.
I got very lucky last weekend when I took the dog out for a ‘street art walk’ to Wilder Street and found Laic217 and Nightwayss painting together. The dog accompanies me quite a lot these days, poor thing, but is most patient when I stop to talk to the artists.
This is an absolutely fabulous piece by Laic217 who, in five years of writing about Bristol street art, I have only met once before. I stopped to ask him for a few tips about controlling the spray pressure coming from a can and other control techniques, and he was very kind with showing me a trick or two.
The completed piece is an upbeat summer special, complete with a beautiful pink shirt emblazoned with smiley faces. Unmistakably a Laic217 work with many of his trademark themes. So good, and so good to watch him at work.
Rezwonk is another street artist who seems to have found an extraordinary energy level this year, developing his writing in spots all over Bristol. This time he has produced a rather nice solo piece, but in recent weeks he has painted a lot in collaboration with Decay.
Here he spells out REZER, an obvious shortening of his ‘name’. It is an interesting moniker because the letters are quite harsh in capital form, lots of straight lines, in contrast for example with my own SCOOJ, which is much more curvy. I wonder if the names are directly or indirectly responsible for the development of a style… very probably.
This is a nice piece of writing, which sets me up nicely for a new piece of his that I photographed yesterday in Dean Lane that is outstanding, and which I will post in due course.
Natural adventures 