Mr Draws is definitely not a one trick pony, and although he enjoys writing his name a lot (well who doesn’t?), he also comes up with some other creative ideas, such as this pair of doughnuts dressed up in his ‘house’ style.
I have always liked his work, which has featured numerous times in Natural Adventures, but these special pieces really stand out, rather like the trainer he did in The Bearpit last year. Great fun stuff.
Every once in a while, this spot gets some TLC which it surely deserves especially as much of the stuff that appears here is not great or gets tagged within an instant. This is one half of a collaborative session from Sepr (to follow) and Epok.
The piece was sprayed as an end of year celebration to see out 2018 (good riddance) and welcome in 2019. A sensational colour selection and all the hallmarks of a classic Epok piece – I love it to pieces.
One of my favourite pieces of 2018 was this lovely collaboration by Soap and Face 1st. It is one of those collaborations that is more of a proximity of work, rather than a true collaborative merger.
I must have driven past it hundreds of times thinking that I really must stop and take a picture, but it is close to a road junction and there are very limited parking opportunities. The left hand side is by Soap and is one of his most regularly used designs in a nice metallic silver. The tongues are particularly nice with the purple tinge.
It is the Face 1st piece though that is in my view outstanding. I do so much like his full figurine, and every time I see her, she seems just that bit more special. In this piece it is her hair that is so captivating, and the blue spotted bow. Her eye lashes too are extraordinary. When I spoke with Face 1st not long after he had painted this lady, he told me it was one of his favourites too.
A beautiful lady.
When an artist augments another’s work and it is done well it is both skilful and diplomatic. In this instance, 3Dom has added a fantasy abstract seascape to a remarkable turtle originally painted by Louis Masai a couple of years back.
3Dom seems to have undergone something of an epiphany recently and is creating some really interesting abstract work at the moment, fantasy scenes that feel familiar but that are utterly imaginary, like the sea bed here. I believe that 3Dom’s work has in some way added to Louis Masai’s work in a sensitive and dignified way. Definitely a case of the sum of the parts being greater than the individual components. Brilliant new work, giving a new lease of life to the wall.
Regular readers might recognise this as the work of the wonderful talent that is Kleiner Shames. His colour palette and the shapes of his letters are very distinctive, and if that is not enough to go on, the letters FOIS should give it away.
Such sights are a bit of a rarity in Bristol these days since the artist trundled off to london to find his fortune, but I guess he still hankers after the old city of Bristol and makes these occasional trips and marks them with fine pieces like this one. I find his letters very calming and gentle and aesthetically pleasing. Nothing jars. Always a genuine pleasure to find one of these.
Back to things more contemporary now with this interesting recent piece by Laic217 in Moon Street. There is an interesting quality to this piece which is more about what is not included than what is. No face and no colour on the hat and track suit top.
Even though a lot of what Laic217 paints appears to be formulaic, or at the very least incorporating similar themes, each of his pieces is highly original, and I’m not quite sure how he achieves that.
It is great to see him back spraying in what I guess must be one of his favourite streets and what is certainly mine.
With this wheatpaste we enter the complicated world of large corporates ripping off the work of street artists to use as a backdrop for marketing their goods without acknowledgement or payment to the artists. This is a long-standing and difficult issue and one that is becoming more of a conflict zone as street art becomes more and more popular. This article on the BBC website explains it really well.
Face the Strange and many other artists ran a campaign highlighting a particularly high-profile marketing strategy by clothing company BooHoo after they had featured work by Bristol’s own SPZero76 and Kid Crayon amongst others on some London walls without bothering to identify or contact the artists. It is clear from this paste up that this kind of corporate behaviour is unpopular and that payments/acknowledgment should be made to the artists.
This is a minefield if you venture into it too far, so I tend to keep to the periphery of the discussion, for example it has the potential to bring legal protection of potentially illegal activity and how do we square that one? I just wish people would treat others with respect and decency, I think that is all most people are expecting.
I am really taken with this piece and could look at it all day, there is something I find most engaging about it…perhaps it sings to the biologist in me. The artist Decimart is from Jerez de la Frontera in Spain and appears to travel around for his work.
I am most pleased that I managed to get pictures of the piece at different stages of its development, but am sorry that I missed out on meeting the artist himself. This was a particularly tricky spot to work in, especially on the Saturday, because of the high winds that funneled through this space. In fact some of the boards, including this one, had to be secured more firmly in place or they would have blown away.
In spite of the wind and rain, Decimart has managed to produce one of my favourite pieces of the festival. I would dearly love to see him make a return in the future.
I have just taken a good long hard look at this piece by Harpoart prior to writing about it and the thing that screamed out at me was how much this looks like a stained-glass window study. It turns out on doing a little research on the Interweb that he is not only a street artist, but is also a stained glass maker.
Harpoart has created this stunning owl, at least I think it is an owl, on an approach, set on a wonderfully textured blue background. There is a lovely sense of movement about the piece.
I’m not sure that I have seen any of this Brighton artist’s work before, I don’t think so, but perhaps I should make a mental note to make a trip to Brighton some day.
What a clever juxtaposition is presented to us by Spanish artist Sr.X in this piece that shows Joseph Stalin painted in a period propaganda pose, holding Mickey Mouse in his hands. Surely these represent two opposite ends of the political spectrum and what fun to squeeze them together like this.
I like Sr.X’s work and have not long ago posted an enormous work by him in Shoreditch. I am surprised that he was allocated such a tiny board for Upfest 2018 and would hope that maybe sometime in the future he gets to paint one of the bigger festival walls. All good.
Natural adventures 