Tag: Street art

969. Upfest 2017 (29)

In the middle of South Street park, this hoarding really stood out from the crowd. The amazing gorillas by Lélé stopped people in their tracks, and the colours used looked much better than these pictures portray. I only know what I read about Lélé in the Upfest programme notes, and that is that he was born in Brittany in 1987.


It would seem he was inspired to paint monkeys with his own graphic identity on his way back from a long trip to South America. Well, whatever his inspiration, I think this piece is really good, and I spent quite a lot of time looking at it during the spraying and afterwards. I’d like to see more of his work.

968. Upfest 2017 (27)

This is a wonderful and very large piece by Nol from this year’s Upfest, which was sprayed on the wall of a school next to South Street park. The thing about these walls in local schools is that they are only accessible during the festival. After that is only pupils, their parents and teachers that get to see them, which makes them rather exclusive.


Last year Nol worked with Edo Rath in the car park opposite the Tobacco Factory, but Edo couldn’t make it to Upfest this time so Nol had to work solo. Edo was there in spirit though, and just to make certain, Nol had attached a face mask of Edo to the lift platform…a nice touch.


This was a large undertaking, and it was something of an accomplishment by Nol to complete this wall over the three days, given the rain interruptions. I managed to catch up with him a couple of times and asked him how much pink paint this wall would take. He said that typically a can will cover about one square metre. He used seven cans of pink for this piece. That is a lot of paint.


The phrases ‘good things come to those who wait’ and ‘fortune favours the brave’ come to mind with this piece. During Upfest, I never got to see this piece completed, which actually happened with many of the pieces this year.  However I returned during the week after, and thought I’d see whether this piece was on view still to the public. It was not. But I just happened to be there at the exact time the contract firm were collecting the lift, and blagged my way into the school yard to take some pictures of the final piece. Such luck, and there were two other pieces I got to photograph as well.


This is a bold, fun and larger-than-life work, and ideal for a school playground. Nol is a gentleman who seemed happy to talk while he was working, and this is some wall.

967. Upfest 2017 (27)

On an advertising hoarding in North Street, there is this wonderful Losthills wheatpaste of Jake the dog posing as Yoda. The placement and writing make this piece just about perfect. I have said it before, that the placement of paste ups plays a major part in the impact they can have, and this one drew the attention of passers by, where others did not.


I am not sure who introduced the writing, whether it was Losthills or somebody else, but it sets the whole thing off really well, given the subject matter of the advertisement.


Losthills absolutely ‘nailed it’ at this Year’s Upfest, and I am looking forward to sharing a whole bunch more of his work in the coming months. Bravo.

966. Upfest (26)

This site on North Street has played host to some great street artists in recent years, including N4T4, Phil Blake, AgeAge, Caro Pepe and most recently a collaboration between Paul Monsters and Copyright. At Upfest this year, another wonderful piece was painted, this time by Brazilian artist Inke.


I had not heard of Inke before and chatted with him briefly on the Saturday of the festival. I think I must have utterly confused him, because I don’t think his English was too good, and my Portuguese is non-existent. I think I was blabbering on about the potential for a mix up with Inkie, the Bristol artist…an effort at trying to be humorous that fell a bit flat.


While he was spraying, the residents of the building emerged from their home, which all seemed a bit surreal. The piece itself took Inke quite a while to complete, and the rain certainly interrupted things. The final piece though I think is stunning, a really beautiful and exotic work.


The crab in the centre of the piece is sprayed in a bold floral pattern, but the shadows of the crab and its form are incredibly well presented. It reminds me a little of the way Louis Masai creates his quilted animals. Superb technique and one of my top pieces at Upfest 2017.

965. Moon Street (34)

I never thought I’d say this, but Laic217 has gone a little quiet of late, which is fine, because I have a bunch of his pieces to catch up on. Here is one from a while back in my favourite spot in Moon Street. This is also one of Laic217’s favoured locations.


This piece features things we would expect to see from his work: bucket hat; smiley; weed; melting face; brick wall. Somehow these all come together in a bold statement about some of the preoccupations the artist might have, as these are repeating motifs in his work…rather like bowler hats and apples in the work of Rene Magritte.


Another nice piece from Laic217.

964. Bond Street (1)

When Cheo and Soker get together, you can be sure you will be in for a treat, and so it is with this fabulous piece on Bond Street, as you drive out of Bristol city centre. The building that this Aardman piece appears on I think has been ‘repurposed’ recently, and this artwork may have coincided with that.


Previously the wall played host to a few throw ups and tags. Now we have a very large Wallace and Gromit by Cheo, atop a wonderful ‘Bristol’ from Soker. I’m not sure what the Duke at the to right refers to, and I have been a bit lazy about finding out more about this piece, which I presume is a commission or if not, permitted by the wall owner.


Since it went up, the piece has been partially obscured from the road by a tree in full leaf. Come the Autumn and Winter, many more people will become aware of it from the road as they pass by. This piece somehow represents the USP of Bristol in my eyes. Progressive animation and street art, a great match.

963. Dean Lane skate park (72)

This is the first time I have seen a rabbit and writing from Hire sprayed together at the same time. I think Hire likes to hang out at Dean Lane, as most of his recent pieces have been there. At first I wasn’t too sure that the writing was by Hire, because he usually spells out his name, but the style is his.


At first I wasn’t at all sure what the writing said, but there is a small clue at the bottom of the piece where it says ‘Anna’. Looking back up at the writing, it then becomes obvious. Is this an expression of admiration I wonder?


The rabbit is fantastic as I would expect, I do like his rabbits and am building up quite a collection of them. As a whole, the wall comes across as two discreet pieces, which is often how collaborations work, where two artists will spray together using the same paints, but there is no read-across from one to the other. I like this collaboration with himself.

962. Jamaica Street (11)

This wonderful group of radioactive deer is another ceramic delight from Chinagirl Tile that was left here on the eve of Upfest. I have said it many times before, but one of the biggest pleasures of Upfest for me is seeing an influx of new work from ‘out of town’ artists refreshing areas all over the city.


Chinagirl Tile told me about these deer at Upfest, and she said that the orange radioactive symbols on the deer rumps matched the wall, which was good fortune rather than design.


As always from her work we have an uneasy edge between nature and humanity. Radioactive deer are threatening, where deer are endearing. The galloping movement instills a feeling of panic or fear. In my view this is a very powerful piece.


Unfortunately some scoundrels had already tagged this piece by the time I got to it with blue markings on the deer faces. Annoying, but fortunately not so destructive that the piece is ruined. This is a ‘must see’ piece for anyone visiting Bristol.

961. Armada Place (11)

There are some well-worn hoardings in Armada Place which appear to be a favourite site for Thelochnessmonster. In my experience, much of what goes up here tends to get tagged or dogged pretty quickly, so it is always nice to get a complete piece.

Thelochnessmonster, Armada Place, Bristol, August 2017
Thelochnessmonster, Armada Place, Bristol, August 2017

Please don’t ask me what is going on in this piece, it looks complicated, but I think there is a protest behind it all somewhere. On his Instagram feed Thelochnessmonster labels the picture ‘back 2 basics’, which is a bit cryptic for those not in the know.

The use of so few colours works really well for this piece and he manages to blend characters with abstract shapes and squiggles with skill. I like the piece…it leaves me wanting to know more.

960. Wilder Street (18)

This is another little post-Upfest ‘gift’ this time from Hide2 in the Stokes Croft area of Bristol. It is one of three pieces on Wilder street, the others being from Aintzane Crucet and Deamze, courtesy of the curated wall from Where the Wall.

Hide2, Wilder Street, Bristol, August 2017
Hide2, Wilder Street, Bristol, August 2017

This is not Hide2’s Upfest piece, which will be posted in due course, but it is nonetheless a wonderful work of wildstyle writing and of a really high standard. The colour choices are excellent and definition and shadows in his lettering is highly accomplished.

Hide2 is based in Malaga, Spain and I highly recommend a quick look at his Instagram feed. All good.