I have always liked the work of Object… and his unswerving political ideology that cuts through all of his work. In this small piece in The Bearpit his message is clear ‘Plant more, chop less…’.
I am not too sure what the figure in this work represents, it looks a little like an alien to me. However I subscribe to the overall sentiment.
Sirens has this great way of combining the natural world with hard-edged urban landscapes. The result is the creation of beautiful pieces, often full of colour and strangely optimistic. Often, these kinds of urban landscapes can be dull depressing affairs, but Sirens brings out the best from these imagined environments.
In this piece the eye is drawn past a crimson sky to a crane (Sirens loves cranes – or so he says on his Instagram). On the cab of the crane is a reference to Team Robbo, which would appear to be a tribute to a friend. His Instagram feed says “you might be gone but your work will live on with us it touched, we miss you king Robbo”.
Sirens just keeps those sunsets coming.
I am really enjoying the direction that Lemak is taking his work in at the moment, and even better, he is pasting up his fragmented stencils in The Bearpit. I am not sure exactly how he produces these works, but I think they start with stencil work followed by a printing process before finally being pasted up.
This particular magnificent piece can be found on one of the staircases leading down into The Bearpit from the northern side. It is a sophisticated portrait of a girl wearing a native North American headdress, part in sepia and part in colour. The segments are arranged on the wall, and our brain fills in the gaps so that we see the full piece when we look at it.
I cannot really express how much I like this piece and the original art Lemak is turning out at the moment. Well worth a trip to The Bearpit.
This is a wall that has required a bit of a makeover, having had a rather tired piece on it for a couple of years now. Of course, who should come along to spruce it up a bit…NEVERGIVEUP, who is becoming a bit of a presence in The Bearpit.
It is another monster to join his previous recent works, and is really rather nicely sprayed. The way he marks the detail using black lines on the underside of the tongue and the surface of the skin of the monster have an illustration quality and is a rather different technique to ones I have seen before. A good piece.
Another picture long-lost in my archives and by an artist I have not come across before or since. This striking skull down in The Bearpit is by Wires, whose Instagram profile reads – ‘designer | artist | illustrator | flash painter | skateboarder | Bristol’. I don’t think he takes to the walls too often, which is a pity, as his style is rather unique and interesting.
The piece has a Tattoo design quality about it, even the colours are reminiscent of the shades of the inks used. It would be great to see more of his work in Bristol, but I think I’ll have to keep my eyes peeled.
It would appear that NEVERGIVEUP, or nevergiveup familia as he tags himself, is making a takeover bid for The Bearpit. I would think that he probably has about seven or eight pieces down there at the moment, and they are not getting tagged. How he is managing to do this, I don’t know.
This is one of his series of monsters – he appears to have moved on from bunnies. I like the way that he is moving about from idea to idea, and I also like the way he is saturating the area, a bit like Laic217 was doing before. I am sure that at some point he will move back to Dean Lane or maybe try to spray in some new places. It is the succession of pieces and artists that makes writing about street art in Bristol so much fun to do.
I took these pictures a while ago, but have always had the intention of posting them. First though I had to do a bit of homework. The piece appeared in The Bearpit back in January 2017, and was not by any of the artists I am familiar with.
The work itself is on the face of it quite simple, featuring a key, a knife, a feather and some twigs. Once you step back, you will notice the whole thing spells out LOVE…there is a lot of thought and symbolism in this and it is a much more complex piece than one might think on first inspection.
The colours of the piece , whether accidental or deliberate, are significant because the red white and green are the colours of the Italian flag and the artist Riky Boy comes from Milan. I am guessing he was passing through Bristol and left us a present, because I haven’t seen any of his work here since.
Looking at his Instagram account, it would seem that the ‘key’ motif is one he uses a lot, and would appear to have some deeper significance for the artist. I find this work and other pieces I have seen online rather intriguing. Riky Boy’s style is quite unique and raw, but there is a great deal of emotion and intellegence behind his work. A really satisfying find.
Another old one from the archive dating back to January 2017. This is a really great semi-abstract piece from the hugely talented Mr Klue. In this piece he uses his favoured colour scheme of purples and blues and incorporates a vanishing point around which the whole work focuses.
I like his work very much, but haven’t seen too much of it on the streets lately – in fact the most recent piece I saw was the one he did for Upfest.
I look forward to more of his work on the streets of Bristol. I hope I don’t have to wait too long.
On the north steps dropping down into The Bearpit there is this wonderful new piece from Lemak. It is a wheatpaste of a complex multi-layered stencil. I love the original work Lemak is producing at the moment, confining partial images within geometric shapes, with much of the image hidden beyond the confines of the boundaries, leaving much to the imagination.
It is a piece that is in a similar vein to the one he produced for Upfest this year (to follow). I am sure that many busy pedestrians miss this, as they trundle into The Bearpit buried in their thoughts or mobile phones. It is a little bit camouflaged by all the scrawls and tags around it, and only seems to jump out at you once you have spotted it.
Another fine piece from the brilliant Lemak.
Object… has been busy in The Bearpit again, with a flurry of political pieces. This one cleverly uses the existing posters that were pasted to the wall as a colourful and contextual backdrop to his central piece.
This is a really good piece, creative and imaginative, and always with an edge that we expect from Object… . The character is imprisoned in a circle and encouraged with the words ‘push past their walls’.
There is a strong feeling of movement and momentum in this piece and it works really well for me, but it would, wouldn’t it?
Natural adventures 