Tag: The Bearpit

712. The Bearpit (55)

It is funny how you can miss things. This is a piece in The Bearpit by Laic217 that he did a little while back, but which I hadn’t seen because it is on a different approach than the one I normally use.

Laic217, The Bearpit, Bristol, March 2017
Laic217, The Bearpit, Bristol, March 2017

It is an interesting piece because it is overtly critical of stencil art. It is quite unusual to see this kind of commentary about artists by artists, but obviously it is something Laic 217 feels strongly about. On his Instagram feed he says he hates stencil graffiti, and when pressed says that in his opinion it is cheating and being lazy. Only free hand for Laic217. It is not a sentiment I necessarily agree with.

Laic217, The Bearpit, Bristol, March 2017
Laic217, The Bearpit, Bristol, March 2017

The piece itself is a bit surreal and menacing…I guess that is the intention. Laic217 does like the use of skulls in his pieces and has a dark side to many of his pieces. It is possible that he is trying to be humorous in this piece, but I don’t think it quite makes the mark. Nonetheless, I like the artwork from this very busy artist.

 

711. The Bearpit (54)

It is always nice to see fresh new pieces before they get dogged or tagged, and in The Bearpit, you need to be quick. DBK (Dirty Bristol Kids) will not let work hang around too long before tagging over it. Some pieces are left alone, and I would love to know the criteria they use behind which they tag and which they leave.

Decay, The Bearpit, Bristol, March 2017
Decay, The Bearpit, Bristol, March 2017

This is a really nice abstract piece by Decay set on a pink background. The piece is a masterclass in drips, you’ll not get them much better than this. To those of you who don’t get to see a lot of street art, there is a ‘thing’ going on about drips. They are a deliberate part of the work and take a lot of skill to do.

Decay, The Bearpit, Bristol, March 2017
Decay, The Bearpit, Bristol, March 2017

This is, I think, a really great piece from Decay, and worth a trip down to the Bearpit…if it is still there.

Decay, The Bearpit, Bristol, March 2017
Decay, The Bearpit, Bristol, March 2017

697. The Bearpit (53)

Ah! what joy to see one of the Bristol favourites back in his home town. Mau Mau is an established artist who features a crafty and irreverent fox in most of his works. I haven’t seen much new stuff in Bristol, so it was great to see this a week or so ago. A skateboarding fox with a bit of attitude.

Mau Mau, The Bearpit, Bristol, March 2017
Mau Mau, The Bearpit, Bristol, March 2017

The last work I saw from Mau Mau was in Camden Town in London during the summer (yet to be posted), and I felt that he really ought to be doing more in Bristol. Well here it is, and it is beautifully done too. It is hard not to like a fox, isn’t it?

696. The Bearpit (52)

It is always great to see a new Tom Miller piece, and this is a wall he has favoured in the past. I can’t keep up with this particular wall, and have some pieces that have never made it to the blog. Maybe if I was retired…

Tom Miller, The Bearpit, Bristol, March 2017
Tom Miller, The Bearpit, Bristol, March 2017

This work has all the hallmarks of a Miller piece; body parts bursting with a suffusion of colour and ‘imaginite’ – the way thoughts might look if they could be painted. There is a little story going on here, chasing after love perhaps. I would like to think it is a happy picture and not a morose or sad one. I really am a big fan of Tom Miller’s work.

Tom Miller, The Bearpit, Bristol, March 2017
Tom Miller, The Bearpit, Bristol, March 2017

695. The Bearpit (51)

This is a remarkable and really well sprayed piece on one of the stairways of The Bearpit by Deamze. Quite often Deamze will write his name or some other word and incorporate a cartoon character. This time he has really gone to town, and been a little political too (which of course I love).

Deamze, The Bearpit, Bristol, March 2017
Deamze, The Bearpit, Bristol, March 2017

His chosen characters, Dennis the Menace and Minnie the Minx are from the famous British comic strip the Beano. Deamze has recreated these with absolute perfection.

Deamze, The Bearpit, Bristol, March 2017
Deamze, The Bearpit, Bristol, March 2017

The whole piece spells out ‘exist resist’ and carries the taglines ‘question authority’ and ‘Government is theft’. I have a feeling that the unending austerity, pressure on schools and the health service, compounded by the significant economic impacts that leaving the EU will impose, will lead to a great deal of protest in this country in the coming years. I hope future protests will be as peaceful and colourful as this.

Deamze, The Bearpit, Bristol, March 2017
Deamze, The Bearpit, Bristol, March 2017

I cannot say enough good things about this piece. The location is also well thought out, to be able to accommodate the long words but also with a footfall of predominantly sympathetic eyes passing it every day.

Deamze, The Bearpit, Bristol, March 2017
Deamze, The Bearpit, Bristol, March 2017

It is work like this that makes my pleasure a pleasure.

 

 

 

686. The Bearpit (50)

The Bearpit is probably the most productive street art spot in Bristol. It has four subways and stairways so there is a great deal of wall space in this central location. In any week there could be as many as twenty new pieces, but typically it might be five or six. This piece from Jee See appeared after a weekend when quite a few artists descended into the pit for a bit of a session.

Jee See, The Bearpit, Bristol, January 2017
Jee See, The Bearpit, Bristol, January 2017

This is something rather different from Jee See. I am used to seeing his ‘seismic’ burners and his stencils of girls with ‘castro’ hats, but I’ve not seen piece like this before. I rather like it, even if the subject matter has a rather dark undertone to it.

685. The Bearpit (49)

This nice piece by SPZero76 was painted a few weeks back in the company of Cheba (the galactic bits to the left of the piece) and Kid Crayon whose pieces I have very recently posted.

 

SPZero76, The Bearpit, Bristol, February 2017
SPZero76, The Bearpit, Bristol, February 2017

I am beginning to think the animal I keep calling a raccoon might actually be a dog. I say this because Raccoons aren’t really a part of our British wildlife assemblage, so why would he feature one in his works? Yup it is a dog. As an aside, it makes me laugh when Hollywood movies, purporting to be set in England, make the terrible mistake of featuring raccoons (identifiable to an American audience, but a complete mystery to us Brits). One such movie was the recent 101 Dalmations live remake. Look out for it.

SPZero76, The Bearpit, Bristol, February 2017
SPZero76, The Bearpit, Bristol, February 2017

I’m not too sure who the ‘space lady’ is in this piece, but I like it that she has a spray can, just like so many of his characters do.

 

683. The Bearpit (48)

This was a quick one by Mr Draws in The Bearpit. Mr Draws is another Bristol street artist who is hitting something of a purple patch in terms of productivity. I had always assumed that the Winter and early Spring were not particularly busy times for street/graffiti artists, but that has not been the case this year. I wonder if some of that is attributable to the relatively dry winter period we have had this year.

Mr Draws, The Bearpit, Bristol, March 2017
Mr Draws, The Bearpit, Bristol, March 2017

So we come back to mountains by Mr Draws, although these are a little more stylised than some of his previous peaks. If I were to be critical I would say that this looks like it was done really quickly. I remain, however very fond of his pieces…they are so different from the norm, and easily identifiable.

682. The Bearpit (47)

Following on then from the previous post, this is the piece that Kid Crayon created to cover up the one he had been unhappy with just a few days before. This is something more familiar altogether from the Bristol regular.

Kid Crayon, The Bearpit, Bristol, February 2017
Kid Crayon, The Bearpit, Bristol, February 2017

The piece that this replaced was had been sprayed at the same time as a piece on the adjacent wall by SPZero76, and it really does seem that these two do like painting together. I also note that he references the ‘EAT crew’. I am guessing that this is what these two artists call themselves when they spray together, and would explain a recent collaboration posted here a few days ago.

Kid Crayon, The Bearpit, Bristol, February 2017
Kid Crayon, The Bearpit, Bristol, February 2017

This is back to the familiar style of Kid Crayon, but it seems as though he has abandoned the floating crayon, which I think is a pity as it was part of his USP. I like this piece though.

681. The Bearpit (46)

When I first found this piece in The Bearpit, it felt somehow familiar, but it was unsigned and I wasn’t sure who the artist was. A bit of a google search threw up nothing. It wasn’t until another piece went up over it a few days later that I found out who it was by.

Kid Crayon, The Bearpit, Bristol, February 2017
Kid Crayon, The Bearpit, Bristol, February 2017

It is quite an unusual piece by Kid Crayon, but contains none of his tell-tale features – no crayon, no blue faces, no signature. It turns out that he didn’t like it much and went over it with another piece a few days later, and my next post is about that newer work.

Kid Crayon, The Bearpit, Bristol, February 2017
Kid Crayon, The Bearpit, Bristol, February 2017

I am a big fan of Kid Crayon, and have to say that I quite like this enigmatic piece, and in one small way I am disappointed that I discovered the mystery behind it. I thought we were witnessing the emergence of a new artist on the streets of Bristol.