Peanutsdeli, Cumberland Bassin, Bristol, August 2024
Who Framed Roger Rabbit was the theme for Chapter 16 of World Wall Stylers, and the Bristol graffiti writing and street art community went to town (toon town). This is a remarkable piece by Peanutsdeli, who doesn’t live in Bristol, but visits often enough to be part of the gang.
Peanutsdeli, Cumberland Bassin, Bristol, August 2024
Peanutsdeli’s work adopts the manga cartoon style, and here he fuses that with characters from Roger Rabbit, with the chief protagonist himself and a manga Baby Herman. Peanutsdeli sticks to the brief really well in terms of content and colour, contributing fabulously to this wall.
Snug One, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2023, Sherborne Place Car Park, Cheltenham, July 2024
I took these pictures at this year’s Cheltenham festival, although the first image featuring an extraordinary piece by Smug One is from the Cheltenham Paint Festival 2023. I managed to catch up with Smug One as he was finishing off this stag beetle piece “Monarch of the End”, but rain was forecast and he was rather agitated that he might not be able to complete it before it came. I often present Cheltenham pieces a year late, because many are incomplete at the time of my visiting the festival, and I tend to only visit once a year. This is a magnificent piece.
Benzi Brofman, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, North Place car park, Cheltenham, July 2024
I don’t know Benzi Brofman at all, but I rather like this irreverent take on family life with the line “Being normal is boring”. The sentiment of the picture taps into the subversive nature of street art and I rather like it.
LPVDA, Cheltenham Paint Festival 2024, Swindon Road, Cheltenham, July 2024
I also don’t know the French? artist LPVDA but his Instagram feed is fascinating. It looks like he creates his work using an angle grinder, etching out images on wooden ‘canvases’. The effect is stunning and it is amazing how he achieves depth and tone just by altering the depth of his grinding.
Benjimagnetic is a Bristol artist who tends to paint regularly but not frequently, if that makes any sense. So there is a constant drum beat of his work appearing often enough that he doesn’t fall off the radar.
Benjimagnetic, St Werburghs, Bristol, August 2024
This is a nice piece at the entrance to the tunnel, which is so characteristic of his unique style. The letters spell out BEN and are notable more for what isn’t there than what is. Benjimagnetic tends to avoid using solid or decorative fills for his letters, so what you are left with is the architecture of writing which creates these magnificent pieces full of lines and structures. This is a lovely tight piece from the artist.
You might have seen several references in the past to World Wall Stylers, and wondered what it is all about. Essentially, it is a global street art collaboration event, organised through Instagram, setting a theme which artists can adopt, paint and photograph, tagging @worldwallstylers in their own Instagram feeds. It is a way of showing off your style to a large urban art community and observing other artist’s impressions on the same theme. This month is chapter 16 of World Wall Stylers and the theme is the film ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’.
Fade and Dibz, Dean Lane, Bristol, August 2024
Fade and Dibz have collaborated in this Roger Rabbit piece in what I would call a fusion collaboration where both artists will have contributed to all parts of the piece, in spite of the letters spelling out FADE. The character in this piece was called Smart Guy, one of five weasel characters belonging to the Toon Patrol. Brilliant work from the pair and a prompt to dig out the movie and re-watch it sometime.
Usually when I photograph collaborative work, especially from the PWA crew, I tend to post all of the pieces together, which risks a little, the dilution of impact of each of the contributing artists. Sometimes I like to decouple the collaboration to be able to concentrate on a single piece and this is what I have done with this fine cartoon piece by Chill.
Chill, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2024
This piece by Chill was painted as part of the celebratory paint jam for Werm’s birthday, an event that generates a great turnout every year. Chill has come on such a long way over the last few years and his cartoon-style character pieces betray his tattoo artist background, with strong clear black (ink) outlines and interesting designs. He also includes some ornamentation, usually little birds and greenery, but here in the form of skulls with plasma bursts emanating from them. This is a great example of Chill’s fabulous work.
Abbie Laura Smith, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2024
I am getting close to the end of the latest batch of wonderful paste-ups by Abbie Laura Smith, and genuinely can’t wait for her next release, which might not be for a while as I imagine it probably takes quite a lot of time to draft and assemble her wheatpaste pieces, and to find suitable locations for them too.
Abbie Laura Smith, Cumberland Basin, Bristol, August 2024
This is another amazing portrait piece in black and white, where large parts of the face and hair are taken up with words, which might be lyrics to a song, but I haven’t yet deciphered them. I can read some of the phrases, but when I Google them I don’t get anything that makes sense. I will keep trying. This is the skill of ALS’ pieces, they ask questions and create curiosity. Clever and beautiful stuff.
This is the second piece by Butch that I have found and posted and I am very much hoping to find and share a whole bunch more. I like this kind of writing a lot, I am not sure why. The letters cascade down from left to right, increasing in size as you traverse along. The fills are interesting and unconventionally but effectively applied.
Butch, Greenbank, Bristol, August 2024
PLB (Placebo) are an interesting crew of artists, managing to keep below the radar, enjoying their anonymous status, unlike many other artists and crews in Bristol. Butch has used the ‘rivet’ look which makes the letters look like metal plates bolted together. The whole thing would look better with a bit of background or a buffed wall, but I have a feeling that is not Butch’s style.
Annika Pixie, Jee See and Pekoe, St Werburghs, Bristol, August 2024
As well as being a year when so many new artists have started painting in Bristol it has also been a period of collaboration. Whilst collaborations have always been a thing, I think that I have seen an increase in the number of them and a mixing up of collaborators, with new friendships and partnerships being formed or old ones renewed. This is an eclectic collaboration of styles from Annika Pixie, Jee See and Pekoe.
Annika Pixie, St Werburghs, Bristol, August 2024
To the left, the ephemeral portrait style of Annika Pixie is a welcome return to the streets of Bristol, along with a piece in Brunel Way (to come). I am not sure where she has been for the last few years, but it is a pleasure to see her unique pieces appearing once again. Mysterious as ever, the portrait is quite beautiful and haunting, painted with a lightness of touch that is Annika Pixie’s trademark.
Jee See, St Werburghs, Bristol, August 2024
In the middle Jee See presents us with his customary SEISMIC writing and accompanies it with a little demonic figure and the name Mr Nobody next to it. I’ll be honest and say that I don’t really know what is going on in this piece, but I have always liked his work and know to expect the unexpected.
Pekoe, St Werburghs, Bristol, August 2024
To the right a rather more familiar portrait piece from Pekoe rounds off the collaboration. The wonderful portrait, complete with amazing bunches (is that what they are called? – I am no expert in hairstyles) is accompanied by the magnificent words Pekoe has used before “Hot girls hate fascists”. It is noticeable that her work appears to be more joyful than it has been in the past, and I wonder whether this reflects the artist’s disposition in any way.
Doors 277 – Doors of Nottingham (Part II), UK, March 2024
Last week’s doors of Nottingham seemed to go down rather well. What I like about visiting urban centres in the UK, is there seems to be a lack of uniformity of architecture. Some ancient buildings survived the bombing of the second world war and these are often found cheek by jowl with buildings of multiple periods right up to the modern day. It makes for an eclectic collection of doors (and doorways – as some of the doors have been replaced) through history.
This is an un-themed random set of doors that I encountered in Nottingham back in March this year presented in the order in which I found them. I hope you enjoy them.
I realise that I haven’t been reading and commenting on other people’s blog posts for a couple of weeks, which is a bit rude of me and for which I apologise. I have been ultra-busy, but hope to get back into a rhythm before too long.
Mills Buildings doors and gate (reproduction Ant Nouveau?) Nottingham, March 2024
Big door, little door, Nottingham, March 2024
Grey door and steps, Nottingham, March 2024
Black door with solid ‘statement’ surround, Nottingham, March 2024
Red door with ornate panelling and stonework, Nottingham, March 2024
Black door with awning and incorporated window, Nottingham, March 2024
Old wooden door with studs in a brick wall, Nottingham, March 2024
So that’s it from Nottingham this week. There is one more selection from Nottingham which I will post next time. Wishing you a happy weekend.
If you have made it this far, you probably like doors, and you really ought to take a look at the No Facilities blog by Dan Anton who has taken over the hosting of Thursday Doors from Norm 2.0 blog. Links to more doorscursions can be found in the comments section of Dan Anton’s Thursday Doors post.
Natural adventures 