.
Those extra seedlings
in waiting and unplanted
forlorn also rans
.
by Scooj
Tag: UK
3035. Brunel Way bridge (41)
Possibly the most difficult piece I have tried to photograph. This is a magnificent column piece by the wonderful Skor85 who organised a small paint jam last weekend under Brunel Way. She had invited various folks along via FB Messenger and so I was able to get along and get some WIP pictures.
Before I say anything else, I have to share that Skor85 is without doubt the nicest and most enthusiastic street artist I know and when I arrived she made me feel so welcome and seemed genuinely pleased to see me, which after months of lock down felt really good.
Her piece is all about balance, equality and unity which is an understandable theme in these troubling and uncertain times. Two fish sitting on a set of balance scales illustrate this theme and remind me a little of Al Gore’s film ‘Inconvenient Truth’ where he puts the earth and money on either side of a scale and poses the question ‘which is more important’. I digress.
Skor85, Brunel Way, Bristol, June 2020
Skor85, Brunel Way, Bristol, June 2020
Skor85 has a lovely touch to her artwork that almost looks like brush strokes rather than spraycan art. I have always liked her work and can’t wait to see more as the summer unfolds.
3034. Cattle Market Road (1)
This is one of five new pieces on Cattle Market Road on the previously blank hoardings that are on the southern perimeter of the development site behind Templemeads Station that should have been Bristol’s new concert venue. The session from a week ago was co-ordinated by The Hass and the opportunity arose through Out of Hand.
This extraordinary piece is by Sled One and is a welcome return by the artist – I believe this to be his first piece in the city since lock down measures were eased. The outstanding piece tells the story of the site, from a cattle market to the chaotic development site it has become, illustrated by a wrecking ball crashing across the piece on a gold chain. The cow, or more accurately bull, is looking a little crazy and is part of the narrative that recalls that when the place was a cattle holding space a bull escaped and terrorised the locals. As you would expect from the artist, this is an imaginative piece full of movement and wonder. First class (a little reference to the Royal Mail/Parcelforce buildings that were derelict/knocked down to create this development opportunity).
Gathering clouds
.
Centralising all
Whitehall communications
mimicking POTUS
time for all to be worried
an absence of scrutiny
.
by Scooj
… on the news that Dominic Cummings, er, (coughs) I mean Boris Johnson is going to centralise (control) all government communications departments so that instructions (news) can be given direct to the public, avoiding media (and therefore scrutiny), also involving many job losses. He wants to start holding Presidential style daily news conferences with hand picked journalists, who will be barred if they cause trouble. This is all leading the country in a very troubling direction, and what is most worrying is that these moves (‘sacking’ of Sir Mark Sedwill, Head of the Civil Service, removal of treasury advisors, merging of DFID with the Foreign Office) are happening while the nation is distracted with coronavirus or EU exit and so on.
well we voted for this as a nation so we will have to suffer the far-reaching consequences. The damage that is being done to honour, credibility, decency, openness, transparency, capacity and competency of our parliamentary system and governance is incalculable. Once again hard working decent folk will pay for it and have to pick up the pieces.
I reject Cummings and his cabinet. They do not represent me or have the best interests of The Many in this country. Well with the Mekon (DC) in charge what do you expect.
3033. Dean Lane skate park (329)
So many artists have has a creative rush since the easing of lock down and one of them is Dibz. Ordinarily you’d be lucky to see a new Dibz piece once every two months or so, but I have seen three in the last month of which this is one.
Dibz is a precision graffiti writer. I have never seen anything by him that isn’t really tight, clean and crisp and I have never to my knowledge seen a throw up from him. This is a very classy piece of writing with a beautifully graded fill from dark red through to orange and yellow. The slim yellow edging on the upper sides of the letters creates a lifting effect. This is a piece for connoisseurs.
3032. M32 Cycle path (63)
There are some artists whose work I enjoy finding more than others. Is that normal? I guess it is. It doesn’t mean I don’t like the others, on the contrary I pretty much tend to like them all, but some just some give me that special feeling of excitement for whatever reason. One of these artists is Daz Cat.
I found this unusual piece on the M32 cycle path next to one from painting companion Kool Hand. This cat looks a little worse for wear, judging from his expression and the long neck is a clever mechanism for getting the whole thing into a landscape format. Some lovely touches on the cat’s jumper and an all-round winning piece.
Fuddy-duddy
.
Self-proclamation
wincing at ‘gotten’ not ‘got’
… you Americans!
.
by Scooj
3031. M32 roundabout J3 (225)
I can’t remember when I last saw a new piece from Ments, but it is quite some time ago. The word I always use to describe his work is ‘organic’ and it most definitely applies to this recent piece on the M32 roundabout.
This is a delicate piece that feels rather ephemeral, and is so unlike the work of more conventional graffiti writers. It is quite hard to make out the letters MENTS, but I assure you they are there. This is an accomplished piece painted with great skill, however it isn’t my favourite work by the artist, something feels a little unbalanced about it… I am though, being hyper-critical because it is actually very, very good.
3030. Frome side (3)
I had an interesting virtual discussion recently with Paul H about what to call graffiti writers when you write about them or post on Instagram/Facebook. I tend to call them by the name that they write, so SOKER is Soker, RUSK is Rusk and so on. However every now and again, especially when writing for the first time I might use their Intstagram handle, which Paul tends to use more.
The problem with both is that some artists have a habit of either changing the letters they write (Dasco is doing this at the moment, although he is in Spain) or changing their Instagram accounts. The point is that intuitively I would have called this artist NESK, but because I was with Paul when I saw this beautiful piece I am calling him by his Twitter name – Bazmataz.
This is an absolute beauty, whatever one calls the artist. The metallic effect, the stars, the 3D fill and the colours are all made to work hard to produce an outstanding piece. I will definitely be looking out for Bazmataz (Nesk) in future.
Thursday doors – 2 July 2020
Doors 113 – yep, you guessed it, some more archive street art doors.
I’ll not bore you with excuses. I’ve not had the time to photograph or prepare any new doors for you once again. I have had just about enough time to search out some I prepared earlier… much earlier – these ones first published in 2017/18:
Once again, that’s yer lot.
I have to try and find more time for Thursday doors, but these are busy days. Have a great weekend.
If you have made it this far, you probably like doors and you really ought to take a look at the Norm 2.0 blog – the originator of Thursday Doors where there are links to yet more doors in the comments section at the end.
by Scooj
Natural adventures 