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Colonialism
bullying annexation
so last century
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by Scooj
Tag: UK
6812. Dean Lane skate park (814)
Although Dibz and Fade have had a reasonably quiet winter, they have still managed to get out frequently enough to collaborate on some very impressive walls. This wall is one of their favourites, and because of its shape requires them to paint closer together than some of the other longer walls they like to paint.
In this piece, they each get to showcase their style and technique, using different base colours. Stepping back you can see that Fade’s work, in yellow, has a slightly softer finish, with more curves, than the slightly less forgiving angles on the green writing by Dibz. I don’t know too much about the character in this piece, but I am guessing both artists contributed to it. Naturally there is lots more to come from these two.
6811. Sparke Evans Park (126)
Although he doesn’t appear to paint all that frequently, Dirtygypo has an instantly recognisable style. I have tried on several occasions to work out what his letters spell, and I have come to the conclusion that they say DIRTY, although I have little confidence in this. I guess I’ll just need to meet him while he is painting sometime.
The colour scheme adopted by Dirtygypo for this piece is elementary, but I have to say that the jade green background colour works very well indeed with the white letters. There are a couple of splashes of lime green and yellow around the edges that add some extra interest. The letters are in the standard format that Dirtygypo uses and includes a stylised face at the start. Really nice graffiti writing, with some mystery sill to solve.
6810. Cumberland Basin
Kool Hand is a bit of an unsung hero on Natural Adventures. I kind of take it for granted that he will turn out regular pieces in his unique no-nonsense cartoon style, but that smacks of complacency on my part, and I feel I need to ‘big him up’ a little, because he deserves higher recognition of his work.
This is a lovely, clean and tidy character piece featuring a cartoon duck tossing a spray can in the air. Wearing a bucket hat, the duck in a coat has a friendly demeanour about him and seems to be having a good time. The piece is set on a solid purple background, and the superb yellow border bleeds out in countless places to form bubbles. A well conceived and executed piece from the fabulous Kool Hand.
6809. Picton Lane (19)
I rarely visit Picton Lane, so when I do, there is usually something new to find, and this piece from Kid Krishna made the trip worth it. Kid Krishna is on something of a roll at the moment, and he is definitely a bit of a ‘peaks and troughs’ kind of artist, but he is without doubt peaking at the moment.
The soft colour palette is easy on the eye and sits nicely on the purple/blue background. As ever, his letters spell CRIE, although I find it a little difficult to see in this piece. His letters are made up of lots of shapes, many of which almost morph into something recognisable and then morph away again. Unusual, clean and tidy work from a superb artist and nice man.
Medley
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A sudden flurry
crows cawing and gulls mewing
then return to calm
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6808. St Werburghs tunnel (483)
Aha! There is a certain consistency and reliability with Nips’ pieces that I am really attracted to. Her letters tend to be similar in shape from piece to piece, but it is in her fills where she really excels and shows off what she can do.
Set on a fairly elementary yellow backdrop, the letters NIPS are filled with a stunning patterned mix of pinks and blues, with some great designs and reversed out spots. The eye is drawn to the female symbol in the dot of the ‘i’, which is assertive and proud. Nips has included a couple of nice shout-outs to Basik and Roma too. I hope we see plenty more of Nips in 2025.
6807. M32 Junction 3 (666)
A major feature of the resurgence of Hemper recently has been the way he has experimented and embraced a whole raft of different styles. He has always painted original pieces, full of imagination, but I am not sure that I have seen such variation in letter shapes and overall appearance before.
This large and unusual piece spells out HEMS, obviously, but is also surrounded by a subtly coloured background of mini ‘Hems’ in a kind of bubble graffiti style of writing. This must have taken quite a while to paint, but the overall effect was worth it. Lots more to come from an artist who is on a journey of rediscovery.
6806. M32 Spot (200)
One of the great pleasures over the last eight or so months has been watching the development of Lis (formerly Le Imposter Design), from an occasional line-drawing artist to a full-on and busy spray can street artist. Her transition has been swift, but he has held onto some of her original techniques and augments some of her pieces with pens for the finer detail.
This is an unusual study piece on a column in the M32 Spot. There was a tagger a few years ago who used to paint coffee pots like this all over the city, but this is the first one I have seen since then. The piece has a naive art style about it, and is fun to look at, and I wonder if it had a dual function of being a bit of a practice for borders, lines and shading. So much more to come from an artist who is in overdrive.
Liver birds
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Silent sentinels
overlook murky Mersey
civic resonance
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by Scooj
Natural adventures 