I love this kind of slightly unconventional, not quite anti-style, unconventional graffiti writing, which, although it looks a bit scruffy is actually technically really well thought out, designed and pulled together.
It was painted as part of a large collaboration, with each piece sharing a common background and base colours, but each with its own unique style. I know nothing of Rozda, the artist, so would guess that they were in Bristol as a visitor for this paint jam. I like this a lot.
Mr Klue has been on fire this year and has continued to paint his ephemeral pieces in the tunnel on an alarmingly regular basis. In my view, this is a very good thing indeed, because I like his unique style, and watching him paint gives me an appreciation of how deliberate each ‘brush stroke’ is in his pieces. His work may look random, but it is based around the form of the letters KLUE, and the shading and colour patterns are carefully thought through.
As far as I can make out, Mr Klue paints each piece in a freestyle way, meaning that he doesn’t paint from a black book, but rather from the heart in a well-rehearsed, but improvised way, if that makes sense. The white and lavender colours gives this one a lightness of touch, and the subtle lime green tints on some of the edges, adds depth and rounds things off nicely. So much more to come from Mr Klue.
I have always struggled with artist naming conventions on Natural Adventures. Most artists have a name and retain it as their brand, especially old school artists like Inkie, Nick Walker, Mr Penfold, Banksy, Cheba and so on. Their Instagram accounts reflect their name – easy-peasy.
However, an awful lot of artists, graffiti writers in particular, may write a word, or sign a piece that is totally different from their Instagram name, for example: Jee See (who writes Seismic and whose Instagram is @jee.see_t.daemonic_luke.solo) or Biers (who currently writes WD40 and whose Instagram is @nofrills40). So you can see that naming artists can be a tricky thing – I blame the hacking of social media accounts, which means people are frequently changing their digital account names.
I say all of this because when I first came across Bbygwya (and it took me ages to master the name), this was her then Instagram account, however, she writes variants of the word Flux, and her current Instagram is @livelaugh_luxe. What is a man to do? The name of an artist is important for me, because it forms part of the tagging and sorting on WordPress which allows me to find past posts and images. So generally I use the first name that I came across and stick with it, even if it seems to be the wrong name now. Did any of that make sense?
This is a real beauty by Bbygwya (Flux or Luxe – see the problem?) in Dean Lane, with plain white letters and a little bit of black detail sitting on top of a fabulous Conrico piece, featured here previously. Somehow, Bbygwya has skilfully blended her piece with Conrico’s, intentionally or otherwise, but the final look is a good one.
This is another outstanding piece of paste up work from Tian in East Street. Not only is the subject beautifully worked, but the placement, inside a phone booth, is perfect. The cut-out is taken from a piece of work called ‘Combative Jaq’… I’m not sure that I know too much more about it.
I love the sepia tints contrasting with the blues of the woman’s clothes. The selection of the photograph and the alteration of it is superb. I realise that wheatpastes are not to everyone’s taste, particularly the authorities, but they are a darn sight better than the stream of advertising posters and hoardings that we are subjected to on every street in every town and city.
It is very possible that this piece by Rowdy on the shopfront of Don Majors is the closest piece of street art to my home. It is not the first time that Rowdy has decorated this shop, and he has done another great job. The piece is slightly less busy than his last one here, looking a little bit smarter.
Rowdy is known for his crocodiles and his cats, and has an incredibly distinctive style. His pieces tend to pop up all over the city and are without doubt part of the USP of Bristol’s street art scene, and have been for many years. This cat is looking ever so slightly mischievous – a naughty cat.
On my wanderings in the East Street area of Bedminster, looking for Tian Paste ups, I came across this hoarding with a few treats on it. I think that this collaboration was painted last year when Mote and Mr Crawls were in full flow, painting together frequently all over the city.
To the left, the Mr Crawls character is quite unlike anything I have seen from him before, although his underlying style is unmistakable. The rather strange monster, in great green tones, is perhaps most notable for its psychedelic eyes, and ‘puckered’ upper lip.
Mote is no stranger to painting monsters, and here he has assembled five one-eyed beasts is some of his favoured colours. The chrome background for the collaboration gives me a pretty good date range (a little bit like carbon dating), which they first introduced at the end of 2023. A satisfying find.
Since developers moved into the area around Moon Street, I don’t visit all that often, and driving around there is a bit of a nightmare, so I generally only visit when I am on foot. I had a lovely surprise on my last visit, finding this stencil piece by Cartoonneros.
I don’t know if the piece is new or old, but the artist does seem to visit Bristol sporadically – maybe he has friends here. Furthermore, I don’t know who the character portrayed in the stencil is, but it has all the hallmarks of a Cartoonneros piece. The black lines of the stencil are sprayed over a patchwork of orange and yellow paint, creating the unique look that the artist has perfected. A reward for keeping my eyes open.
When I first started out noticing street art in Bristol, and subsequently writing about it, The Carriageworks was my ‘go to’ spot to find some really classy work. Alas, the gentrification of Stokes Croft, eliminated half of the spot, and what remains is rarely painted. How pleasing it was to see this beauty from Hemper, and a piece adjacent to it by Kid Krishna (posted).
It took me a couple of attempts to photograph this piece, because the first time I went there was a van partially covering up the writing, but I photographed it nonetheless just to make sure I had it in the can. These pictures are a much cleaner version and really highlight the magnificent of this extraordinary graffiti writing from Hemper, who has been on a roll this spring (a spring roll, if you like🙂). There is so much colour, beautifully blended, and a perfectly painted contrasting blue and black drop shadow. Another masterpiece of graffiti writing from Hemper.
Here we have yet another epic production collaboration from Fade, Jody and Dibz, who have been knocking it out of the park for a couple of years now, creating some breathtaking triptychs from the two writers and the ‘character’ artist.
I watched them for a short while while they painted this piece, and while the two writers were well advanced with their work, Jody’s skull portrait was still some way off. On the left, Fade has produced some gorgeous ‘lava’ letters tinged with some turquoise highlights and some purple smoke plumes. His letters look like CREAM, but I can’t be sure.
The centrepiece is an outstanding screaming skull by Jody. He really is a most talented artist, both in his studio work and his street art. His technique is simply awesome, and he manages to create such depth and texture with the deft strokes of the spray can. Brilliant stuff.
Dibz, to the right, mirrors the colours of Fade, as is so often the case with these production pieces. The letters spell DIBZ, a little easier than Fade’s to read, and contain the same hot lava look. The triptych as a whole has a searing heat about it, as if the poor soul in the middle is trapped in hell. Outstanding collaboration.
This is a delightfully clean and crisp piece by Werm, whose symmetrical pieces are a well known sight in the various graffiti spots around Bristol. I particularly like this one with its delightful colour scheme, and the boldness of it set on a white background.
It is well worth getting up close and taking a proper look at the letter fills in this piece, the overall colour is a blend of reds from dark to light, and running through the midline is a wonderful continuous orange line… a golden thread through the piece. This is a very attractive piece by Werm, that unfortunately only lasted a short time.
Natural adventures 