A gallery of characters and sharp graffiti writing from Bristol artist Zinso
Instagram: @zinso.1
All photographs by Scooj
Zinso
Tag: Writer
7868. Dean Lane skate park (937)
This curved wall on the back side of a ramp in Dean Lane skate park is one of my favourite walls in Bristol. I even have a gallery of some of the pieces painted on this wall going back to April 2017, which is worth a look, just to see how a wall changes over time. The latest occupiers of the wall are Roma and Luxe (Bbygwya).
These two graffiti ladies have been super-busy this summer and I haver been finding their writings cropping up all over the place. In this collaboration they have gone for a shared colour scheme and similar designs, with a light brown occupying the middle space between them and darker brown at the top and bottom. This is a nice way to collaborate. The green bubble background works well but might have expanded outweards and upwards a little further in my view. Nice work.
7866. M32 roundabout J3 (789)
Hemper is back to his best with this gorgeous, colourful piece of wildstyle writing on the M32 roundabout.I simply don’t really know what to say about thois piece which is a bit of a study in perfection.
Let’s start with the background which is so much more than a simple buffed grey, exposing some of the black wall that lay behind it – this is not accidental or sloppy, but entirely crafted. The letter shapes are creative and free, backed up with a slim, but strong, black border and drop shadow. It is the colour fills and patterns that steal the show in my eyes. His skuilfil blending at the interface of two colours is immaculate, the patterns largely consist of reversed out spots and stripes, and the use of the white highlights help the letters to pop from the wall. If you want to see graffiti excellence, go no further.
7865. Cumberland Basin
Although we have had an exceptional summer, it has at times simply been too hot and unnaturally so. The wall to wall sunshine experienced in late June, July and early August has also let to a disproportionate number of my photographs featuring disruptive shadows, about which I cabn do very little. The shadow on this lovely piece by Taboo gets to me every time I look at it.
The piece appears to be a tribute to… Taboo (There is a number 25, and I wonder if that reflects 25 years of graffiti writing). The letters are made up of the letters TABOO, creating a larger TABOO and incorporating some train carriages and the words ‘Train maximalist’. All a little bit confusing. The whole thing though is great to look at and set on a buffed background. Gotta love those drips.
7863. Peel Street Green (63)
Mesk is in a great rhythm, producing at least one or two pieces a month, either alone or collaborating with others. His distinctive large letters, spelling MESK, need no signature, as his style is quite distinctive.
The yellow appearance of the letters in this piece is a clever bit of work, because it is only the top layer of the letters that is actually yellow, the next two layers being green and olive, but which look like shaded yellow. The whole thing is set on two backgrounds… a black buffed wall and a blue frame, both of which contribute to helping the letters stand out. Some nice drips, highlight starbursts and tidy drop shadow round off the piece very neatly indeed.
7862. Elton Street (30)
Fantastic News… the curated framed spots on the side of Lost Horizon in Elton Street are back open for business, and some fresh pieces were painted there a couple of weeks back, including this beauty from Inkie.
The framed boards provide a bit of a street gallery look, but are a slightly awkward shape, particularly for writers, who have to compress their letters into a slightly confined width. Naturally, Inkie achieves this with consummate ease and presents his gorgeous letters in pink and yellow with a deep green and black drop shadow. I love the way he has filled the space up at the top with black spots on a yellow background creating a strong contrast.
7861. Brunel Way (366)
This is a fabulous production collaboration painted back in June this year by Shade One, Fade, Dibz and Sikoh. It is a difficult wall to photograph in its entirety at the best of times, because of the light incursion creating reflections at different times of the day. These four really are the crème de la crème of their field.
Starting at the left, Shade One has painted an incredible cartoon realism portrait of a futuristic woman wearing pink-tinted glasses with gold rims. I’m not quite sure what the apparatus on her head is all about, but it is imaginative and creative. The pink surround creates a grerat hard defined edge to the portrait.
Next up is some graffiti writing from Fade which I think reads SMOOTER and is likely dedicated to a friend. There is little more I can write about Fade and his work that I haven’t already written many times before. Precise and perfectly presented like the adjacent piece by Dibz.
The third piece in this production is by Dibz and mirrors the writing by Fade in terms of colours and to a point style. I cannot for the life of me decypher the letters, but that is wildstyle writing for you, it is intended to be disguised.
Moving on finally to Sikoh, one of the most talented artists around, in my view. He has overlaid his piece on top of Dibz’ writing, bringing it forward and lifting it from the wall. The colours match Shade One’s bringing about a symmetry to the whole collaboration. Here a tortured skull, part human part machine appears to be yelling out, whether in pain or rage it is difficult to know. So full of movement expression and perfectlky painted. What a collaboration!
7860. M32 roundabout J3 (788)
If I posted all the Mage pieces I find, thern I woulkd struggle to make space for much else. I accept that this is a bit of an exaggeration, but I do have a lot of his pieces that haven’t made it out of the archives…yet. I think that I would categorise Mage as a bit of a classy bomber. He likes to just show up and over-paint existing work, and rarely, if ever, buffs the wall first, leaving behind the remnants of the piece before it, which in this instance was by Bloem.
I really like this piece, which is nicely thought out and crisply painted. The deep red letter fill is broken up with brighter red plasma lines and decorated with some characterful yellow circles. The contrasting turquoise drop shadow has some nice block decorations. The only thing I am a little unsure about is the black decorations around the perimeter which I think add nothing to the piece. More to come, always.
7859. Greenbank (190)
Whenever I find a Taboo piece I always know to expect the unexpected. His anti-style approach means that conventions and regularity are thrown out of the window and you have to invest in his work and trust the process. If you submit to his style, rather than try to fight against it, it all becomes so much more enjoyable – which could be said for graffiti writing more generally.
These single colour cartoonish letters with a deep drop shadow in the same colour are accompanied by a little crocodile character at the right hand side. Some little white accent spots and crocodile teeth lift the piece with subtlety and skill. The piece is accompanied with the words ‘make it snappy’ a phrase that rounds off the joke that begins ‘give me a crocodile sandwich…’. A fine but of fun from Taboo.
7857. M32 roundabout J3 (787)
This beautiful piece of graffiti writing by Zinso didn’t last very long t all, I don’t know why it was painted over so quickly, but I am pleased I got a shot of it before it disappeared. It is remarkable how quickly, since his return to writing to walls in Bristol, Zinso has become a part of the furniture.
His writing is always beautifully finished, but also he manages to generate creative fills that demonstrate a very accomplished hand. Here his cartoon style letters are filled with light purple spots on a lilac base. Very pretty to look at and fulfilling.
