Decay is totally excelling at the moment, and it seems to me that each new piece he produces is better than the last. In the last year he has entered into a world of colour selections that might at one time have been unimaginable. This new piece is on the hoardings in North Street, curated by Upfest.
Decay, North Street, Bristol, May 2019
Not the easiest piece in the world to photograph and looking at the hazards around it, probably not the easiest to paint either. I truly believe Decay has found a new level in his work, but he needs to slow down… I’m having difficulty keeping up!
This was one of so many pieces created during a paint-jam in St Werburghs tunnel a couple of weeks ago. Happily I can report that they are all still there, but with the turnover in the tunnel being quite high I expect that they won’d last much longer. This piece is by Rusk, a RAW stalwart.
Rusk, St Werburghs, Bristol, April 2019
I must confess to being slightly troubled by this piece, because there is something about it that just isn’t quite right for me. I hold Rusk in very high regard indeed and in fact in my view he is the most conscientious graffiti writer I have met. I think my problem (and I am really nit-picking here) is with the grey lines across the bottom of the letters, they just don’t appear to match up across the piece. Having said that, I am using Rusk’s own work as a very high benchmark against which to measure. It would take me a hundred years to get this good.
A gallery of wonderful character pieces and graffiti writing by Bristol’s awesome Cheo.
All photographs taken by Scooj.
Cheo, Gas Ferry Road, Bristol, November 2019Cheo, Gas Ferry Road, Bristol, November 2019Cheo, Elton Road, Bristol, July 2019Cheo, Dean Lane, Bristol, May 20193Dom and Cheo, Dean Lane, Bristol, February 2019Cheo, Norfolk Place, Bristol, April 2017Cheo, Norfolk Place, Bristol, April 2017Silent Hobo and Cheo, We the Curious, Bristol, November 2018Cheo, Upfest, Bristol, October 2018Cheo, Raleigh Road, Bristol, September 2018Cheo, Raleigh Road, Bristol, September 2018Cheo, Dean Lane, Bristol, August 2018Cheo, Upfest, Bristol, July 2018Cheo, Upfest, Bristol, July 2018Dibz and Cheo, Dean Lane, Bristol, June 2018Cheo, West Street, Bristol, April 2018Cheo, Old Bread Street, Bristol, September 2016Cheo and Inkie, North Street, Bristol, January 2016Cheo, Raleigh Road, Bristol, April 2016Cheo, Upfest, Bristol, July 2017Cheo, Dean Lane, Bristol, October 2017Cheo, Raleigh Road, Bristol, October 2017Soker, Cheo and Deamze, Church Road, Bristol, September 2017Soker, Cheo and Deamze, Church Road, Bristol, September 2017Cheo, Church Road, Bristol, September 2017Cheo, North Street Green, Bristol, August 2017Cheo and Soker, Bond Street, Bristol, June 2017Cheo, Upfest, Bristol, July 2017Cheo, Stokes Croft, Bristol, July 2017Cheo, Raleigh Road Bristol, June 2017Cheo, Raleigh Road, Bristol, May 2017Jody and Cheo, North Street, Bristol, April 2017Cheo, Raleigh Road, Bristol, March 2017Cheo, Church Road, Bristol, March 2017Cheo, Upfest, Bristol, July 2016Cheo, Raleigh Road, Bristol, June 2016Cheo Silent Hobo and Deamze, Frogmore Street, Bristol, July 2015Cheo, North Street, Bristol, February 2016Soker and Cheo, New John Street, Bristol, September 2015Cheo, Shaun the Sheep, Broad Quay, Bristol, July 2015Cheo, Wallace and Gromit, Broad Quay, Bristol, July 2015Cheo, North Street Green, Bristol, April 2016Cheo, Redland Station, Bristol, July 2015Cheo, Millennium Parade, Bristol, December 2015Cheo, Millennium Parade, Bristol, December 2015Cheo, Millennium Parade, Bristol, December 2015Cheo, the Lakota, Moon Street, BristolCheo, Hepburn Road, BristolCheo at Portishead swimming pool
Well here we are again with another colourful piece by Diced Mango in St Werburghs tunnel. I said there would be more from him and I am true to my word. The ends of the tunnel are always hard to photograph because of the encroaching bright light from outside which bleaches half of the picture. I hope that you get a good idea of this in any case.
Diced Mango, St Werburghs, Bristol, May 2019
What I really like about Diced Mango is that I think he is relatively new to painting on street walls and his work is getting better with each outing and he seems to be experimenting a lot with letter shapes and colours/patterns. It gives me great inspiration and I hope to be doing this kind of thing in a year or two.
An artist whose work I have long admired is London-based SkyHigh. His work is always immaculate with fabulous clean lines and complex designs. Most commonly he spells out his name using a contrasting style for each letter and somehow bringing the whole thing to life. His pieces almost feel like animations as the styles spill over from one to the next.
SkyHigh, Shoreditch, London, November 2018
This one using pink tones with black is in my view one of the best I have seen, each component skilfully laid down to create a magnificent whole. I particularly like it that roughly once a year SkyHigh makes a trip to Bristol, and one of his pieces has lasted for probably a year or more. Always top class.
It is not often that you see a nicely painted van in Bristol, even though there are a great many vans with spray paint on them… sadly most of these are fairly rubbish throw ups or tags that frankly are untidy.
Rusk, St Werburghs, Bristol, April 2019
This is a lovely piece of 3D writing from Rusk which appeared near the entrance of St Werburghs tunnel recently. Since I took this picture, the other side has been sprayed by Soker, so this is one classy van. I have not seen writing like this from Rusk before, nor have I seen any kind of scenery work like this, so this is a bit of a collector’s item. Nice to witness the versatility of this great Bristol writer.
A couple of weeks back there was a large paint jam in St Werburghs tunnel, and it would seem that it was something of a RAW (Read and Weep) get together. This collaborative piece included the T-Rex burner that I featured a few days ago, which was just to the right. These two are Ryder and Jaksta.
Ryder, St Werburghs, Bristol, May 2019
I don’t need to repeat myself, although I constantly find myself doing so, by telling you that Ryder is an incredibly accomplished writer, and here he has created something rather special in shades of gray with blue highlights. Having started trying to paint a little in the garden I realise how much I have to study what these guys do to understand tricks and techniques. Paint big was an important piece of advice I was given – smaller pieces are more difficult.
Jaksta, St Werburghs, Bristol, May 2019
When I have been in the tunnel, it seems everyone notices the pig – he really stands out and the kids that walk past love him. Jaksta is a master of the character piece and his work often joins up pieces of writing like it does here. It is the details I love in this piece, the black shading and white highlights that give a 3D feel to the whole thing, and the two shades of pink that make it look like the light is coming from the right (which in this part of the tunnel it actually does). Great work.
I have only met Ugar once and I remember him being a quiet and affable fellow. His work seems to crop up in all the main spots around Bristol, but this is the first piece I have seen along the M32 cycle path. Until recently, this spot became a bit of a ‘dead’ area because a tract of the path had been fenced off for development work. Since it re-opened about a month ago, turnover here has increased dramatically.
Ugar, M32 cycle path, Bristol, May 2019
Ugar, in my view, has an extraordinary talent for filling his letters. His writing tends to be fairly organic and un-uniform, which makes it identifiable, but it is his unique variety of fills that scream out a Ugar piece. Always good and always interesting.
I’ve not posted anything by T-Rex for a little while now, but was lucky enough to come across this wonderful piece in St Werburghs tunnel recently. It was painted during quite a large paint jam a week or so ago alongside work by other RAW artists.
T-Rex, St Werburghs, Bristol, May 2019
Having just bought some spray paint and tried out a little in my garden, I can’t begin to explain how difficult this is and what exceptional talent and experience is needed to produce a piece like this one. The shapes of the letters, the incredible fill patterns and sharp lines, not to mention the expressive dinosaur, are so well worked. I don’t really understand how these guys do it. T-Rex, I doff my cap. The sooner I pack away my paint the better.
Mina Road, (pronounced my na) rather conveniently runs between the M32 roundabout in St Agnes and St Werburghs, and is a cut-through I use sometimes when I’m out grabbing shots of street/graffiti art. New hoardings are often a magnet for spray-can artists and this spanking new one has landed this splendid Epok piece.
Epok, Mina Road, Bristol, May 2019
Spelling our EPOK, this is a classic work from the artist, incorporating a complex selection of colours and that wonderful combination of curves and straight lines and angles that he excels at. A really great piece of writing, and how much nicer than the dull woodchip wall.
Natural adventures 