Monthly Archives: August 2013

Chewing Gum Artist Found On Shoreditch Street Art Tour!

Some street artists you imagine are so impossible to find that the “street” element of their work might be theoretical.  For example, it seems inconceivable that one might stumble by chance upon  Slinkchu’s half inch statues in posed tableaux of jeopardy and one relies on his photographic record as evidence of his street art.

I had consigned the chewing gum painter Ben Wilson to the same category, the possibility identifying the work of the dude who paints those baked hard chewing gum splatts on the pavement were slim to nil, I mean how many unpainted chewing gum blobs are there to investigate before you find the one?  I shared that probability the other day with a guest on the Shoreditch Street Art Tour and wouldn’t you know it, half an hour later she spots a painted chewing gum!

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This micro landscape on masticated resin is a cut depiction of Shoreditch Town Hall which is visible over your shoulder when standing by that bit of gum.

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On yesterday’s tour, as I opened my mouth to advise the group we were just yards from a bit of chewing gum street art found on the previous day’s tour, I glanced down and found another one!  Again the street landscape appears to reflect the immediately surroundings, this time it’s  a nearby bookshop.

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The street art gallery constantly changes and it is a joy to find unusual pieces like these, particularly when it is in the company of a tour group.  May there be many more!

all photos: nolionsinengland


Street Art Photography Workshop and Tour at Hackney Wicked Arts Festival

This weekend sees the return of the much loved Hackney Wicked arts festival, a wonderful celebration of the local talent in this vibrant community of artists.

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Shoreditch Street Art Tours will be giving a street art photography workshop and leading a guided walk through the art fair and around the streets and canals photographing the very best of the local street art.  That workshop is now fully booked.

Good friend Aida will be giving a screenprint workshop, hugely recommended based upon one we attended a few years ago and wrote about here. Note the photographic proof conclusive that Little Miss NoLions was once shorter than Aida 😉

There are many other events, workshops and performances in a packed Event Schedule. not to mention the fantastic range of artists who will be throwing their studios open to the public, a chance to see where the magic really happens.

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Joe Loughborough Open Studio, Hackney Wicked 2010 (Joe now based elsewhere)

Make it a date.  North London line station Hackney Wick (one stop from Stratford) drops you right at the heart of the events or buses 26, 30, 388, 388 all stop close to Hackney Wick.

 

IMPORTANT UPDATE:

This message from the organisers:

This year the festival has had to spend a lot on infrastructure; security, portaloos, ticketing, policing, waste management etc. this has lead to a bill of about 30,000 pounds. all budgets, including the education budget have been squeezed hard.  This means two things.

firstly materials budget kept to a minimum [note: Shoreditch Street Art Tours is not consuming any materials or budget!].

secondly – if you can help share the festivals crowd funding page, this would help the festival make up some of the funding we need to break even this year

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hackney-wicked-art-festival-2013/x/3944177

 

all photos: nolionsinengland

 


Street Artist Art Collaborations in Shoreditch London

 

Last week, Shoreditch Street Art Tours rejoiced in the return of Cranio to London and expressed the hope that he would be decorated some Shoreditch walls with his Amazon Rainforest party characters.  Barely a week on London soil has resulted in a collaboration frenzy.

Cranio caught up with another Brazilian Alex Senna who is in town and they merged their characteristic styles in what seems to be a bit of fun aimed at the Brazilian telecommunications network.  Or perhaps they mean the British as surely a Brazilian phone would say “Olá”?tn_P1140339 copy

 

Through the good offices of F. Castello’s Fun Factory, Cranio bumped into Hong Kong street artist HIN who has been decorating London streets for the past couple of years.  Together they poke fun at deceased despots though it took a while to rule the possibility that one of the characters was meant to be that Psy, the Gangnam Style singer.

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As we saw earlier, Cranio also got out onto a rooftop with Mighty Mo, a long standing London rooftop king where their cheeky piece catches the Indian in the act of finishing off the Mighty Mo Monkey.

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Speaking of Fun Factory, don’t forget to sign up for tomorrow’s  Street Art Photography Workshop  at 1100 at Fun Factory, full details here

all photos: nolionsinengland


London Street Artist Adam Neate Book Signing and Exhibition

Sat 10 Aug (tomorrow) – Adam Neate exhibition and book signing at Elms Lesters Painting Rooms, Covent Garden, London.

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2011

Adam Neate is the definition of a street artist made it good in the formal art world and the auction houses where he commands prices similar to Banksy.  In the mid 2000s Adam Neate painted 1,000s of portraits on cardboard which he left in doorways, on outside window ledges and against walls as “found art”, art the finder could take away and keep. His paintings on canvas acquired a deep lush tone, dramatic dynamic effects and touches upon elements of cubism with simultaneous views of exploded and compressed surfaces. As well as continuing to employ cardboard in his constructions he also works in folded coloured Perspex making use of the shadows created by the curves and folds of the perspex as integral visual signals in the art.

 

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2011
At Elms Lester they are passionate believers in Adam’s art and have exhibited him internationally as well as many times at their Covent Garden base. Their guided talks around Neate’s work are riveting, we haven’t seen a date announced yet for a talk on the new exhibition but if we hear of one we’ll let you know. Adam’s show, “Dimensional Editions” opens 10 August 2013.

Neate’s Saturday morning book signings are a cool chance to meet the artist and he will often draw a doodle in the book as well as sign it. Why not pop in there at 10am tomorrow, we’d recommend getting there at about 0945 before the queue really builds, then jump on the Central Line to Liverpool St and come on the Shoreditch Street Art Tour at 11.15, what a great morning!

ELMS LESTERS PAINTING ROOMS
1-3-5 Flitcroft Street
London
WC2H 8DH

IF

2009

IF

2008

all photos: nolionsinengland


Thursday 8th Aug Street Art (ish) openings in London – plan yer swagger

We can guess how you operate, you reserve the Thursday night for a few galleries, catching up with mates and possibly ligging a few free beers but you’ll sort out the logistics on the day, spooky huh? Well after last week’s staggering 11 events on First Thursday things return to a quieter but still respectable three diary events tonight so here’s your guide to the essential attractions and logistics, RSVP’s may or may not be required, check links.

 

Very Nearly Almost Issue 23 Magazine Launch

This will be the evening’s biggie!  This is the biggie due to the release of the Faile screen printed limited edition cover. The mag includes some of my photographs as usual but despite that, sure to be a queue forming before opening. Bonus opportunity to check out the fantastic Know Hope show in the gallery in case you haven’t already.

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Lazarides, 11 Rathbone Place, London W1T 1HR

 

SEBASTIAN HORSLEY, THE WHORESLEY SHOW

Described by The Outsiders as “the work of noted libertine, dandy, writer and artist Sebastian Horsley”, this could be an interesting retrospective of a larger than life character at the nearby sister gallery to Lazaridis, see above!

The Outsiders, 8 Greek Street, Soho, London W1D 4DG.

 

11677.595km’ An exhibition by Macarena Yañez, aka “Macay”

Macay appeared as a street artist in London around 2010 and we loved her amusing collages which often played with the existing layers of street art and eventually started to assume quite monumental proportions. In the first pic below, you are looking basically at the fish, the frog and the leaping lady as the Macay elements.

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We never had the pleasure of (knowingly) bumping into Macay so the bio on the facebook event page throws up some un-suspected information. Definitely intriguing and worth checking out.

Red Gallery, 1-3 Rivington Street, London EC2A 3DT

Have a good night and see you on the other side.


Brazilian Street Art Returns to London: Cranio

One of the highlights of 2012 was the visit to Shoreditch, London of Brazilian street artist Cranio.   He brought a distinctive colourful Brazilian palette and a blue skinned character we came to recognise as the essence of Cranio.

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The character above is still up though the wonderful Pixação tag has been partly painted over.

The great news is that Cranio is back with us for several weeks with lots of opportunities to paint lined up but no plan to do a show.  Cranio’s distinctive blue skinned Braziian rainforest people continue their party funded by logging company cash on both public and hidden walls in Shoreditch, this “selling up the Amazon” window painting at Fun Factory makes his point quite clearly.

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Already a couple of cheeky characters have popped into being on Shoreditch walls, this  collaboration with one of London’s finest spray can street artists Mighty Mo, formerly of the late lamented Burning Candy crew is beautiful, simple, witty, high up and in grubby surroundings, street art hardly gets much better.   Cranio has painted his character’s shadow on that wall so as a photographer for whom the phrase short-cut only means a hair style, 8 hours were spent poised with the camera until nature’s light and shadows aligned perfectly with Cranio’s shadow.

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Within a day of his arrival Cranio was already hard at work, replacing a damaged mural at the Comedy Cafe on Rivington Street, the Amazon Indian has bought the replica fotball kit and the 4G enabled technology, while spending a significant portion of the disposable wealth on mind expanding substances has produced, well….hallucinations?

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We will hopefully locate many more of Carnio’s distinctive Indians over the next few weeks on or close to our Shoreditch Street Art Tour route.

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Some of the sights and colour Cranio brought to London last time were reviewed in sister blog Graffoto including a rather fun night time mission photographing Cranio at work near a canal, worth a recap we think.

all photos: nolionsinengland


London Street Art on Guest Vandalog post: Art Is Trash

 

As a photographer and lover of street art and graffiti from around the world, the daily email from Vandalog updating on new work, shows and issues (and let’s face it there are a lot of those) has been essential reading for many years and it is without peer for connecting all elements of the scene.

RJ, Editor in Chief asked a little while ago if I would contribute a few silly season words and pics from London.  On the most recent Street Art Photography Workshop at the end of July, participants were treated to the unexpected sight of Francisco de Pajero aka Art IsTrash actually creating a piece on the streets, find out all the news and glorious photos now on Vandalog.  I recommend signing up for Vandalog’s daily email while you are there.

PS – photos below are even more fresh Art Is Trash, located on the Shoreditch Streets this weekend.

Francisco de Pajero

Francisco de Pajero

Francisco de Pajero

Francisco de Pajero

all photos: nolionsinengland


Shoreditch Street Art Photography Workshop

Next Sunday (depending on when you read this!) 11 Aug 2013 will see another in the acclaimed Street Art Photography Workshops take place at Fun Factory and on the streets of Shoreditch.

As well as seeing some fanastic street art in London, get the very best tips, hints and ideas for memorable and even publishable photographs of street art, experimenting with a variety of different photographic opportunities.

More details on the facebook event page here and you can book by clicking on the 11 Aug date here

ROA (Bel)

ROA (Bel)

Shoreditch Street Art Tours

 

 

 


Shoreditch Street Art Tours: SHOK-1’s Glorious X-Rays

A fixture on the Shoreditch Street Art Tour route is the off street location where London spray master SHOK-1 has been running his “X-rainbow” series for over a year now.   The 9th manifestation is a stunner, a rainbow X-Ray fly image.  A close up shot reveals not just a beautiful detailed image but the extraordinary can skill required to paint like this.  It’s like a rainbow fly X-Ray under the microscope, we wouldn’t like to meet that kind of beast.

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