Monthly Archives: April 2016

New 616 art in Shoreditch

Yesterday at about lunchtime I bumped into a figure wearing a kagoule with strings drawn tight around the hood and a 7 month “just back from the Arctic me” beard poking out through the face port.  I greeted the street art legend 616 as he tugged a large wheeled box down Brick Lane.  It might have contained paint; 616 was vague about where he might be heading and I am sure would have been even more vague about the box’s contents.  This is the way it should be.

This morning, Seven Stars Car Park sported a new piece of art by 616.

London, Shoreditch, Street art, tours, photography, 616, spraypaint, seven stars

616, graff by Vibes RT

A gorgeous multi layered piece arranged across successive stub walls guides the eye to a new set of characters on top a wall, beyond which after a couple of intervening properties lies the graveyard around Christ Church Spitalfields.

From a distance the characters appear to be masquerading as tombstones but closer inspection reveals that eyes and mouths are present as usual.  What to me is not usual is the 6 eyed character on the wall, it was only last year that I noticed 616 introduce a four eyed character for the first time.

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I often praise 616 for the inventiveness of his street art and racking my brains I can’t of too many other artists who create single pieces of street art spread over several surfaces (but, see below), This work he created yesterday refines and repeats a similar piece of work he painted over the same walls last year:

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Knowing 616’s perpetual quest for new mediums and the way he often submerges his identity beneath cryptic clues alluding to the moniker 616, it wouldn’t surprise me if he figures out a way to do a mono eyed character in his leaf shape style and then presents a mono eyed character flanked by two six eyed characters.  Ground, gauntlet…….  c’mon 616!

Here is a piece by Zabou that we looked at on the street art tour this morning, another example of an artist using two different surfaces in a single piece of street art; there are also others that have used this corner shutter configuration.

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All photos: Dave Stuart aka Nolionsinengland