Monthly Archives: July 2016

Victoria Villasanna – New Embroidered Art

Every now and again someone lights up the world of street art and this morning a new treasure trove of art by Victoria Villasana appeared across Shoreditch.

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, Victoria Villasanna, Embroidery, embroidered, paste up

Victoria has collaborated with many artists over the past year or so and the first new piece spotted this morning is a beautiful embroidered enhancement of a Rueben Dangoor paste up of Grime artist Wiley.

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, Victoria Villasanna, Embroidery, embroidered, paste up, collaboration, Rueben Dangoor

Then followed a mother and child ironically juxtaposed with a WRDSMTH “bot mot” exhorting the subjects to smile.

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, Victoria Villasanna, Embroidery, embroidered, paste up

Finally, incomplete contrast, several “haberdasheried” sultry females round off the new Villasana art found today.

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, Victoria Villasanna, Embroidery, embroidered, paste up

 

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, Victoria Villasanna, Embroidery, embroidered, paste up

So, fresh art using unusual techniques suffused with political aspects, collaborations and striking beautiful colours.  Street art lives!

 

All photos: Dave Stuart aka NoLionsInEngland

Previous Shoreditch Street Art Tours blog posts about Victoria Villasanna HERE

Victoria Villasanna on Facebook

Reuben Dangoor webpage

 


STIK – Signing and poster giveaway.

If you are in New York tomorrow..this is too good to miss..the STIK – Signing and poster  giveaway.

London, Shoreditch, New York, Street art, STIK, signing

If you buy a copy of Stik’s awesome book (there is a copy in the Shoreditch Streert Art Tours library, it is great) at the opening tomorrow night, not only can you get the nicest guy in street art to sign your copy, you will be eligible to enter a lottery to win a set of limited-edition lithographic cardstock Stik posters, signed by Stik himself. The set, one orange and one blue, are one of only five printed and depict the same image seen on the book’s cover.

 

More information here:

http://www.strandbooks.com/event/stik

 

Photo: via Stik


London, street art, Shoreditch, guided tour, graffiti, Space Invader, RessurectionTeamUK, Protect Them, mosaic

Reactivated Invaders Pt II

A little while ago we discovered that the legendary street artist and star in the Banksy film Exit Through The Gift Shop was putting back old classic Space Invaders in London, written about HERE.

London, street art, Shoreditch, guided tour, graffiti, Space Invader, RessurectionTeamUK, Protect Them, mosaic

#Protect Them! Ressurection Team UK

We found another one this afternoon.  After this morning’s tour I decided to cycle home via Spitalfield’s market and as I leaned into a corner I spied a Reactivation Team sticker on a lamppost.  “They’re usually close to Space Invaders” I thought so I pulled over, walked back and pretty soon found another reactivated Space Invader.

London, street art, Shoreditch, guided tour, graffiti, Space Invader, RessurectionTeamUK, Protect Them, mosaic

LDN_68 Reactivated!

The impressive thing about this one is its location, although the lip of the canopy it is located on is pretty deep, you have got to have both the ability to get up to that lip and also the willingness, or the “cojones”.

London, street art, Shoreditch, guided tour, graffiti, Space Invader, RessurectionTeamUK, Protect Them, mosaic

LDN_68 Reactivated!

Yesterday, immediately after a tour with a school group I discovered another long lost Invader classic.

London, street art, Shoreditch, guided tour, graffiti, Space Invader, RessurectionTeamUK, Protect Them, mosaic

LDN_97 2016

This is what it looked like when I photographed it in October 2007, though I can’t vouch for when it disappeared.

London, street art, Shoreditch, guided tour, graffiti, Space Invader, RessurectionTeamUK, Protect Them, mosaic, Nick Walker, Stencil

LDN_97 2007 (feat Nick Walker)

So, two “reactivated” Space Invaders in 2 days, I better go through my library of old Space Invader photographs and start visiting “Il disparus”.

 

UPDATE (Dec 2016) – despite the presence of a reactivation sticker, LDN_068 at Charterhouse St is actually the original, not a reactivation.  The Cargo Invader LDN_097 is a fruit of the Labour of the UK Reactivation Team.

 

All photos: Dave Stuart


WRDSMTH and Megzany In London

A few weeks ago (I have been trying to find time to write this post for quite a while) London was visited by two artists from LA, Megzany and WRDSMTH.  WRDSMTH is no stranger to London, this by my recollection could be his 4th visit to London for the purpose of putting up some street art.  On his last visit just before the New Year he collaborated with a number of street artists from the UK.

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Working with mixed media stencil and pasted paper, WRDSMTH’s work has charm, occasional pathos and a subdued humour often tinged with romance.  His work is thus, very popular. On this occasion, WRDSMTH put up his largest typewriter piece on his visits to London.

London, street art, Shoreditch, guided tour, graffiti, Wrdsmth, stencil, paste up, typewriter, wall

There was also the small matter of his words appearing on large paste ups on the back of London’s iconic red telephone boxes.

London, street art, Shoreditch, guided tour, graffiti, Wrdsmth, stencil, paste up, phone box, wall

London, street art, Shoreditch, guided tour, graffiti, Wrdsmth, stencil, paste up, phone box, wall

The same day these new WRDSMTH pieces were spotted, a large crisply sprayed biplane with a curious message appeared on a wall on Brick Lane.  A bit of searching online revealed the artist to be Megzany, also from Los Angeles.  Megzany certainly knows how to spray a clean single layer stencil and her stencil construction technique has a lot of similarities with WRDSMTH’s.

London, street art, Shoreditch, guided tour, graffiti,  Megzany, stencil, paste up, phone box, wall, Biplane

London, street art, Shoreditch, guided tour, graffiti,  Megzany, stencil, paste up,  phone box, wall, bi plane

Apart from stencils, Megzany also pasted up images evoking sentiment about objectification exploitation of women and errr mermaids, placing them in vending machines.

London, street art, Shoreditch, guided tour, graffiti,  Megzany, stencil, paste up, mermaid,  phone box

London, street art, Shoreditch, guided tour, graffiti,  Megzany, stencil, paste up, mermaid,  phone box

London, street art, Shoreditch, guided tour, graffiti,  Megzany, stencil, paste up, phone box

London, street art, Shoreditch, guided tour, graffiti,  Megzany, stencil, paste up, phone box, wall, dancer

London, street art, Shoreditch, guided tour, graffiti,  Megzany, stencil, paste up, mermaid,  phone box

A fellow LA artist Kai Aspire has also been putting up loads of art over the past couple of months in London in entirely different forms, that may be the subject of another port sometime but it is great to see artists from a city so noted for its creativity coming all the way to London to brighten up a rather dull Summer.

All photos: Dave Stuart