Monthly Archives: January 2018

Cartoonneros In London

A few weeks ago a fresh collection of stencilled portraits by Argentinian street artist Cartoonneros of the lead singer of Radiohead appeared in Shoreditch. The memorable thing about this collection was that in going over existing artwork by King Headswim, the underlying naïve expressionist portrait with its compelling blue eyes radiated through Cartnoonneros’ work in a way not visible to the naked eye.

Stencil, street art, street artist, Cartoonneros, Pure Evil, Pure Evil Gallery, Shoreditch, London

Thom Yorke by Cartoonneros over King Headswim

Around the corner were more multi coloured stencilled portraits, similarly executed over someone else’s existing artwork as opposed to a prepared background. The three characters depicted are the artist Keith Haring, David Bowie and the Pink Floyd musician Syd Barrett.

Keith Haring, David Bowie, Syd Barrett by Cartoonneros

A day later I had the pleasure of bumping into Cartoonneros on the streets whipping up some more stencils, this time the images included Vincent Van Gogh and Kate Moss.

Van Gogh by Cartoonneros

Kate Moss by Cartoonneros

Cartoonneros explained that he usually employed three stencilled layers in his street art but that he would often spray different colours in different parts of the stencil, meaning that a single layer could be used to render multiple colours. In this next photo you can actually see the three different stencil layers used for the Van Gogh portrait are in position and each card bears the spraypainted remnants of the various colours from previous uses of the stencil.

Van Gogh 3 layer stencil

Cartoonneros is also a sticker artist, several of his quite small stickers have been found lurking nearby.

Cartoonneros Sticker

Cartoonneros then nipped to Amsterdam, Paris and Berlin but the lure of Shoreditch was too great and he returned last night to co-host “Wordplay” with Pure Evil, an evening of art and music. The simple idea was all were welcome to spray stencilled words over a background pre- sprayed by Cartoonneros with a collection of multicoloured stencilled turtle and Keith Haring images.

Love Keith Haring

Evil Passion at The Pure Evil Gallery

The evening involved an overseas street artist previously virtually unknown on these shores exhibiting in the Pure Evil Gallery and creating beautiful mayhem on the streets, quintessential Pure Evil. A fuller description of the event is on the Graffoto blog.

LINKS:

Cartoonneros Instagram

Pure Evil Gallery website

King Headswim Instagram

All photos Dave Stuart

Lumiere London is back for 4 nights and the opening night in Thursday was blessed with a crisp clear sky.

London, West End, Mayfair, Lights, art, installations, Lumiere London 2018

Camille Gross & Leslie Epsztein – Voyage

54 illuminated installations split into 6 kind of distinct areas are visible from 5.30pm until 10pm, you’ll never do it in one night. Here is a snapshot, literally, of a few of the installations around Mayfair and the West End that blew my photo neurons on the first night.

Rhys Coren – Love Motion

Cédric Le Borgne – Was That A Dream?

Atsara – [M]ondes

Michael Davis – Ilumaphonium

Alexsandra Stratimirovic – Northern Lights

Impulse by Lateral Office and CS Design

There is a more comprehensive recollection on Graffoto, including more of the installations enjoyed last night.

At the time of writing (Friday morning) there are another 3 nights left to run. More information on the Lumiere London website, I tried the free App, the download map (contribution required) and the physical map available from vendors at various locations for £5, the hard copy map; was by far the most convenient for navigating a lot of the back street mazes navigating from one to the next.

It is street art, just not the tye Shoreditch Street Art Tours usually focusses on!

All photos: Dave Stuart

New Sweet Toof Street Art

Sweet Toof is an East London street art legend, the ubiquitous teeth and pink gums were all over London. Just before Christmas a new mural and several shutters painted by Sweet Toof appeared in Dalston, just up the road from Shoreditch.

These coincided with the opening of Sweet Toof’s first show in London for close to five years, a joint show with Swedish artist and graffiti writer Rolf Carl Werner, held at BSMT Gallery in Dalston.

Cut and Run Flyer courtesy BSMT Gallery

A full review of the show appears on sister blog Graffoto (same author!), including lots of historic photos of long lost Sweet Toof street art with a particular look at some of the many times he has collaborated on the streets with other artists.

The show runs until this Sunday (14^th January 2018), visiting the show could be the perfect complement to the Shoreditch Street Art Tour over the coming weekend.

All photos Dave Stuart except gallery flyer courtesy BSMT Gallery

One Shoreditch Wall’s 2017

It’s that time of year when we look back over the constant evolution of the art hanging on the walls of the world’s premier street art location, Shoreditch. It has been a phenomenally active year with an absolute kaleidoscope of exterior decoration rendered with new stencils, paste ups and murals appearing every day . It is an impossible task to try to summarise everything that has happened so just for fun let’s have a look at how the appearance of one specific wall has changed throughout the year.

Brick Lane’s Preem Restaurant has hosted a phenomenal collections of fantastic street artists for quite a few years now on its side wall on Hanbury Street. At the start of 2017 a curious hybrid piece existed. Its life started in October 2016 when Bault from France painted brilliant colourful spiky spidery set of creatures. In November 2016 Lora Zombie took over part of the wall, splitting Bault’s masterpiece into two disconnected panels. ThisOne painted a mural over one of the residual Bault portions.

The Bault original:

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, artist, Preem Restaurant, 2016,Bault

Bault (Fr), October 2016

Lora Zombie, Nov 2016:

The one by ThisOne, added Dec 2016:

It stayed that way until March when Dale Grimshaw painted an awesome Papua New Guinea tribesman.

Dale Grimshaw work in progress

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, artist, Preem Restaurant, 2017, Dale Grimshaw

Dale Grimshaw, finished artwork

That also lasted a long time until the Dutch duo Telmo Miel executed a technically brilliant surreal cartoon during London’s art week in October.

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, artist, Preem Restaurant, 2017,Telmo Miel

Telmo Miel (Netherlands)

A month later we were shocked and stunned to see an advert appear over a significant portion of Tielmo Miel’s work. The wall owner was not happy and it was definitely not a favourite of ours.

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, artist, Preem Restaurant, 2017,

Advert. artist unknown

After that experience, the wall deserved something really special and got it in very early December when David De La Mano from Spain created his powerful piece called “The Wave”, one of our favourite murals of 2017.

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, artist, Preem Restaurant, 2017, David De La Mano

David De La Mano, The Wave (night time)

Very very few artists could have replaced David de la Mano’s piece with something at least equal in stature but right at the very end of the year, in fact over a period of about 4 days which spanned Christmas Day, Fanakapan painted “Follow The Leader”, a painstakingly brilliant political piece aimed at Donald Trump on that very same spot. Fanakapan is one of those artists who stunning creations could possibly follow David De La Mano.

Genius at work: Fanakapan 23 Dec

24 December:

Fanakapan still going 26th Dec (a very cold day, best viewed indoors!):

The final painting is the gorgeous mural chosen to feature at the top of the page and that is the way the wall looks as we tick over from 2017 to 2018.

So there you have it, a year in the life of one wall. Thanks to the owner of Preem Resstuarant for allowing use of his wall, thank to the artists too who bestow the street with their creative endeavours and thanks too to the unseen hands who organise and coordinate the art activity on that wall.

We will doubtless see many more great creations on this wall and in many other spots in Shoreditch in 2018, remember you can follow the day to day street art that we enjoy through our instagram account. Shoreditch Street Art Tours wishes everyone a healthy, productive and creative new year for everyone.

All photos: Dave Stuart