Monthly Archives: February 2018

Half Term – No Half Measures

Spring half term holiday has just finished in the UK and Shoreditch Street Art tours was busy.  On Monday as a group admired the work in the car park behind the old Seven Stars Pub a car screeched into the yard and, like some kind of artist tardis, a dark door opened and out came a street artist and a load of working materials, Fanakapan spent the week progressing a massive dual aspect mural outside Magna on Brick Lane.

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On Saturday, our tour guest Alicia managed to get a wonderful souvenir, a Fan tag on her shoulder bag.

London, Shoreditch, Street art, street artists, school break, half term, halfterm, holidays, Broccoli Man, Adrian Boswell, Fanakapan, ThisOne, Mr Cenz

Fan of Fanakapan!

Among other artists busy creating new artworks that we had the pleasure of encountering were Mr Cenz and ThisOne.

London, Shoreditch, Street art, street artists, school break, half term, halfterm, holidays, Broccoli Man, Adrian Boswell, Fanakapan, ThisOne, Mr Cenz

Artist in The Crowd – Mr Cenz

London, Shoreditch, Street art, street artists, school break, half term, halfterm, holidays, Broccoli Man, Adrian Boswell, Fanakapan, ThisOne, Mr Cenz

Mr Cenz work in progress

London, Shoreditch, Street art, street artists, school break, half term, halfterm, holidays, Broccoli Man, Adrian Boswell, Fanakapan, ThisOne, Mr Cenz

ThisOne – freshly finished and signed

Several pieces of Free Art were found, firstly this lovely framed art drop by Sean Worral was discovered in a wall in Shoreditch.

London, Shoreditch, Street art, street artists, school break, half term, halfterm, holidays, Broccoli Man, Adrian Boswell, Fanakapan, ThisOne, Mr Cenz

#365ArtDrop 18, Free Art from Sean Worrall 16/365

London, Shoreditch, Street art, street artists, school break, half term, halfterm, holidays, Broccoli Man, Adrian Boswell, Fanakapan, ThisOne, Mr Cenz

#365ArtDrop 18 found!

Then at the end of the week, two Free Art Friday art pieces by Ninja Grl were discovered at basically the same location.

London, Shoreditch, Street art, street artists, school break, half term, halfterm, holidays, Broccoli Man, Adrian Boswell, Fanakapan, ThisOne, Mr Cenz

Free Art Friday – Ninja Grl

London, Shoreditch, Street art, street artists, school break, half term, halfterm, holidays, Broccoli Man, Adrian Boswell, Fanakapan, ThisOne, Mr Cenz

Free Art Friday – Ninja Grl

At the start of the week Adrian Boswell, the Broccoli Man, put up a new four piece broccoli rainbow installation.  As the week started chilly and as the broccoli aged, the florets started to wilt and open.  Then some strange interventions took place as the broccoli moved around like some strange game of chess was underway before being chopped into smaller pieces.

London, Shoreditch, Street art, street artists, school break, half term, halfterm, holidays, Broccoli Man, Adrian Boswell, Fanakapan, ThisOne, Mr Cenz

Maturing Broccoli – Adrian Boswell

London, Shoreditch, Street art, street artists, school break, half term, halfterm, holidays, Broccoli Man, Adrian Boswell, Fanakapan, ThisOne, Mr Cenz

Broccoli Man Adrian Boswell

London, Shoreditch, Street art, street artists, school break, half term, halfterm, holidays, Broccoli Man, Adrian Boswell, Fanakapan, ThisOne, Mr Cenz

Adrian Boswell’s Broccoli

More about the broccoli street art on this recent blog post.

Life Is Beautiful’s Dark Wings photo opportunity, covered earlier in the week HERE, gradually decayed over the week as more and more tags accumulated but guests persevered, making the best of the opportunity to photograph some nice interactions with the work.

London, Shoreditch, Street art, street artists, school break, half term, halfterm, holidays, Broccoli Man, Adrian Boswell, Fanakapan, ThisOne, Mr Cenz London, Shoreditch, Street art, street artists, school break, half term, halfterm, holidays, Broccoli Man, Adrian Boswell, Fanakapan, ThisOne, Mr Cenz

Then on Sunday morning, boom! Still smelling of fresh paint we found that the dark wings had been restored, as Life Is Beautiful noted they had nine lives.

Dark Wings, Nine Lives

Half term flew past with lots of fun and a load of great street art in Shoreditch as usual, thanks to all the guests and all the artists who make it such a wonderful week.

Links:

Fanakapan: Instagram

Mr Cenz: Website

ThisOne: Instagram

Sean Worrall: Website

Ninja Grl: Website

Adrian Boswell: Website

Life Is Beautiful: Instagram

All photos: Dave Stuart

Street art, Shoreditch, London, Photography, art interaction, Life Is Beautiful, Dark Crusader, wings,

Street Art Saints and Sinners

Tucked away in a back street to the rear of the Old Truman Brewery is a doorway whose lurid artwork is in direct contrast to its anonymity.  For several months now this door has been host canvas to some striking stencilled comic characters by the artist “Life Is Beautiful”.  In November 2017, Catwoman and Batman were in love and there was absolutely no doubt about that, it was all there in black and white.

“Love Is Not A Crime” says Life Is Beautiful

The captions on the photo above and the next two photos are the good words of the artist Life Is Beautiful stolen – sorry, quoted – from his instagram upload.  In December questions were asked as things ramped up with a switch to a romantic pink background.

Street art, Shoreditch, London, Photography, art interaction, Life Is Beautiful, Dark Crusader, wings,

“She didn’t need to question my love” – Life Is Beautiful

Catwoman had a One Knight Stand in January, leaving us in little doubt who was cracking the whip

Street art, Shoreditch, London, Photography, art interaction, Life Is Beautiful, Dark Crusader, wings,

One Knight Stand

The most recent manifestation of Life Is Beautiful’s project is a dark saint, though the saint or perhaps the sinner only comes into being when someone poses in front of the door, a black halo hovers over the subject’s and a pair of dark caped crusader wings emerge from the shoulders.

Street art, Shoreditch, London, Photography, art interaction, Life Is Beautiful, Dark Crusader, wings,

Be Good

Shoreditch Street Art Tour guests have had loads of fun over the past couple of week posing as the dark crusader in front of Life Is Beautiful’s art, with thanks to all these great sports who have allowed us to include photos of them here and in some cases have provided their photographs.

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Life Is Beautiful Instagram

Photos: Dave Stuart plus contributions from Shoreditch Street Art Tours Guests Mia Ulvgraven Nielsen (Photo of Sidse) and Sophie Corlay (photo of Raphael)

 

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, broccoli, broccoli man, Adrian Boswell

Adrian Boswell Is Shoreditch Broccoli Street Art Man

Go broccoli street art spotting with the Shoreditch Street Art Tour, book HERE (opens in new tab)

We often bump into Broccoli Man and have a lovely chat

In early 2017, broccoli supplies in England collapsed due to a crop failure in Spain, prices soared, shops set up barricades.

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, broccoli, broccoli man, Adrian Boswell

Broccoli Panic Spreads

A street artist made light of such woes as real broccoli started to appear in art on Shoreditch walls!

January 2017

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, broccoli, broccoli man, Adrian Boswell

January 2017

The art consisted of real broccoli cut in half with additional collaged elements showing the face, hands and feet of a bearded gentleman.   From January 2017 on round and square mirrors Broccoli Man appeared, then from March the natural greens of the broccoli were replaced by reds.

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, broccoli, broccoli man, Adrian Boswell Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, broccoli, broccoli man, Adrian Boswell

The placement was often amusing, such as on this huge unofficial billboard advertising a tv program about a certain recreational plant, suggesting that the programme was an in-depth feature on broccoli.

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, broccoli, broccoli man, Adrian Boswell

Adrian Boswell, the artist behind the face in the broccoli introduced himself one morning, and in addition to being a very friendly chap who regards putting broccoli up on walls as an obvious thing to do, Adrian is also a prolific collage artist.

Hairpin – original collage

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, broccoli, broccoli man, Adrian Boswell

Acid Rain – original collage

Adrian’s gallery is on Brick Lane at the Old Truman Brewery, just ask for Broccoli Man.

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, broccoli, broccoli man, Adrian Boswell

Gallery, Brick lane

Adrian is a quiet spoken, industrious indeed prolific artist.  He acknowledges that his work ethic and intense bursts of activity may see him working 30 hour continuous sessions without sleep in his studio.

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, broccoli, broccoli man, Adrian Boswell

Adrian Boswell in his Gallery

Adrian has a number of projects in the pipeline including opening a gallery abroad, taking the broccoli street art concept to another level and, of course, producing more studio art.  He is also engaged on an ambitious book project, hoping to produce a book a year for 10 years.

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, broccoli, broccoli man, Adrian Boswell

Adrian Boswell Books

Broccoli continues to appear on the street, the broccoli has turned gold, perhaps in response to that brief period in 2017 when it became a luxury item and recently a rainbow spectrum of broccoli appeared.

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, broccoli, broccoli man, Adrian Boswell

Golden Broccoli, Jan 2018

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, broccoli, broccoli man, Adrian Boswell

In the most recent installations in Shoreditch, gold Broccoli Man has appeared imprisoned in a cage

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, broccoli, broccoli man, Adrian Boswell

Caged Broccoli, Feb 2018

This blog post is based on a longer blogpost on Graffoto in which we examine the whole broccoli crisis in more depth and ponder an unexpected role for government spits in suppressing evidence of the broccoli crisis.

Link: Adrian Boswell website

All photos Dave Stuart except additional gallery photos of artwork courtesy Adrian Boswell website

Other sources: Websites of The Times, The Daily Telegraph, www.her.ie, www.bbc.co.uk