Spanish street artist Borondo moved to London in early 2014 and has been a firm favourite among the guests of Shoreditch Street Art Tours ever since for street art such as these:
He made us wait quite a while for a gallery exhibition but the wait is over, his show “Animals” is in the London Newcastle space on Redchurch street and is a superb exhibition.
There is a fuller critique with a lot more photos on the Graffoto blog, click here
London dwelling Chilean street artist Otto Schade was busy yesterday replacing older Otto Schade works with new. Continuing his theme of kids and weaponry, we get the chilling sight of a mother with her two children caught in the cross hairs of a rifle’s telescopic sight.
This replaced a piece with young kids firing catapults in a one sided battle with military attack helicopters. About a week ago this one was defaced with the tag “Fashion Is Fake”, Otto was quick to replace tagged with new.
2014
The other piece painted yesterday has armed children taking on a court jester.
This replaced an unfinished and rather half baked image from the same theme series.
2013
Nice to see Otto busy in Shoreditch creating a quality of stencilled artwork which owes little to the rush of stencil bombing and a lot to accomplished stencilled street art.
Found Art, art left on the streets by artists specifically for members of the public to find and keep for free is always incredibly exciting. “PLEASE TAKE” says the inscription on the rear of this piece, the invitation could not be more precise.
Please take!
London based artist Sean Worrall has embarked on a 365artdrop project which sees him leaving little nuggets painted on found materials around London for people to collect.
Sean Worrall #365ArtDrops
This little gem is going to get a good home with Daniel and Anat in Tel Aviv
Good find!
We previously found number 22 in the #365artdrop series having a crafty cigarette outside a pub, Sean commented that this piece appeared to have gone off for a beer because he hadn’t dropped it at this spot.
#365ArtDrops number 22
Sean has been connected with a very energetic artist run space in East London and has previously supported causes such as the Save The Southbank Undercroft campaign. You can find details of Sean’s project and it’s progress HERE (perhaps better in chronological order here) and keep your eyes peeled, you may just spot one yourself if you pay enough attention to your urban surroundings in London
previous examples of some of the gorgeous Found Art that guests on the Shoreditch Street Art Tour have taken home with them can be seen HERE.
London has a designated Curfew Zone thanks to one of our best street artists Dr d.
Curfew Zone, Dr D
Sadly when discovered on a rush to catch the last tube the cold sleet that had been falling steadily had made the top corner of the paste up peel away but a passing kind young lady who didn’t run off with my phone when my back was turned helped with taking a photograph.
Dr D is lampooning police Stop and Search Powers using the format of the official warning signs which ring London’s Congestion Charging Zone.
Congestion Zone portal
For a full run down on the brilliance of Dr D’s subversive street art and examples of his previous gems, check Graffoto Blog.
all photos: NoLionsInEngland (with anonymous passerby help gratefully received where noted!)
London street artist Bambi has created a powerful new stencilled piece of street art on a ”virgin” (bare brick, un-painted) wall in a high profile location in Shoreditch.
The subject is Michael Brown, though the image looks more like Obama (the ears?) repeated 5 times in a manner which ironically is a bit reminiscent of Warhol’s multiple gun toting Elvis image . The wall is right opposite Cargo night club and sits facing a couple of famous Bansky images, which also reminds us that Bambi has been often acclaimed (without foundation) as the female Banksy.
Bambi is an interesting artist in so far as she collects column inches by the gazzillion (have a few more on us) yet shuns the normal street art capitol of Shoreditch in favour of North London locations such as Islington and Camden. Her repertoire is dominated by popular contemporary female icons and a dry sense of hmour and this has been sufficient to win her a loyal fanbase stretching way beyond the normal “scene” collectors”.
“DON’T SHOOT” screams large blood red stencilled lettering repeated across Obama’s portrait and the logo on his clothing reads “Don’t Do it”. 100 yards away at the corresponding location on the next alley, Nikelab’s Shoreditch premises proclaim “Just Do It” on a railway bridge wall in huge letters. The raised hand brings some ambiguity to the image, is it “stop”, or is it a greeting?
The text around the images reads
“You abuse your powers again and again
Another innocent unarmed soul is murdered in your name
Filthy blue lies flow and flow
You shot him six times for just jaywalking home
Left in a pool of blood on the street
But you think it’s just another day on the beat
Come on justice must be done or anarchy will bite you on the bum
Bambi”
Update: It seems Bambi returned to make her message clearer by repeating the poetic refrain on the black surface of the building next to her stencil artwork. It wasn’t there in the original photographs, indeed it wasn’t there when we passed on Sunday at lunchtime but lo, come Monday lunchtime there was the fresh addition right under a sign warning “You are being filmed, if you graffiti our building you will be prosecuted”.
The clearer surface means we can now update the text above where it wasn’t legible before.
Sadly, the cops aren’t learning much as the news comes through today that Graffiti writer Delbert Rodriguez Gutierrez died in Miami yesterday after being mown down by a cop in a car. The president of the Miami Police union was reported to have said “..for every action there’s a reaction. If he would have not been committing a crime and then running from law enforcement, this could have been avoided.”
The owners of that particular wall aren’t keen to join in the street art fun and by Tuesday evening, the fresh work had been buffed – painted black. They have previous in hiding their sense of humour under a bushel, this retort by Smif 6 years ago didn’t last long either.
all images: NoLionsInEngland
Last night on our Night Street Art Photography Tour last night we came across the artist Sell Out creating a new structural installation making use of a street cleaner’s hand cart which is often kept in the car park. With a paint pot face, tape arms and hands propelling the cart around and butterflies streaming in the wind as its hair.
We managed to get a few nice shots of the sculpture lit in a variety of different ways, night street art photography offers so much opportunity for experimentation.
We had a pleasant chat with Sell Out who wasn’t at all fazed with the expected fate awaiting his new installation. This morning the Shoreditch Street Art Tour revisited the scene and found that the hand cart had already been re-assigned to its normal use and was no longer there. Such ephemerality is the almost inevitable fate of street art and we were pleased to be able to record this one’s mayfly like existence.
Sell Out, morning after, feat Vibes RT, Brush
Street Art is a term with no universally agreed and robust definition, though of course the one employed on the Shoreditch Street Art Tour is the correct one! Technically street art extends beyond painting, stencils, paste ups, sculpture and the stuff that interests us to people covered in makeup standing completely still on the Southbank (non performance street art!) and it includes performance art.
With the bike yet again in for repairs (sigh), as I entered Liverpool St station this afternoon I came across Ben Driscoll engaged in an amusing and witty street performance. Pressed for the concept, Ben said it is primarily about seeing a reaction but also about a bit of fun. It has hints of David Shrigley about it. I was amused.
I Am Holding A Sign
link: Ben Driscoll
Photo: nolionsinengland
Street artist INSA has explored the far off boundaries of technology with his latest hi-tech work in Shoreditch.
Source: Insa Tumblr
“The Cycle Of Futility” exploits Augmented Reality technology. You download a free App onto your iPhone, point the at the wall and the powers of augmented reality replace the static real-art on the walls with the whirling animated gif on your phone. Wow!
The Cycle Of Futility, INSA, 2014
The Cycle of Futility features the full spectrum of ages from life’s beginnings to skulls representing death while the in-between is represented by the unrelenting assault of authority. Perhaps we can take some pleasure from the fact that the police endlessly chase but never catch anything.
For more background and info, check the full report on Graffoto
A burst of activity by English street artist Skeleton Cardboard resulted in the discovery of a number of new nuggets by several Shoreditch Street Art Tours over the weekend.
We found the above painted doors yesterday morning on a route which we hadn’t explored since Saturday morning. A pair of skeletons exhort us to abandon various false media, perhaps we have to learn from their example, look where too much TV, too much responding to the junk mail, living on the never never got them!
Skeleton cardboard is not one of those globe trotting street art mega stars who gets high profile permissioned murals where ever he goes round the world, he has been doing small and generally witty pieces on Shoreditch walls and we can see a clear trajectory of improving street art over the past two years or so.
Just a couple of weeks ago Skeleton Cardboard had a solo show in Monty’s Bar on Brick Lane. The walls were peppered with dark, day-of-the-dead skeletal characters who mocked those stern proclamations prohibitions issued by various authority figures or found on product packaging which we are expected to read and heed. “Nothing of value stored in here” or “invalid if opened” takes on a darker meaning when juxtaposed with a grinning skull on a dancing skeleton.
A couple of tour groups over the weekend also found new paste ups of skeletons painted on found vintage magazine paper. The magazine in question was a supplement to Amateur Gardening, a respectable gardening periodical it seems and the content was Percy Thrower’s picture guide, to what isn’t stated but we guess gardens. There is no date on the paper but Percy Thrower passed away in 1988, he bestrode the worlds of TV and horticulture like a garden centre goliath but those were days when a man mimicking various bird calls was prime time TV.
Good street art pops off its background and Skeleton Cardboard has certainly found a couple of gorgeous locations for placing these paste ups.
We have previously found free art by Skeleton Cardboard on the streets, see here
