Tag Archives: Adrian Boswell

street artist ALO street art female portraits in Shoreditch

The Darling Street Art Buds of May

Shoreditch Street Art Highlights From May 2012

William Shakespeare is rarely the first thing we think of in street art.  Shakespeare’s downer on the month of May was its tendency to be a bit windy so with the low temperatures and  rain experienced in May 2021 London certainly bore some of the weather characteristics maligned by the bard in the sonnet Shall I compare Thee to A Summers Day.

The weather didn’t deter street artists and with outdoor groups of more than 6 permitted from May 17th not to mention of course the reopening of some of our favourite watering holes there was a lot of street art activity around Shoreditch.  Here are some of the highlights we found on the Shoreditch Street Art Tour:

ALO had a prolific month and the highlight was this quintet of females painted without permission at the major intersection between Old Street, Commercial Street and Shoreditch High Street.  See also the featured image at the top of the post.

street artist ALO painting street art in Shoreditch

ALO work in progress

street artist ALO street art female portrait in Shoreditch

ALO, female portraits, May 2021

street artist ALO street art female portrait in Shoreditch

ALO, Moroccan Lady, May 2021

Pablo Fiasco painted some jaw dropping stencils in May, the complexity and skill of this father of street art defies belief almost.  This –on-the-wall guide to selecting caps for spraycans was genius, and the word “was” is used as the piece, as ephemeral as a mayfly, has been written over.

All Caps with MF Doom tribute – Pablo Fiasco

Stencil Street Art by Pablo Fiasco behind the Old Blue Last on the Shoreditch Hoxton Border in London

MF Doom tribute – Pablo Fiasco

One of the great excitements for a street art aficionado in London is to discover a new Jonesy bronze.  One of the tour groups early in May shared my joy as I spotted a brand new Jonesy I did not know existed – from the other side of the main road!

SStreet Art Bronze castsing on top of a pole by Jonesy in Shoreditch London

Jonesy bronze

Street Art Bronze casting on top of a pole by Jonesy in Shoreditch London

Jonesy bronze

Shoreditch’s main purveyor of broccoli, Adrian Boswell hit the streets hard with floret of broccoli presented as bite size angel, devil or 24 carot gold broccoli.

Broccoli street art by street artist Adrian Boswell in Shoreditch London

Adrian Boswell Angel, Devil & 24 Carot Gold Broccoli

3km of string was all it took Perspicere to make this beauty which appeared on the old Shoreditch Tube Station which is on Pedley St just off Brick Lane.  String street art is comparatively rare and London based artist Perspicere is the master of the genre, in fact quite possibly the only street practitioner – yarn bombing is something different.  Sadly this piece didn’t last too long as some thief went to a lot of trouble prizing it off the wall, that’s the temporary nature of street art.

Rare String Art Street Art by Perspicere in Shoreditch London

Perspicere

Finally for this May street art flashback, Ed Hicks produced a spraycan art masterpiece on Great Eastern St, inspired by the apocalyptical landscapes of 19th century painter John Martin.  This truly extraordinary painting lasted about 5 weeks.

Amazing Street Art mural by artist Ed Hicks in Shoreditch London

Ed Hicks

All photos: Dave Stuart

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

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

Adrian Boswell Is Shoreditch’s Broccoli Man

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