Tag Archives: Airborne Mark

2023 Street Art Memories

2023 Street art, another year down.  Did you smile more often?  Certainly the Smokers crew aka SMO did.  A burst of activity in the Summer sun included the perfect composition of “Smokers” on a railway bridge as well as the crew acronym SMO appearing all over Shoreditch but the crowning piece was their huge Smile More Often wall with the names of all 12 crew members in smoking purple contained within the blockbuster letters, see the feature image at the top.

Smokers Crew

It there was such a thing as an award for the most up crew of the year it would go to Ghost Writers, no competition.  It seemed that there was someone representing Ghost Writers with something new almost every week.  Christmas week was no different.

graffiti and street art in Shoreditch by Ghost Writers members Minto, Tizer and Trafik and also Pablo Fiasco stencil

Minto, Trafik and Tizer repping Ghost Writers plus Pablo Fiasco

graffiti and street art in Shoreditch by Ghost Writers members Minto, Tizer and Trafik

Minto and Trafik collab, Yorgos, Tizer and Trafik

Banksy’s gift for newsworthiness did not desert him in 2023.    There was the retrospective exhibition in Glasgow, lifting the veil somewhat on the process but not the person and trumping all those shit un-authorised shows of ripped of reproductions and pure fantasy re-creations.  There was the court case which the litigant over hyped as about to lead to Banksy’s identity being revealed.  There was the artwork in Kent on the building that was demolished three days after he painted it.  Then, this being a non chronological list in which the best story is kept to last, there was the “Valentine’s Day Massacre” in Margate which led to possibly the most unfulfilling street art treasure hunt ever.  I arrived just as council contractors loaded the fridge onto a truck for disposal, how much did I rue missing by a minute the train from London that would have got me there an hour earlier.  Peter The Painter didn’t miss a thing, as anyone who Banksy’s Cut and Run show will have seen.  (Actually the most frustrating treasure hunt ever was a night spent wandering the streets of London in vain pursuit of an Adam Neate free art drop in 2008.)

Margate Council truck takes away the freezer from Banksy "Valentines Day Mascara"

Dangerous freezer captured in Margate

Banksy "Valentine's Day Mascara" Street art in Margate without the original freezer

I went London to Margate – the wall went Margate to London

There were at least four occasions this year when street art’s fleeting nature defeated my ponderous reactions. Twice I missed Banksy artworks, (the Valentine’s Day Mascara above) and the Stop War traffic sign installation which was stolen less than an hour after Banksy posted online about it.  The two other occasions were brilliant paintings by Airborne Mark, his masterpieces of virtuoso spraycan technique seem fated to be painting over immediately.  I count my blessings that there were a couple I managed to get to before they disappeared.  Everything about the origami gecko coming to life with every slant and facet of the paper catching the orange and green side lighting differently is just sensational.  All street artists’ creativity has at its core the certainty that the original piece is doomed to a very very short lifespan, yet the artists return again and again unpaid yet showing a dedication to the art which in any other endeavour would be regarded as bonkers.

spraypaint Street art mural by Airborne Mark in Shoreditch

Airborne Mark Gecko and stationery

spraypaint Street art mural by Airborne Mark in Shoreditch

Airborne Mark X Wing and stationery

Russel Shaw Higgs framed his characters beautifully within this lintel, only on the streets can such engagement with a perhaps once grand façade be realised.

street art paste ups in Shoreditch by Russell Shaw Higgs and Dr Cream

Russell Shaw Higgs, also feat Dr Cream

Yorgos first appeared in Shoreditch in 2022 but his prolific output this year has beguiled all.  He paints with influences from Picasso and traces of Matisse and his use of emulsion, which is quite rare in street art, produces a very flat and crisp aesthetic.   This pair of lovers (count the hands!) share their love with a heart that snuggly matches the bike lock frame sitting a couple of feet from the wall.

Street art mural by Yorgos of lovers whose love heart fits into the heart shaped bicycle frame

Yorgos

Yorgos

Most of Jonesy’s creativity on the Shoreditch streets this year was in the form of original drawings and paintings, check out all the oily creatures in the detail below as well as several new bronze castings atop street sign poles.

street art illustration concerned with pollution and environment by Jonesy

Jonesy Jan 2023

bronze casting sitting on top of a street sign of a see no evil monkey with hands covering its eyes

Jonesy See No Evil, March 2023

bronze casting sitting on top of a street sign of a demon with a petrol pump

Jonesy Bronze July 2023

If I have to pick a single art piece that made my jaw hit the ground it was this beauty from Minto.  Minto is a writer more associated with graffiti lettering but when I realised the alignment of the inverted face with the architecture in the background formed a stunning tribute to rapper (and occasional graffiti writer) MF Doom it was clearly a piece of ephemeral genius.

Minto

MF Doom by Minto

Cept is a bit of a renaissance man who goes through phases alternating between gallery installations and outdoor endeavours, it was great to see thet pendulum swung back to street art and graffiti this year.

comic illustration style street art by Cept supervillain with written text confession

Cept

Dan Kitchener had a brilliant year, not just because he painted abroad a lot or in terms of the scale of his murals, he also created some beautiful specimens of urban landscapes and character art in Shoreditch.  The most interesting was the mural which veered towards abstract impressionism in a painting with a point of view sitting in a car looking out through a rainy windscreen at one of his rainy night time neon lit street scenes.  The small photo cannot do justice to the impressionist beauty in the full size mural.  I could be wrong but I think Dan painted this spot three times this year, other artists occupying this wall were Inagaki (twice) and Only E1

spraycan impressionist street scene viewed through a wet window with drip or rivulets of raindrops and car lights reflecting off wet road surface by street artist Dan Kitchener

Dan Kitchener Feb 2023

Nearly every time you turn up to photograph this wall there are huge mountains of bin bags awaiting collection which makes my failure to get the photo of this image with a stack of bin bags in front of it quite unforgivable.

realistic spraycan painting relates to the piles of commercial rubbish seen regularly on Commercial Street

Inagaki, formerly known as Enigma, Feb 2022

Esauteric continued to amaze with his energetic disregard for conventional crisp spraypainting techniques, the very experimental colour combination and of course the manner of painting on walls with irregular surfaces, corners and buttresses that mean you really have to be able to walk around the wall to experience what the art has to offer from different angles.

wall mural colourful energetic face Shoreditch Brick Lane

Esau-teric. one angle only

wall mural colourful energetic face Shoreditch Brick Lane style of Futura2000

Esau-teric. Look closely, there is a 12 inch deep buttress in this picture

ODDO is an enduring Shoreditch favourite and his prolific production of wilder and wilder characters veers towards the curious, dark and scary.   “Bamboo mole” was a recurring theme.  I made one selection of snaps that captured the contribution ODDO made to my enjoyment of street art in 2023 then on the morning of New Years Eve, two more new ODDO artworks popped up on my walk through Shoreditch and one muscled right into this selection.  In a parallel universe I would be wearing clothes designed by ODDO.

crazy clothes crazy colours on harnd drawn street art paste up by ODDO in Shoreditch

ODDO, New Years Eve

crazy clothes crazy colours on harnd drawn street art paste up by ODDO in Shoreditch

ODDO, Feb 2023

crazy clothes crazy colours on harnd drawn street art paste up by ODDO in Shoreditch

ODDO, Oct 2023

Nonose has been doing quirky, lurid potatoes spiked with cocktail sticks since forever and for a little while this year a flotilla of crash-landed sputniks could be found on the tops of bus shelters and street furniture in Shoreditch and Hackney.

a dayglo potato with cocktail sticks by street artist nonose on top of a bus stop shelter

Nonose, Jan 2023

a dayglo potato with cocktail sticks by street artist nonose on top of a bus stop shelter

Nonose, Jan 2023

a dayglo potato with cocktail sticks by street artist nonose on top of a bus stop shelter

Nonose, Jan 2023

For a former graffiti writer Shaim certainly has no fear of negative space!  His hand drawn originals and paste up copies have managed to make horn rimmed glasses sexy again.  The trio of ladies are not copies at all, each is different and for the really curious, the green splats on the wall date back to a Nick Walker show in 2008.

3 black and white female faces on a wall at Old Street Shoreditch by Stephen Haim Shaim

Shaim

Ed Hicks remains the master of painterly gothic street art, he had a productive 2023 and there wasn’t a single piece I saw that I didn’t love.  It’s a puzzle that his masterworks tend to have much shorter lives than equivalent efforts from his peers, the artwork on the Grey Eagle St wall lasted barely a week before giving way to Smile More Often.

double height door gothic light and dark mural on Brick Lane by Ed Hicks

Ed Hicks

street art mural of fiery explosion, Brick Lane, Ed Hicks

Ed Hicks, Nov 2023. 1 week only.

Shoreditch visitors

Shoreditch continues to magnetically attract brilliant visiting artists working from small paste ups to the largest murals.  Alex face painted literally a scorcher, controversially short lived as it was painted over by an advert on a wall which has never hosted an advert before.

burning faces mural by Alex Face from Thailand painted on a wall on Brick Lane

Alex Face, Thailand. Jul 20263

Drash visited London twice this year and her colourful detourned fashion mag pages got brasher and Drasher.

Colourful Street artist Drash La Krasse from La Rochelle next to her art in Shoreditch

Drash La Krasse

Colourful Street art by Drash La Krasse from La Rochelle on derelict window old Shoreditch tube station

Drash La Krasse, with additional LDashD sticker

Niafase, Key and Naths Ice visited from Mexico and got stuck right in painting with some talented artists at various spots around London with Niafase contributing some technically brilliant 3D lettering.

part of large mural with goldfish, portraiture and 3d graffiti lettering

Niafase with Curiouser and Curioser

collaborative wall mural with spraypainted street art and graffiti

Moonkey, Niafaze (Mex), Achezink, Naths_Ice (Mex)

3d graffiti lettering Stockwell hall of fame

MoonkeySP, Solo, Nifazse, Casem, Ezra Kemen, Vladarts, Void One

On My Travels

The years since we were all put in detention have been spent frantically travelling to make up for lost opportunities.  This year wonderful street art was discovered in Manchester, Paris, Southend, Lisbon, Port Talbot and Glasgow.

Manchester’s street art bristles with self confidence and inventiveness.  Hornby train set art?

Geese in a Manchester streert with sign saying on the 6th day God created Manchester

On the 6th day, God created Manchester – Trafford Parsons

Street art made from model railway and figure dressed like Kevin Rowland from Dexys Midnight Runners

“Dexy’s Midnight Roller”  with miniature Kevin Rowland, Jungle Angelo, Manchester

Paris blew me away, over 1000 photos of magical street art was a fraction of what I saw and the task of selecting a few to share proved too painful to contain within just one blog post.  So I wrote two.   Paris is blessed with magnificent murals but there is way more than 10 story murals to Paris’ street art.  B-Toy Andrea’s mural makes the cut just because I loved the way a bit of light painting and long exposure melded the decoration in the subject’s hair with the blossom on the trees.  Paris of course has the largest collection of Space Invaders but I fell in love with the really esoteric things like Tegmo’s glass sculptures and mosaic arrangements.

Tegmo, Paris

2 street names, 5 legged confusion. OJI, Paris

BToy Andrea, Paris

Southend is so easy to get to from London and the Southend City Jam seaside circus has now grown to one of the coolest, happiest and indeed largest gatherings of street artists, graffiti writers and fans in the world.   I wonder what happens to all those boards?

Pink haired woman in front of mural with matching bright pink details

Bublegum, Southend City Jam 2023

Street art from Southend City Jam 2023 Asur work in progress

Asur work in progress, Southend City Jam 2023

Street art from Southend City Jam 2023 Elno

ELNO, Southend City Jam 2023

Street art from Southend City Jam 2023

Epic1, C.A.S.E.M, Southend City Jam 2023

Lisbon has an amazing city wide distribution of street art and graffiti.  Star locals Vhils and Bordalo simply can’t be left out of any Lisbon highlights but even in a city noted for its tiled décor I was delighted with the surprise find of a massive tiled mural by Monsieur A whose parents are Portuguese.

Junk street artist Bordalo studio in Lisbon

Bordalo studio, Lisbon

huge tile mural in Lisbon by street artist Monsieur Andre

Monsieur Andre Tiled mural, Lisbon

huge tile mural in Lisbon by street artist Monsieur Andre

Monsieur Andre Tiled mural, Lisbon

Mural portrait half and half collaboration in Madrid between Shephard Fairey and Vhils

half and half Shepard Fairey, Vhils collab, Lisbon

Glasgow had been invaded by the usual suspects visiting the Banksy exhibition so at that moment it was an effort to track down the local talent rather than same old Shoreditch habituees.

Stencil street art in style of Banksy of falling couple by The Rebel Bear

The Rebel Bear

clever stencil juxtaposition appears to show girl balancing on thin handrail in Glasgow

Rogue Oner, Glasgow

And so, with another New Years Eve photo A Chance Of Creatures kicks out the old and welcomes in the new, may you all have a healthy wiser better more peaceful 2024, fill it with joy and art.

New Years Eve street art 2023 2024 by A Chance Of Creatures In Shoreditch

A Chance Of Creatures – New Years Eve

All photographs: Dave Stuart


a spider weaves a psychedelic street art web on a car park rooftop in Penge

Street Art in Penge Rooftop Gallery

We have been aware of a proliferation of street art in Penge for some time but didn’t get the chance to visit until this weekend just gone.  This just happened to be the weekend of major Halloween festivities so a lot of the Halloween themed street art was being exhibited to the public for the first time.

scary boy in skeleton costume in front of street art by Skeleton Cardboard in a car park in Penge

Skeleton & Skeleton Cardboard

There is a full appreciation and some lovely photos on sister blog Graffoto,  check out the full story now.  The excursion from Shoreditch was well worth while.

Street art bats hang from the ceiling in a car park in Penge

Bat crazy by Irony

a bird head painted across two pillars  in a car park in Penge

This One in two minds

Links:

Penge rooftop gallery website

all photos Dave Stuart


Origami frog painted by street artist Airborne Mark in Shoreditch

Airborne Mark Origami Street Art Painting

A couple of Sunday’s ago the Shoreditch Street Art Tour group had the pleasure of coming across Airborne Mark in the early stages of a new origami spraypainting.  Mark was as charming as ever and showed the origami model he was using as the reference for his painting.

“Can you see what it is yet?” he challenged us, just like he does you the viewer in this awesome making of video.  As the lucky group that day will testify, for all its polish and multi angles, Mark improvises and films the video yet manages to paint a masterpiece at the same time.  This video is such a pleasure to watch, I do hope you enjoy it.

Our group passed through at the point where he have completed the model outline and was just working on painting the cardboard base, pretty much the point at 2 minutes into the film where Mark explains some the challenges in painting the outline. Yes, we guessed correctly that it was going to be a frog!

The Origami model of the frog painted by street artist Airborne Mark in Shoreditch

Airborne Mark shows Shoreditch Street Art Tours his model

We have had the pleasure of bumping into Airborne Mark painting a few times down the years, we wrote a nice feature about Mark with a lot of history HERE

Just to demonstrate our lack of planning and foresight, the featured image at the top of this post is…the same as featured at the top of our September Highlights blogpost, which I suppose reflects how much we like Airborne Mark’s street art.

All photos: Dave Stuart


Shoreditch, London, Airborne Mark, The Pilot, Street Art, Graffiti, origami, origami riots, maquette,

New Origami Street Art In Shoreditch By Airborne Mark

Street Artist, rapper and origami guru Airborne Mark returned to Brick Lane a couple of weeks ago to paint a new origami mask inspired mural, which was a pleasant surprise for the Shoreditch Street Art Tours group who stumbled across the artist at work.

Shoreditch, London, Airborne Mark, The Pilot, Street Art, origami, origami riots, maquette,

Work In Progress April 2018

Airborne Mark was using a folder paper origami model as the reference for the painting and we have often seen Airborne Mark using his own origami models.  Airborne Mark, who is always very pleasant and happy to have a little chat with the tour, told us that this wasn’t his piece of origami, it was sent to him from Sweden by master origami mask maker Flynn Jackson,.

Shoreditch, London, Airborne Mark, The Pilot, Street Art, Graffiti, origami, origami riots, maquette,

Maquette – Flynn jackson

You can see what a stunning realistic painted interpretation of the actual model airborne Mark produced.

Shoreditch, London, Airborne Mark, The Pilot, Street Art, Graffiti, origami, origami riots, maquette,

Airborne Mark vs Flynn Jackson

Airborne Mark has produced a really cool video of both receiving the model through the post and the work in progress painting at the wall.  Blink and you’ll miss it but there is even a subliminal glimpse at about 5.05 of our tour group admiring Airborne Mark at work.

Here is a little selection of other occasions we have seen Airborne Mark painting from his own origami masks as well as a few shots of other Airborne Mark masterpieces put up over the years.

Shoreditch, London, Airborne Mark, The Pilot, Street Art, Graffiti, origami, origami riots,

Airborne Mark (crouching in shot), Massai, Dan Kitchener, Jimmy C 2012

Shoreditch, London, Airborne Mark, The Pilot, Street Art, Graffiti, origami, origami riots, maquette,

Airborne Mark Origami Riots 2014

Shoreditch, London, Airborne Mark, The Pilot, Street Art, Graffiti, origami, origami riots,

Van Painting – Meeting Of Styles 2015

Shoreditch, London, Airborne Mark, The Pilot, Street Art, Graffiti, origami, origami riots, maquette,

Work In Progress March 2017

Shoreditch, London, Airborne Mark, The Pilot, Street Art, Graffiti, origami, origami riots

Greek Mask work in progress 2017

A tiny smidge of background: Airborne Mark moved to the UK in 2005 and had a graffiti pedigree, he used to write the name Pilot before switching to the still aviation related street art moniker Airborne Mark, here are a couple of his older graffiti pieces in Hackney Wick and Leake street, both from early 2009.

Shoreditch, London, Airborne Mark, The Pilot, Street Art, Graffiti, origami, origami riots

The Pilot, Leake Street 2009

Shoreditch, London, Airborne Mark, The Pilot, Street Art, Graffiti, origami, origami riots

The Pilot, Hackney Wick 2009

Links:

Airborne Mark: website

all photos: Dave Stuart

video courtesy Airborne Mark


London, Shoreditch, Street Art, Tour, Jonesy, environmental art, awareness, CO2, methane, Skeleton Cardboard, 616, Artista, Fanakapan, Voyder, Airborne Mark, Vibes RT

Bank Holiday Street Art

Some may quibble about this but…..wasn’t the cloud cover lovely on Bank Holiday Monday?  Since finishing a tour in snow last Thursday, tours have been run in sunshine and sunshine, frankly, casts a shadow on street art photography, much rather a bright day with a bit of cloud cover.

Temperatures rising (we are forecast to hit 20 by the end of the week) and no rain also help.  Not that that really mattered in the case of this find of a lovely clutch of Jonesy paintings, as they were under cover.

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, Tour, Jonesy, environmental art, awareness, CO2, methane

Jonesy – Fossil Fuel Genocide

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, Tour, Jonesy, environmental art, awareness, CO2, methane

Jonesy – methane, it’s a pain

We also came across a lovely work-in-progress by Skeleton Cardboard.  Although normally one would be inclined to pass by a set piece “mural on a board for an audience” style  of painting, we love Skeleton Cardboard’s expressionism and bizarre twisted thoughts so paused to dwell on this latest masterpiece.

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, Tour,Skeleton Cardboard,

Skeleton Cardboard, Box Park

Being a bank holiday for some reason the Seven Stars Car Park was pretty much devoid of cars which meant better views of 616’s multi-layered buttress bombing.

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, Tour, 616

616, feat Vibes RT

And clear shots of this, featuring Artista, artist unknown, Airborne Mark, Voyder/fanakapan collaboration and Vibes

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, Tour, Jonesy, environmental art, awareness, CO2, methane, Skeleton Cardboard, 616, Artista, Fanakapan, Voyder, Airborne Mark, Vibes RT