Tag Archives: Alex Arnell

Street Art, London, Shoreditch, Shoreditch Street Art Tours, Political Street Art, Environmental, Greenpeace, Birds Of Paradise, Matt Sewell, dirtypalmoil

Environmental Campaign on Shoreditch Streets

Murals depicting images of the Birds Of Paradise have been painted by street artists in Cities across the World to support a Greenpeace environmental campaign.  Rainforests are being devastated across Papua in the quest to increase palm oil production, the consequence is loss of wildlife habitat, collapse of biodiversity and displacement of communities.

Street Art, London, Shoreditch, Shoreditch Street Art Tours, Political Street Art, Environmental, Greenpeace, Birds Of Paradise, Matt Sewell, dirtypalmoil

Work in progress #Wingsofparadise Shoreditch

This campaign has appeared in Tokyo, Geelong, Long Beach, Berlin, Breda, Wellington, Taipei and here in Shoreditch London, below.

Street Art, London, Shoreditch, Shoreditch Street Art Tours, Political Street Art, Environmental, Greenpeace, Birds Of Paradise, Matt Sewell, dirtypalmoil

Wings Of paradise by Matt Sewell

This idea is to get up images of the birds, replicating in the cities their colourful plumage, their flight and their life, and thus to promote the conversation about the need for action to halt the eradication of their lands and habitat.

Street Art, London, Shoreditch, Shoreditch Street Art Tours, Political Street Art, Environmental, Greenpeace, Birds Of Paradise, Matt Sewell, dirtypalmoil

#Wingsofparadise Shoreditch

Curiously in London the campaign started with a commissioned piece of artwork but then Greenpeace supporters/activists extended the action with quite a flock of non permissioned paste ups on walls from Brick Lane to Old Street.

Street Art, London, Shoreditch, Shoreditch Street Art Tours, Political Street Art, Environmental, Greenpeace, Birds Of Paradise, Matt Sewell, dirtypalmoil

#Wingsofparadise Shoreditch

The Greenpeace campaign appears to have taken wing as a vibrant Bird Of Paradise in Sell Out’s distinctive expressionist style was spotted on Brick Lane, suggesting that other street artists are independently picking up on the campaign.   There is always room for campaigning political street art, particularly when it comes with a novel legal-illegal combo strategy and picks up momentum in such an unusual way.

Street Art, London, Shoreditch, Shoreditch Street Art Tours, Political Street Art, Environmental, Greenpeace, Birds Of Paradise, dirtypalmoil, Sell Out, Alex Arnell

Bird Of Paradise, Brick Lane by Sell Out

This is a slightly abbreviated version of a post by same author which appeared on Graffoto.co.uk which also has a lot more photos of the paste ups put up in London

Street Art, London, Shoreditch, Shoreditch Street Art Tours, Political Street Art, Environmental, Greenpeace, Birds Of Paradise, Matt Sewell, dirtypalmoil

#Wingsofparadise Shoreditch

LINKS:

Greenpeace website  

Matt Sewell website

Sell Out instagram

All photos: Dave Stuart

 

 


London, Shoreditch, Street art, Street artist, Freddie Mercury, Queen, Trash sculpture, Alex Arnell, Sell Out

Trash Sculpture Wants To Break Free

This morning one of our favourite trash sculpture street artists Sell Out created a hugely amusing street art sculpture paying homage to rock legend Freddie Mercury, the late lead singer of Queen.   In a classic rock video Freddie and fellow Queen band members appear in drag living in domestic drudgery with Freddie swanning around scandalously dressed in a tight pink top, short leather mini skirt and suspenders proclaiming “I want to break free” as she vacuums and dusts around their congested living room.

London, Shoreditch, Street art, Street artist, Freddie Mercury, Queen

Freddie Mercury: Screen Grab from official Queen video

Sell Out has recreated Freddie at his provocative cross dressing best complete with upright hoover.  A swarm of his trademark cut out paper butterflies swarm around Freddie’s head.

London, Shoreditch, Street art, Street artist, Freddie Mercury, Queen, Trash sculpture, Alex Arnell, Sell Out

I Want To Break Free

This video scandalized America’s bible belt, radio stations deleted Queen from their playlists, MTV banned the video and it put Queen’s US commercial career on ice. Europe LOVED it.

 

The song appeared on Queen’s album The Works which Wikipedia says was released on 27 February 1984, 22 years ago almost to the day. Damn tune was going through my head for the rest of this morning’s tour.

This isn’t Sell Out’s only rock star tribute, a few weeks ago while the world made a shrine of a pointilist portrait in Brixton by Jimmy C, David Bowie appeared immortalised in trash by Sell Out in Shoreditch.

Photo: Alex Arnell

Photo: Alex Arnell

Links: Alex Arnell (Sell Out) Facebook: Alex’s photo shows the trash sculpture without the …errr..trash

ALex has featured many times on previous Shoreditch Street Art Tours blog updates, click here

Photos: Dave Stuart aka NoLionsInEngland except where noted