Tag Archives: ALO

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 17^th 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

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.

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 19^th century painter John Martin. This truly extraordinary painting lasted about 5 weeks.

Ed Hicks

All photos: Dave Stuart

ALO Street Art and Show

In an urban landscape where portrait street painters are overwhelmingly drawn to either the technical proficiency of photorealism or its diametric opposite cartoonery, ALO’s expressionist fisogs stand out!

Streetart, Shoreditch, ShoreditchStreetArtTours, LondonStreetArt, LondonArtTours, LondonStreetArtTours, ALO, Streetartist, Sculptures, faces, spraypaint,canvas

Brick Lane 2020

His street art career started with small paste ups in 2011 and bar a brief flirtation with Paris ALO has lived in London and consistently decorated our streets ever since.

Untitled – Dalston 2020

ALO has just had a solo show titled “Grace”at the BSMT Space gallery and among the brilliant pieces were copies of some of his recent street pieces.

ALO: Marrakech

ALO: Lunia

His art has been dominated by figures and portraiture and the expressionist paintings in his show were so enchanting that I made this compilation of some of the many faces he painted.

Being a great fan of ALO I have written a broader appreciation of the Grace show which you can see on Graffoto, my other blog.

Links:

ALO website

BSMT Space website

All photos: Dave Stuart

Street Artists Great Ormond Street Hospital Fundraiser

Joe Epstein of LDN Graffiti and producer of the street art book London Graffiti and Street Art has announced an exciting fund raiser to benefit the famous Great Ormond Street Hospital.

GOSH has launched their Covid-19 appeal to help fund both the hospital’s most urgent needs now and support its vital work once this crisis is over, more details on their appeal HERE

9 Art Blitzed Books – Unique Covers

Nine artists, all of them tour favourites, have each uniquely hand-painted and signed a copy of the book London Graffiti and Street Art.

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The artists are: Alo, Dr Zadok, MadC, Neist, Pure Evil, Run, Stik, The Toasters, and Vibes.

The Pure Evil book looks pure bonkers!

Donate £5 to enter the LDN GOSH Lottery to WIN one of these unique modified LDN books, 9 in total, published by Ebury Press. £20 gets four entries, and so on. 100% of donations will go to GOSH and help the fight against Covid-19!

Dig deep, donate and enter the #LDNGOSHLottery now!

The donation link is > https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/LDNGOSHLottery

The full project info is on the LDN website > https://ldngraffiti.co.uk/shop

Here are some photos by Dave Stuart of each these featured artists as seen on the tour (to avoid confusion, these photos do not appear in Joe’s book):

Street Art, Shoreditch, London, street art tour, tour guide, Banksy, Stik, Roa, Dismaland, Dr D, Vermibus, Alo, Clet Abraham,

A Bun In Their Hair, ALO, Shoreditch 2014

Street Art, Jim Vision,Shoreditch,Street Art Tour, East End, London,Kick Ass 2, Movie, live, painting

Dr Zadok as seen on Shoreditch Street Art Tour

MadC, 2013 and still going strong

Street Art, review, 2010, Graffoto.co.uk, street art tours, tour guide, murals

Connectivity Mural – Autone & Neist detail

London, Shoreditch,Street art,graffiti,walk,tour,walks, tours,jesuischarlie,artists, Pure Evil

Pure Evil jesuischarlie 2015

Street Art Locations, London Street Art, Street Art In London, Shoreditch, Camden, Hackney Wick, Where is London's art, Banksy

RUN and Burning Candy, Hackney Wick 2013

Street art, Shoreditch, London, Stik, Falko, Falko1, street artist, street art tour, guide, couple holding hands, brick lane, interracial harmony

Couple Holding Hands, Stik, 2010

Street art, Shoreditch, Shoreditch street art tours, London, Tour Guide, Dave Stuart, street art photography

Toasters, Kingsland Road, 2009

London, Shoreditch, street art, sculpture, dust cart, hand cart, Sell Out, street artist, walk, walks, tour, tours

Vibes, ALO and also feat Sell Out and Brush

A Decade of Genius Street Art

As we start a new decade a review of a tiny amount of the amazing street art witnessed in the past decade seemed appropriate.

A Bun In Their Hair, ALO, Shoreditch 2014

Here is a slide show of a number of the images that made the final review of the “wild Wonderous and Inventive” art, which is a rather vague way of saying “stuff that wasn’t mentioned in our mural, sculptural or political street art reviews.

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The only way to bring to a close this dredging up of our favourite specimens of wild outdoor art is to look back at what Banksy has been up to. Although Banksy produced far less street art in the past decade than in the noughties, on almost all respects other than quantity he continues to be the most important, brilliant and relevant artist in whatever field he chooses.

Banksy Dismaland, 2015

Banksy’s Better In Than Out in New York saw a month long treasure hunt – “hide and seek” combo which cast Banksy as Bonnie And Clyde against the NY mayor, police and press and the world watched with glee but we already knew Banksy would never be caught.

Better Out Than IN, Banksy, New York, photo LunaPark

He also had a major art triumph staging a group shop with a conscience at Dismaland though we already knew Banksy did extraordinary exhibition/experience fusion.

Dismaland, Banksy, Weston Super Mare, 2015

He created a huge mural in Dover in 2017 but we already knew Brexit was a stupid idea.

Banksy, Dover 2017

My favourite Banksy of the decade however was his Les Miserables in Knightsbridge, London’s embassy land.

Tear gassed Cosette, Banksy, Knightsbridge London, 2016

It has the Banksy signature elements, it had the cleverness in repurposing the iconic image of Cosette, it had the impact in terms of global exposure, right opposite the French embassy it combined perfect placement with the “wow, how did he get away with that.” factor.

We did not however know about the French police tear gassing migrant families in the camps in Calais and this was Banksy’s crowning achievement, bringing that shameful episode to wider international attention.

Cosette v French embassy, Banksy, Knightsbridge London, 2016

This selection of photos a part of the selection reviewed and discussed on the Graffoto blog post 2010 – 2019 Wild Wonderous Inventive Street Art

All photos Dave Stuart except LunaPark where noted

It has been a huge pleasure to write 5 reviews of the street art of the past decade which we personally enjoyed. The Links to those reviews are at the bottom of the Graffoto review. A specific review of the street art of 2019 might appear shortly.

Brand new ALO Street Art in Shoreditch

After a period of travels abroad and basically finding other things to do, ALO has returned to the streets of Shoreditch with new street art.

ALO

The tone of the blue in that first piece is beautiful, haven’t seen quite this colour from ALO before. Its hard to miss the fact that both girls have demon red eyes, I know a few girls like that.

The featured piece above was completed yesterday and we found it on the tour today. Last year ALO had a major breakthrough with a solo exhibition in the Saatchi Gallery, you can read what Graffoto had to say about it here.

photos: Dave Stuart (Nolionsinengland), no reproduction without explicit permission

Top Blog For Street Art and Graffiti in Shoreditch is……..

Judging by the “vote me” messages in my email inbox it must be the time of year when bloggers seek “blogger of the year” titles. Shoreditch Street Art Tours is proud to announce it has been blessed with its first (publishable!) accolade this season, our blog tops ShoreditchInshort’s 5 best blogs they would recommend concerning Shoreditch. Wooo hooooo, we are pleased and honoured, thank you very much Julie, author of that very discerning blog.

Aven, St8ment, Anna Laurini, Street Art,tour,tours,blog,Shoreditch,London,graffiti

Face the facts! Avem, Mr.Farenheit, Anna Laurini

We like to illustrate our blog posts with relevant and beautiful photographs but a screengrab of our own blog on this occasion would be a bit, well, tcky and redundant. So, as we love Shoreditch’s street art AND a new issue of Very Nearly Almost magazine is launching this week, we thought we would celebrate with some of the photos submitted by NoLionsInEngland to VNA which didn’t make the cut. We won’t be betraying any confidences if we say that for each edition, VNA’s content gurus looks through about 20 or so images we select and generally publishes 4 or 5 in the magazine. This leaves us with a number of photos which then generally don’t see the light of day but are too nice to be totally forgotten. Enjoy these photos, more information about the launch of issue 29 of Very Nearly Almost to follow shortly.

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All photos: NoLionsInEngland

Street Artist ALO hits Shoreditch again

A perennial favourite, street artist ALO has been busy in Shoreditch in the past few days creating several stunning new portraits. This first one caused quite a stir when we unexpectedly found it on the route of the Shoreditch Street Art Tour this week.

The second of the all female trio is one block away from the Shoreditch Street Art Tour meeting point in Spitalfields.

This third one (below) is actually a matter of yards from where the Shoreditch Street Art Tour usually ends.

Sometimes it is nice to know that others share your love for a particular artist, as passionately declared by this tagger off Brick Lane.

I love your work

After a long period where fans of his work found purchasing canvasses tricky and he was not easy to find online, ALO broke cover with a solo show this Summer at the prestigious Saatchi Gallery, covered here.

London, Shoreditch, street art, street artist, Saatchi, gallery, fine art, solo, show, German, expressionism, Jean Michel Basquiat, Basquiat

Hail To The Loser

.Always popular on the Shoreditch Street Art Tour, it is good to know that we aren’t running out of ALO art anytime soon, join the tour to see other examples of his great work.

2013 Street Art Review

Shoreditch Street Art Tours wishes its readers, past guests and future guests a happy, safe and culture filled 2014!

Dal East

On the Shoreditch Street Art Tours blog we published 74 posts about the street art we saw in 2013, which is rather a lot! As we look forward to Street Artists in Shoreditch continuing to produce new and exciting working 2014, we thought it would be fun to look back on the brilliant, the colourful and the clever work of 2013.

London,East End,Shoreditch,Street Art,2013, Review,ALO, D*Face

Art Is Trash

Our sister blog Graffoto, written on those days when we need to kick back and chill even more than on our “Shoreditch Street Art Tour” days has a great review of the best of the illegal and non permissioned work in London in 2013, click HERE.

RYCA

There is also a part 2 to the review, published shortly before midnight on New Years Eve, which looks at the bigger and more spectacular mural side of street art, check that out HERE.

D*Face

Virtually all the street art, even the pieces out in Hackney (!) photographed in those two reviews was seen on Shoreditch Street Art Tours in 2013!

Three

Unknown

All Photos: NoLionsInEngland

Shoreditch Street Art Tours Guest Photographs

Shoreditch’s street art is incredibly photogenic, lending itself to sensational colourful images whether you are using a camera phone or a full frame ultra high spec digital SLR.

On a recent tour Robert Benson brought along a lovely Nikon which happens to be the same camera I use when I am out photographing street art on days when I am not leading street art tours. Robert has sent over a selection of the lovely photographs that he took on his visit and Shoreditch Street Art Tours is delighted to share them with you, thank you Robert.

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Photographs: Robert Benson