June is Summer’s portal, ushering in hazy sunshine, drinks with friends and a bump in street art action.  That’s the theory; June in London this year was on the whole rather grey and overcast, here are some of the artworks that leavened the damp squib the month became.

Nathan Bowen has been on a recent flurry of art activity, one particular piece I wanted to include falls foul of the very strict rigid inflexible “June and June only” qualifying period set for this post but thankfully there are other equally lovely ones.

In this artwork created in Pedley St, the latest graffiti hotspot, Pablo Fiasco fuses the first African American character to appear in the Peanuts cartoon strip with imagery inspired by the Jimmy Cliff film “The Harder They Come”, a combination every bit as brilliant as Fiasco’s masterful stencil technique.

Grace Kelly popping into a British phone box would be an iconic moment if it ever happened, D7606 is quite happy to do the imagining for us.  Let’s hope “indigo the art dog” from New York knows how to behave.

Seeing Coloquix art in London is relatively unusual but it always reminds me of the wonderful time I had in Sheffield exploring art in derelict buildings after travelling up there for a gallery show by Aida, which was the first time I encountered Coloquix’s art.

Woskerski and David Speed have alternated in the use of this particular spot in the past month, this fried egg by Woskerski was sensational.

At a nearby location this skull by David Speed was beautifully framed in the structure of the bus shelter.

At a more formal level and not normally the kind of art that Shoreditch Street Art Tours covers, Art Night has been significantly redesigned for 2021.  It used to be a one night event in London involving a crazy evening pounding around one off art events in galleries in institutions and it was terribly easy to actually spend the whole evening stuck in a queue for the most popular elements.   For 2021 the event is strung out over a month and has been decentralised with much activity outside London.  Supporting a theme small acts of personal and collective defiance and self determination we had this biting feminist advert from the Guerrilla Girls.

As an aside, whenever I am under extreme pressure to name a favourite piece of street art I often fall back to a piece by James Cauty in 2008 which mirrored the street but with the devastating ego blow in which my personal significance was accurately measured out by my invisibility, it was at the same spot.

This building site hoarding is at the site of the former art hang out known as the Foundry, the Shoreditch location where a new 27 story hotel is being constructed where once was one of the largest Banksy’s in London.  It mainly hosts graffiti, this sublime abstract artwork seems to have the hand, meaning can control, of a graffiti writer but looks to be abstract to the point of no letterform at all.

That building site is now emerging above ground level, it is quite scary to reflect on the fact that it will be a 27 story building when complete.

all photos: Dave Stuart