Shoreditch Street Art Tours returned from a short break in foreign climes to find a street art “Where’s Wally?” challenge on the streets of Shoreditch, courtesy of French street artist STRA.

 

This was a Wally hunt with a difference with three of the World’s top street artists being portrayed as the elusive Wally.  A word of warning, this blog post turned into an excuse to dig through lots of old images of some of my favourite street artists so prepare for some gratuitous street art history!

No mistaking the World’s top street artist being spoofed with this monkey Where’s Wally,

 

“Laugh Now” is a classic Banksy monkey image and from the photo of the silk screen print version below, photographed at Steve Lazarides’ “Banksy Unauthorised Retrospective” exhibition in 2014, you can see exactly which Banksy image Stra has drawn from.

 

The only genuine Banksy monkey I have photographed on the street is this monkey detonating a bunch of bananas photographed in 2006 but even Banksy has spoofed himself as a monkey as seen in 2010 in the film poster for his street art documentary “Exit Through The Gift Shop”.

 

Shephard Fairey, popular around the world, most famously for his Obama “HOPE” poster, itself subject of more parody copy versions than you might imagine, is also a street art Where’s Wally.

 

This Where’s Wally is based on the Obey Giant image, one of the most reproduced images in modern art history (no evidence for that statement but it sounds impressive and perhaps might even be true!)

 

Alongside the Obey Giant paste ups on the back of the road sign by Shep Fairey in the photo above is a D*Face paste up, D*Face has also been Wallified!

D*Face is represented by his classic D*Dog character, seen in a couple of photos below

There are more out there, good luck with your Where’s Wally hunt!

 

All photos: Dave Stuart