Tag Archives: D7606

Manchester Street Art

A couple of weeks ago I made a trip to Manchester to explore that city’s street art. Manchester has great architecture, a distinct exciting personality adn plenty of locations where stencils, stickers, paste ups and graffiti flourishes. There are also some impressive murals.

This next gallery is a sample of the roughly 800 photographs taken over a 2 day exploration.

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Space Invader aficionados will doubtless be aware of the Manchester invasion that took place in 2004, 47 street mosaics were left lurking and without too much effort 31 of them were located and dutifully “flashed”.

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These are just a small number of the photographic highlights, this is a SHOREDITCH blog after all!! The full write up can be found on the Graffoto blog.

All photos Dave Stuart

June Busting Out Street Art All Over

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.

paste up street art of rock star Debbie Harry from Blondie by Postmans Art

Debbie Harry – The Postman’s Art

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.

permissioned mural street by Nathan Bowen and Harry Blackmore

Nathan Bowen & Harry Blackmore

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.

stencil street art by Pablo Fiasco featuring Peanuts character Franklin and scenes from The Harder They Fall Jimmy Cliff

Peanuts character Franklin by Pablo Fiasco

Pablo Fiasco Jimmy Cliff detail

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.

pop art style paste up street art with Grace Kelly in a phone box by street artist D7606

Phone box multiples with Grace Kelly – D7606

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.

paste up street art female figure bouncing on space hopper by street artist Coloquix

female with space hopper – Coloquix

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

Photorealistic fried egg painted on a building site hoarding in Shoreditch by street artist Woskerski

Fried Egg – Woskerski

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

David Speed

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.

Art Night 2021 billboard art by Guerrilla Girls

Guerrilla Girls -Female Artists

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.

Favourtie piece of street art ever, billboard art in Shoreditch

TRA TON SI SIHT – Jimmy Cauty, 2008

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.

artist not known

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.

Art Otel new building under construction in Shoreditch with graffiti on hoardings Awards, Fugs, Mase, Krops et al

Legal graffiti on building site hoardings – Awards, Fugs, Mase, Krops et al

all photos: Dave Stuart

Diggin In The Archives Part 9

In the week we discovered new ways to test your eyesight the photo archive continued to exhibit 20/20 hindsight with visual crackerjacks from the past.

Mr Cenz has a spraypainting pedigree that stretches back over 30 years so it is not surprising that his style has evolved considerably. He is famous these days for intensely colourful portraits with shafts of light and starbursts, those elements are clearly emerging in this 2013 portrait yet at the same time, it is quite different.

Mr Cenz, Ravey St, 2013

The two seemingly abstract paste ups above on the Grant and Taylor sign represented folded garments by Specter from NY who dropped some art works reflecting on visual aspects of the homeless community when over in 2010 for an exhibition in the Pure Evil Gallery.

Next a pair of east end classics, Sweet Toof and Paul Insect on a paste-up mission around #BrickLane. That pair of beautiful decaying paste-ups has long gone but this 2013 photo also shows Jonesy’s “Sand Tar Nightmare” from 2012 complete with the original Native American headdress feathers which is still up today.

Sweet Toof, Paul Insect, Jonesy, Fournier St, 2012

Graff snapping mate for many years Joe Epstein aka LDNGraffiti, author of street art book “London Graffiti and Street Art” has teamed up with 9 street artists to raise funds for Great Ormond St Hospital. Each artist has created a special version of the book by hand painting the cover, so that’s 9 unique versions of the book..

LDN Graffiti, Joe Epstein, London Graffiti and Street Art, GOSH, Great Ormond Street Hospital, Alo, Dr Zadok, MadC, Neist, Pure Evil, Run, Stik, The Toasters, Vibes, Shoreditch Street Art Tours

9 Art Blitzed Books – Unique Covers

Italian artist Giacomo aka RUN paints stunning murals around Shoreditch and North London. Flat faced characters express surprisingly intense emotion and always at large scale. This pair of characters competing for the passer-by’s attention dates from 2009. Needless to say that spot on Hackney Road has no sense of that urban dereliction now.

Run, Hackney Road, 2009

Click HERE for a blogpost with more images, details and link to how to support the fund raiser and maybe win one of these fantastic prizes in the #LDNGOSHLottery, keep an eye out as well for further announcements of more prizes.

This D7606 & C3 collaboration from 2013 found a perfect home on the haphazard accumulation of red and white marks on this Blackall St door. The featured image at the top of this post is a beautiful piece of pop street art by D7606 from 2013.

D7606 C3 collaboration, Blackall St 2013

Dan Witz is full on old school street artist from New York who has blessed London with impressive street art on several occasions. Each passion project has been cause driven. It was Guantanamo in 2013 (1^st photo) and his “Empty The Cages” anti animal cruelty project in 2014. The joined up element between the two visits was the theme of incarceration and cruelty in both.

Dan Witz, Rathbone Place, 2013

I recently cycled through Kings Cross and can report with pleasure and amazement that the PETA (People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals) installation below is still in place. See Graffoto.co.uk Feb 2014 for an appreciation of Dan Witz’s street art contribution to that campaign.

Dan Witz, Kings Cross, 2014

The magical power of art to turn humble domestic artefact into art icon has an honourable lineage that ultimately culminates in Toasters! Toasters already came up in Week 2 of #DigginInTheArchives but embedded in this bit of #flashback fun is a cruel selection process as a limit of one image only per artist was imposed following the principals of #rulesforbenefitofall #rulesapplytoall (according to government deputy Chief Medical Officer Prof JVT when he broke ranks at the briefing podium to condemn lockdown breaches by unelected shameless creep Cummings).

Thanks again to Joe Epstein’s fundraiser for Great Ormond St Hospital, the Toasters corner of the archive gets forked over a second time. This stunning appliance from 2010 faced a Roa hare, famously spared the council buff thanks to a public petition. That green board next to the Toaster was the same property that the Run characters were on in 2009, see above.

Toasters, Roa, Hackney Road, 2010

Every week now it feels like it is time to draw DITA to a close, to get out, do fresh but socially distanced street art spotting. We are however feeling inclined to err towards the side of the scientific advice and, again in the words of JVT, “not tear the pants out if it”. DITA daily uploads will continue on the Dave Stuart instagram

Check out the previous Diggin’ In The Archives weekly compendiums starting with week 1 and then hopefully navigating the index to find the rest: DITA 1

Let’s Stick Together 2015

2015 was another great year for street art in Shoreditch. Street art was big, small, political, sexy, collaborative, disruptive, international, domestic, legal, illegal, sculptural, painted, printed, hand stitched, amusing, thought provoking but never anything less than inventive.

London, Shoreditch, Street art, guided tours, guide, artists, collaboration, intervention,

Noriaki adds a rider to Anat Ronen’s cat

Over on Graffoto there is a quite large review with many beautiful photographs of a load of street art that blew my socks off personally, so that’s covered. Last New Year Shoreditch Street Art Tours looked back over art whose creation had been witnesses on the tour by our guests. This year, we are going to look back on collaborations. Some were legal (possibly), some illegal (perhaps); some were planned by two artists working together, some are collaboration by dint of later intervention. Do enjoy.

D7606 has adopted collaborative practices for a long time, creating art with a range of UK and international artists. Here City Kitty from New York answers one of D7606’s pop art phones.

London, Shoreditch, Street art, guided tours, guide, artists, collaboration, intervention, City Kitty, D7606

City Kitty (NY), D7606 (UK)

Two absolute legends from the world of graffiti and street art combined for the first time during London’s Art Week to produce this beguiling pair of colourful characters.

Kid Acne, Inkie (UK)

Wrdsmth creates beautiful pithy stencil and paper combinations and here he worked just before Christmas on a gorgeous collaboration with UK street artist C3 who creates seductive but dangerous heart breakers on recylded financial newspapers. Look how Wrdsth’s stencil goes over C3’s paste up, and the paste ups from both artists mutually overlap eachother, truly collaborative.

WRDSMTH (LA), C3 (UK)

Avem pasted an enormous white hand onto a wall, a couple of weeks later Frankie Strand sent her lizards in to have a play with it

Avem, Frankie Strand

Another Anat Ronen, this time graffiti writer DERS makes it clear that Vincent van Gogh has admiring glances for one thing only:

Anat Ronen, DERS

HNRX’s pearly white teeth soon rotted, it is not clear whether this intervention was the hand of another artist or actually a witty evolution by HNRX himself:

HNRX

D7606 (again) collaborated with KafkaIsFamous to give the dog a pair of spectacles with Liz Taylor reflected in the lenses. He then got up very high for impressive placement over the barbed wire:

D7606 (UK), KafkaIsFamous

Noriaki does like an amusing intervention, here proclaiming himself unique like all the rest on St8ment’s angry boy lineup:

St8ment, Noriaki

Masterful ink painter Alexis Diaz got a new painting on this wall which in 2014 featured his Octophant which from time to time guests on the tour still enquire about. Working here with Elian from Argentina in May 2015.

Elian (Arg), Alexis Diaz (Puerto Rico)

Finally, a tour favourite. Let’s hope we see more witty and inventive collaborations, interactions and interventions in 2016.

mosaic – artist unknown, Endless, Himbad, Noriaki

Featured image: Mazatl and Fusca from Mexico collaborate in Shoreditch

All photos: Dave Stuart aka NoLionsInEngland

No Rest For The Wicked

Do you think street artists take a break over Christmas? Not a bit of it, we found some lovely fresh street art on the tour today which all appeared since yesterday.

D7606 was spied around town, for him it’s a pretty long trip to visit London and this time he brought this gorgeous collaboration with City Kitty of New York

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, tour, guide, guided, D7606, paste up, collaboration, collab, pop art

D7606 (UK) & City Kitty (NY)

Several new stencil and paste up multimedia combos from US West Coast WRDSMTH also appeared overnight, this modern world romantic twist was a new one not seen here before:

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, tour, guide, guided, Wrdsmth, paste up, multi media, stencil

WRDSMTH – instagram validation

It’s always good to see street artists seeing out the old year in style, look out for the Shoreditch Street Art Tour annual review appearing in the next few days.

Links:

D7606

WRDSMTH

All photos: Dave Stuart aka NoLionsInEngland

Small Perfectly Formed Street Art

A biblical downpour, ice cold hailstones and a hurricane 15 minutes before the start of this afternoon’s tour may have turned me on my bike into a mobile icicle but it didn’t deter a hardy group of tour guests.

We found a tiny piece of art on a wall, a mother, her child with some beautiful hand stitched embroidery acting as a shawl, the whole thing about 6 inches from top to bottom. It was beautiful, it is poignant and the artist is anonymous.

Shoreditch, Street Art, Street artist, unknown, paste up, hand stitched, embroidery, colourful, threads, mother, child

The placement of this work is intriguing, the juxtaposition against a pair of faded Betty Page images, part of a D7606 “post box” piece bring together two power images of the roles of women.

This next specimen, clearly from the same artist, photographed earlier this week a few hundred yards further up Brick Lane had already succumbed to light fingered art collectors!

Shoreditch, Street Art, Street artist, unknown, paste up, hand stitched, embroidery, colourful, threads, mother, child

Street art – it’s temporary and it’s not just about the large murals, the permissioned artwork and the international household name street artists.

A little “ps”, here is the D7606 mailbox photographed in its early days in June 2014, and yes, it is just a paste up, that’s not a real postbox.

Shoreditch, Street Art, Street artist, unknown, paste up,colourful, threads, mother, child, D7606, Betty page, Pop art

D7606, Jun 2014, feat Betty Page

All photos: Dave Stuart aka NoLionsInEngland

D7606 Pop Art On Shoreditch Walls

Among the street artists featuring on the Shoreditch Street Art Tour walks, D7606 is always a favourite for the simple witty ideas, the colours and the collaborations. With the most recent crop of Marilyn as Valentine Cowgirl, D7606 has kicked the Warholian pop art imagery up another level. The locations are also superbly “storied” street art sports, particularly the “Glory Portal” doorway.

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D7606 also featured in my “25 Shoreditch Street Artists You Need To Know” feature for Complex website, click HERE

Shoreditch,London,Street Art,Tour,D7606,Street artist,Marilyn Monroe, valentine cowgirl,Warhol, Pop art

Twiggy at the post box

Feminine icons in phone boxes

Street Artists Donk Skeleton Cardboard Riposte to Shoreditch Street Art Buff

Someone, presumably an authority of some sort of a care in the community type of organisation buffed the sometimes controversial Sclater St wall a few weeks ago due to some obscenity or offence. It was one of the poorest buffs ever seen, that old health and safety chestnet “no over head height working without hoists, harness, psychotherapy and feng shui” meaning the wall was left with an irregular grey tide mark at about 6 feet off the ground, above that was the flotsam and jetsam of partially obscured tags and wind blown wilting peels of decaying pasteups.

Shoireditch Street Art paste Up Donk London

Donk and Skeleton Cardboard paste ups respond to buff

One of the pieces gone over was DONK’s supersized “Star Boomboom Sound” ghetto blaster paste up which, admittedly, was dragging out its fin-de-siecle dried leaf crispiness. So Donk has returned with a massive tryptic paste up installation in his characteristic purple hazed hue. Emerging name Skeleton Cardboard is up along side him and the Post box paste added more recently is by D7606.

Curiously, the paste ups are placed on a large base of plywood, perhaps to give it a veneer (boom boom geddit?) of official approval.

Speaking of the life cycle of street art, comparing two of my photos of this new Donk piece taken just 4 days apart, albeit a period which did include “biblical downpour Saturday”, it is apparent that a huge amount of the purple-ness has run. Purple rain?

DOnk Skeleton Cupboard Paste up shoreditch london

Gonna need more purple!

all photos: NoLionsInEngland