Tag Archives: DFace

DFace Shoreditch Stamping Ground Treasure Hunt

Last weekend saw fun, creativity and a bit of exercise for all the family thanks to local street artist DFace. Being “Local” was particularly significant as DFace was celebrating decades of decoration on his stomping ground, the street of London.

image courtesy DFace Official mailing list

The idea was a treasure hunt. Solve the clues, find the location, stamp your paper, create your own authorised legitimate collaborative DFace image. The fun started at DFace’s Gallery, StolenSpace. Put your paper in a hinged frame, ink up the stamp pad, press the stamp through the window in the frame, fret about whether you had properly stamped the colour onto your sheet and how long the ink would take to dry (not long) then on to the next clue.

Stamping Point Treasure Hunt Clues

First Stamp at StolenSpace

Second stop on the treasure trail, after the StolenSpace Gallery, was Slam City Skates in the Old Truman Brewery. DFace is known to be a skate fanatic.

Blue Half Tone and mysterious blue streak added

Many may recall the old StolenSpace base in the Old Truman Brewery, hidden away in a loading dock DFace and friends Word To Mother and Ronzo had a skate ramp set up.

From Slam City Skates the next stop is the epic DFace showcase at Art ‘Otel on the site of the former Foundry. Digital animation installations, lenticular mural, sweeping DFace collages in the public spaces and a telephone box installation outside are among the reasons this location is now a major stop on the Shoreditch Street Art Tour.

Art ‘Otel, ready for the green ink

Green stamp stamped!

The next location was the much storied Golden Heart pub on Commercial Street which has held out a welcome to local artists from Gilbert and George to DFace for years.

Pink hair and painted nails. Shoreditch norm.

Finally back to StolenSpace for the excitement of applying the 5^th stamp and the grand reveal, the black outline which gave definition to the image .

Check the registration

5 stamp DIY DFace print

Variations in the consistency of the inking, the distribution of smudges, vignettes in the corners from over enthusiastic unequal pressures, not to mention minute (or not so minute) discrepancies in registration (the alignment of the paper in the frame) pretty much guaranteed that no too images were identical.

Take your pick

All across Shoreditch families and familiar faces participating in the treasure hunt were super easy to spot, not least due to the distinctive pouches used to protect the paper while dashing from clue to clue. I enjoyed the company of Brighton Street Art and we hooked up with artist Stubacca and a fun time was had, great company. Then at each stamping station there were conversations to be had with staff and participants, works in progress to be compared not to mention clue checking. It was a lot about the social as well as the creation of a DFace artwork. Technically I guess the finished stamped print could be regarded as an open time limited edition. Everyone who completed the treasure hunt and printed all colours got a bonus screen printed and signed Certificate.

DFace street art treasure hunt stamp certificate

CoA

DFace is a globe trotting muralist, print maker and sticker artist. This year I have seen major DFace murals in the 13^th arrondissement in Paris as well as on the side of a building in Williamsburg, New York but London is not over-blessed with major DFace murals. DFace painted a mural on the Camden/Kings Cross border for the 2020 London Mural Festival and has just recently painted a new mural at the same location for the 2024 edition. Lo and behold, the #stampingground image turns out to be a miniature (reversed) souvenir of that stunning mural in Camden.

DFace mural for London Mural festival 2024

DFace Dog In Hand detail, Camden 2024

DFace Dog In Hand, Camden 2024

StolenSpace website

DFace instagram

London Mural Festival news

all photos: Dave Stuart

Street Art Highlights For November

Shoreditch walls sure got a lot of attention in November, we have a lot to choose from in selecting some of the highlights.

At the beginning of the month a long standing discrepancy was addressed, the significance of paste-ups was recognised by the first (assuming there may be more) London International Street Art Festival. At six Shoreditch locations paper art submitted by artists from all over the world was pasted for a weekend jamboree of pasteup art. Here are just a few photos that capture the tone of the event, to check out a full write up including a lot more detail photos and to see the result of my effort to reproduce a Dr Cream street art animation, click HERE.

Street artist Wrdsmth describes street art to the London International Paste-up tour in Shoreditch

Wrdsmth on London International Paste-up tour

The London International Paste-up tour in Shoreditch with the special tour by Shoreditch Street art tour guide Dave

London International Paste-up Festival site and tour group

London International Paste-up Festival

As street art proclaimed itself in its formative years to be anti advertising and as D*Face is a hugely significant figure in street art we are actually going to step outside the parish for a brilliant D*Face billboard subversion south of the river.

D*Face vs a building society advert

For fairly obvious reasons night time street art photography in the Summer doesn’t really happen but November saw a lovely few nights of clear weather and great art to photograph. Fanakapan’s balloon was looking quite ghostly and translucent in the night illumination.

stunning chrome balloon painting by Fanakapan photographed with light painting by photographer and street art tour guide Dave Stuart

Fanakapan at night

We also photographed the latest Mr Cenz portrait on Fashion Street, a spot Mr Cenz has held down for years.

beautiful futurist female portrait painted by street artist Mr Cenz, photographed with light painting by photographer and street art tour guide Dave Stuart

Mr Cenz at night

Both those artworks are actually from earlier in the year but if you would like to take photographs like these of street art at night, come and join one of our Night Street Art Photography tours, for more details click HERE.

Enigma was prolific and on awesome form in November, this playful reversal of the shadow hands phenomenon is delightful.

Enigma

That photo can only be followed by another version of a shadow hand, this time by Perspicere whose new string produces real eye catchers.

Perspicere

In November we finally discovered that those single line smiley faces and the “I Farted In Yoga” characters were by Why Reuben and yes, she is carrying a yoga mat in the photo.

I farted in yoga

My favourite piece of graffiti this month is probably this piece by Wiet who pulls off the combination of turquoise, green and purple like it was always meant to happen. I hope you can pick out the letters!

Wiet

To close this month’s look back we have Combo CK from France who put up a pair of stunning large scale paste ups images without permission, this Berber Horse is a nice continuation with the fascination with Moroccan colours that we have been seeing in Combo’s street art over the past few months.

Combo CK

I hope you all enjoy a good December and have a wonderful Christmas, see you on the other side.

Shoreditch September Street Art Highlights

September turned out to be a perfect goldilocks month for street art in Shoreditch, not to hot and not too cold, not too wet and not too dry, just perfect! Here is a selection of some favourites from the past month, some of which are already no more, have ceased to be, expired (etc).

Last weekend our Sunday tour had the pleasure of bumping into Airborne Mark doing one of his characteristic Origami paintings. Here is a look at the origami model he was using as the reference, the final masterpiece can be seen in the featured image at the top.

Airborne Mark

Another artist we bumped into last weekend was the ever friendly D7606 who reclaimed a long running spot with this glorious Princess Grace Kelly in a London phone box “two Margeritas, one four cheeses, an Americano and 3 garlic breads please.”

Princess Grace Kelly spotted in a phone box in Shoreditch by street artist D7606

“so, two Margeritas, one four cheeses, an Americano and 3 garlic breads please.”

There is a tendency for photos to bubble to the surface on my computer in reverse chronological order, most recent first so perhaps it is appropriate that another graffiti writer we at the weekend was writing their name backwards using a very long handled roller brush.

HELCH, ONLY, DIET and TOKS

Yet another artist we bumped into sprang a real surprise on us, reveal a new form of his art. Ben Wilson is better known as the Chewing Gum Man. I told him that the group I was with hadn’t seen any of his chewing gum pictures to which he replied “ah ha, have you seen my new mosaics and he spent 10 minutes giving us a personal guided tour of new paintings done in single mosaic pieces.

Ben Wilson

These are even trickier to spot than his chewing gum pictures (other than on the Millennium Bridge where it is hard to stop stepping on them).

Ben Wilson

An artist we met in action earlier in the month was Daniel K Swann. Passing by the following day I found that the positive message David wished to convey had been painted all across the road.

Fierce Lion on a wall painted byh Daniel K Swan with additional positive love messages written on the road

Fierce Lion by Daniel K Swan

One artist we met twice was the recently relocated Wrdsmth from LA.

mixed media stencil and paste up street art byh artist Wrdsmith in Shoreditch

We will forever know who we love – Wrdsmth

Lest you think my time is spent beating street artists off with a stick, one street artist who was around who we didn’t see was Shepard Fairey. He was present at the opening night of his show of collaborations with D*Face and Kai and Sunny at StolenSpace Gallery but the queue to meet the legend outside the gallery was daunting. I visited the show a couple of days later when it was much quieter, you can read the review HERE. Shepard Fairey left his mark with a significant collection of new stickers many of which we hadn’t seen previously in London.

Sticker in Shoreditch by street artist Shepard Fairey

Wake UP says Shepard Fairey

Gun firing a flower by Shepard Fairey

ED Hicks popped up with several new works in September, leaving aside the – cough – adverts, my favourite was this stunning John Martin meets Dali fragmenting landscape with portal and apocalyptical skyline everything but the kitchen sink piece.

Ed Hicks

Now for a couple which have already featured on my or less daily street art updates, I loved these bunny hands by Enigma.

Bunny Hands street art by enigma in Shoreditch

Bunny Hands by Enigma

Placement is often a significant contribution to great street art so this moth by Marie Alice was really spot on.

paste up street art of a moth perfectly positioned by a gas lamp in brick Lane Shoreditch by street artist Marie Alice

Moth by Marie Alice

All photos: Dave Stuart in month of September 2021

D*Face, Kai and Sunny and Shepard Fairey London art show “Unity”

Massive queues, a packed opening night at a gallery – is this 2008 all over again? Actually no, it’s D*Face collaborating with two of StolenSpace’s long term friends Kai and Sunny, a double act counting as one friend, and Shepard Fairey.

Many may recall that D*Face’s gallery StolenSpace has hosted three major Shep Fairey solo shows in the past (Nineteeneightyfouria 2007; Sound and Vision 2012 and Facing The Giant, 2019). What may be less well known is that Kai and Sunny, described by the gallery as having a “shared college experience” with D*Face, have been exhibiting at StolenSpace since New Year 2009, pursuing a style which back then was way too “design” for my tastes, not “street” enough. See also 2011, 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2020

View of Shepard Fairey's 2007 exhibition Nineteeneightyfouria at Old Truman brewery

NineteenEightyFouria by Shepard Fairey, London 2007

Kai and Sunny have also exhibited at Subliminal Projects in LA, founder….Shepard Fairey, so connections are tight.

Now that the free beer and artist in-person appearances of the opening night have passed there is time to peruse the art at leisure. To appreciate who contributes what where, who combines with whom, it may be handy to really overgeneralise three massive careers in just three pairs of images. D*Face does D*Dog characters with wings and corrupted pop art; Shepard Fairey does Andre The Giant and striking political illustrations, Kai and Sunny come from a gorgeous geometric op art and flower painting direction.

D*Dog sticker by D*Face on a love lock in Shoreditch

D*Face’s D*Dog love lock

Mural in Camden by street artist D*Face with Shepard Fairey sticker in foreground

D*Face mural from 2020 with Obey GIant and D*Dog stickers in foreground

Shepard Fairey Obey Giant sticker in shoreditch

Obey Giant Shepard Fairey

Shepard Fairey political paste ups on Brick Lane London in 2007 showing the strong propaganda illustration influence

Shepard Fairey, Brick Lane 2007

Kai and Sunny solo exhibition Shifting Times at Stolenspace Gallery in 2018

Kai and Sunny “Shifting Times”, StolenSpace 2018

With artistic collaborations there is usually one artist whose contribution dominates, who drives the idea and the collaborators “fill in”. Great collaborators appreciate that sometimes they are the chief, other times they are the Indian. I am indebted to City Kitty, or possibly Lunge Box (can’t tell them apart on their podcast) for this stolen and bastardised insight. The online catalogue ducks the whole who collaborated on what intrigue by simply attributing one “lead artist” to each image. Often what makes the art interesting, the “arty” or clever part of the art, is actually what’s added by the others. With Unity Star No 3 below, the foreground is occupied by a D*Face winged Obey Giant but the piece is electrified by Kai and Sunny in the background

Collaborative art by Street artists D*Face and Shepard Fairey and painting duo Kai and Sunny at the "Unity" exhibition at StolenSpace, Whitechapel, London

Unity Star No 3

Unity Star No 3 detail

A stand out feature is how Kai and Sunny absolutely illuminate a piece when their contribution appears to perhaps be the less significant. I confessed earlier that a decade ago I really didn’t get their work, I am so pleased that recent shows and most notably this current one have opened my eyes to the flow in their art.

Ghost D*Moon Flower

Unity Obey Flower

Unity Obey Flower (detail)

Obey Rise Up (above), Ghost D*Moon Wave (below)

The whole notion of the catalogue of a show of collaborations, as in “not a group show”, attributing artworks on the basis of lead artist only does rather confound the concept of collaboration. The collaborator redux appears to have challenged the compiler of the online catalogue as “Apply Unity” appears in both the D*Face section and the Shepard Fairey section.

Apply Unity

More show images:

Sure Shot Spray Can

D*Dog Icon

Hope On The Tide

Riot Everywhere

The D*Face Treatment

Burning Brighter

Burning Brighter Detail

The catalogue compiler has a curious concept of “lead artist”, “Magnified Unity” features Shephard Fairey’s Andre The Giant image but the main artistic device is the Lichtensein-esque benday dots and magnifying glass and which is a D*Faceification previously seen in his “Magnified Dog” painting in 2013.

Magnified Unity

So, dudes all get on, artistic friendships have been put to the creative test and the artworks are genuinely harmonious interactions between the styles of the collaborators regardless of the lead artist nonsense. Back to the City Kitty/Lunge Box aphorism, justifiably large egos have been set aside to produce coherent beautiful art which is certainly worth popping in to enjoy.

D*Faced OG Sticker

StolenSpace Gallery
17 Osborn St, London E1 6TD
10 Sep – 3 October 2021

Links:

StolenSpace Gallery website

D*Face website

Shepard Fairey website

Kai and Sunny website

All photos: Dave Stuart

Diggin In The Archives Part 6

Is there light at the end of the tunnel? By the time you read this Boris should have made his “statement” to the nation and one suspects the tunnel will seem to be stretching much much longer. Activities do expand to fit the time available and blowing the dust off the photo archive is a good a rabbit hole as any to fall into, so here is this week’s selection of gems from the past.

You wouldn’t bat an eyelid at a snorkeler (snorkelist?) walking down the road with a lion on their shoulders in 2013, it was Shoreditch after all. Twisted surrealism from Dal East.

Dal East, 2013

ACE is full OG London, his comic and pop art influenced collage screen prints were pasted up all over Shoreditch from the beginning. They still appear although nothing close to the quantity he used to put out. One of my all time favourite paste up artists. And there’s Skewville , yet again, he keeps popping up in the archive photos. 2011.

ACE, 2011

In 2009 Graffoto founder HowAboutNo and I wandered Shoreditch and beyond on our lunchbreaks, chatting shit and shooting crap. Daytime street art creation was quite rare in those days and one lunch time we spied an artist in act of pasting up some big faces. He scarpered. Brummie Tempo33 told me a while later they had thought we were cops! Not many people wandered round in office garms photographing street art those days.

Tempo33, 2012

As I started to develop a little bit of an interest in street art I had a conceptual difficulty with stickers;,that fact that anyone could have put them up challenged their authenticity. Then I started to get my head around “Representation”.

It would be very easy to upload a photo of a stunning mural by D*Face, rightly they are appreciated worldwide but his stickers are in my humble opinion are way more significant to his street presence.

Liskbot’s hand finished stickers and paste ups go back a decade, still prolific!

The unknown sticker looks and feels like a corporate logo.

D*Face, Liskbot 2011

East London in 2011 was full of Malarky cartoons. Superficially they had the characteristics of children’s illustrations but close inspection revealed a real darkness. Often painted with compadres #Billy, Mr Penfold and Sweet Toof. These old Hanbury Street gates used to host art by great artists such as Donk , Stik, Saki and Bitches and Macay collab, Mau Mau and Alex Face collab and an Otto Schade “Creation Of Adam” masterpiece. And Curly 😉

Malarky, 2011

In the next pair, the elevated elevation behind the grey gantry is the old Shoreditch Tube Station, closed in 2006. The first picture is from October 2011 and features a Rowdy creature and a piece by fellow Burning Candy crewmate Horror. The second picture dates from July 2012. The difference is the Olympics buff. One of these pics cost me a gorgeous Colnago Road bike, stolen by some Tower Hamlets low life as I climbed up on the wall to get the pic

Rowdy, Horror 2011

The Olympics Buff, 2012

When its good, Street Art can be very “of the moment”. The flip side is that years later the context or relevance of a piece of art may be forgotten. This Teddy Baden multi layered stencil features Mandeville, one of two mascots for London’s 2012 Olympics. Mandeville was named after Stoke Mandeville Hospital, the world famous spinal injuries hospital that organised the first games festival for injured people, seen as a precursor to the Paralympics. The orange flash represented a London taxi hire light. Mandeville was much maligned in the press, there will always be some mirthless killjoy. He didn’t have a good feeling about Teddy’s feline either.

I enjoyed the privilege for many years of submitting a selection of street art photos to the VNA guys for their quarterly zine. The vast majority of them went unpublished, there were far better photos from far better photographers to chose from. This is one of the unchosen. . . .

Teddy Baden, 2012

I took the liberty of visit to Shoreditch on my bike this morning, first time in over 2 months. Very little had changed, street artists have been socially distancing from the walls. Notwithstanding whatever guff we get from Boris this evening I suspect there may well be more sucking from cess pit of my street art photos this week, catch them daily on my Instagram or facebook.

Check out the previous weekly compendiums: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5

Art credits and links are by each photo. All photos: Dave Stuart

Shepard Fairey Facing The Giant

Shepard Fairey was in London in October celebrating 30 years of Andre The Giant Art with a two site exhibition hosted by StolenSpace.

Facing The Giant – Beats Residency space (October 2019)

Facing the Giant – StolenSpace (October 2019)

The exhibition was slated to close at the end of October but actually a great selection of art from the two site display has been consolidated and rehung at the StolenSpace Osbourn St site.

Facing the Giant – StolenSpace (November Rehang)

It looks just as spectacular and is well worth popping in to see if you missed it in October.

Facing the Giant – StolenSpace (November Rehang)

We raved about the exhibition on Graffoto, check it out HERE

Facing the Giant – StolenSpace (November Rehang)

LINKS:

Shepard Fairey Website (subscribe to his email)

StolenSpace Website

Graffoto “Shepard Fairey: Facing The Giant)” Review

Street Art Where’s Wally?

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,

Stra, Banksy 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.

Laugh Now, Banksy, “Banksy UnAuthorised” exhibition, 2014

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”.

Banksy Monkey Detonator, 2006

Banksy, Exit Though The Gift Shop Poster, 2010

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.

Stra, Shepard Fairey Where’s Wally (also feat Spraychild)

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!)

Shepard Fairey Obey Giant, 2012

Obey Giant, Shepard Fairey, 2012

Shep Fairey, D*Face, 2006

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!

STRA, D*Face Where’s Wally

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

D*Face, 2011

D*Face, mid 2000s

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

All photos: Dave Stuart

Street Art: Shoreditch, London, The World!

Caitlin Kiernan and those nice people at Yahoo have done a guide to the World’s top street art locations. It’s not actually a “ranking” as such but naturally, Shoreditch comes first 😉

London!

As the article points out, among the guys who have a lot to do with the emergence of modern street art in London are Banksy and D*Face

Banksy – Shop Till You Drop, 2011

D*Face

So for a great summary of the vibe in London, Paris, Buenos Aires, New York, Berlin, Miami, Navajo Nation Arizona (new to me too), Sao Paulo, Melbourne,Bethlehem, check out Caitlin’s Yahoo feature here.

Remember these aren’t the only places you find super street art but its a great start.

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.

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