Hanging a new calendar signals a lovely excuse to look back over the best of Shoreditch street art 2022. Here is a slide show of some of the best, there is a full write up on Graffoto, my personal street art blog, which goes into more depth regarding the hows and whys of these highlights.
Tag Archives: Ed Hicks
Enigma Street Art and a show with friends
A significant amount of Enigma street art, who is one of our favourite street artists, has been spotted over the past few weeks. A quite wet Shoreditch Street Art Tours party bumped into Enigma the Friday before last who was finding the morning’s rainy conditions and wet wall not conducive to painting but as soon as we arrived, the cloud parted, the sun shone and Enigma was able to complete a stunning centaur, part man part horse.
Enigma May 2022
This was the week Enigma opened in a group show at BSMT Space alongside Ed Hicks, Perspicere and Roncho. This elevates Enigma to the level of some heavyweight artists in a very impressive show.
New Surrealism: Ed Hicks Enigma Perspiscere Roncho
Close to BSMT is a stunning collaborative mural painted with Ed Hicks that week. The dramatic portals and volcanic landscapes Ed has been painting recently have been amazing. The group show attempts to bind the four artist together on the basis of surrealism, in this street art the fusion of enigma’s heads and skulls with Hick’s fractured portal, a woodland scene and a landscape certainly nods in that direction.
Ed Hicks and Enigma collaboration, Dalston, May 2022
Ed Hicks and Enigma collaboration, Dalston, May 2022
Ed Hicks and Enigma collaboration, Dalston, May 2022
In Shoreditch that same week our tour troupe turned a corner and instead of an Enigma shadow puppet we found a “Forty winks” graffiti throwie. Two days later on yet another tour we discovered that Enigma had returned to reclaim the spot with a painting of a study on paper of the human torso with a line element head. Unpick that one!!
Forty Winks over Enigma shadow hand
Ed Hicks had painted a diptych “as above so below” in Shoreditch the previous week with Emma Richardson, a private tour group came upon Ed’s painting the day after it had been created but Emma’s panel had already been totally painted over, such is the mayfly-like existence of street art in Shoreditch. As I have a photo of only Ed’s half, with thanks and apologies I have taken the liberty pinching Ed’s photo from his Instagram.
Ed Hicks and Emma Richardson: As above so below (Photo Ed Hicks)
Perspicere’s string art was highlighted in our 2021 Street Art review as one of the two forms of innovative street art to appear that year. Perspicere has remained prolific this year with plenty of new specimens revealing the vague semi solidity of their subjects which is seen more clearly the further one stands from the art.
Perspicere – former site of Hitchcock Reel
Perspicere
Perspicere’s string art provokes a high “how is that done” curiosity so has a tendency to deteriorate fairly quickly as people pluck at it, though one of Perspicere’s faces has been the subject of a royal update Butterflyman aka Sellout. The quizzical smiley face one has been installed high off the ground and its longevity has benefitted from the effort that went into that placement.
Perspicere String Art Smilies
The group show ends this weekend so pop up to BSMT if you have the chance, or if it is all over by the time you read this hopefully a few photos will capture some of the magic.
New Surrealism: Ed Hicks Enigma Perspiscere Roncho
Why Enigma didn’t have his usual coat on in the rain 🙂
Perspicere “Walking Head”, “Chair Head”
New Surrealism: Ed Hicks Enigma Perspiscere Roncho
Ed Hicks: Anniversary
Perspicere detail
Perspicere Shadowman Watching detail
Perspicere: Shadowman Watching; Shadowman Tear
Enigma
Roncho
The Dialogue, Enigma
All photos Dave Stuart except where stated
July 2021 Street Art Top Marks
July! That’s Summer supposedly, the start of Summer holidays and based on this year’s experience the time when every street art fan must consider carrying sun tan cream, an anorak and an umbrella! The weather was a bit bonkers but the art was sensational.
The feature image above is Frida Kahlo by Lost Hills looking like she is creating all that art on the streets of Brick Lane
It is always a great pleasure to chance upon a new street sculpture by 3x3x3 and it seems that on this year’s visit to London he may have left at least 6 new sculptures on the streets. At the time of writing I have 2 more to find.
July was ushered in with Benjamin Irritant ruffling a few feathers with the placement of his rabbits, by the time I arrived to take a photo of the wall below within 24 hours another artist had already gone over Benjamin! The ripples continue to spread out with tactical placements by other artists over Benjamin’s art still occurring just this past weekend.
Benjmin Irritant and Sanctum Cyborgia and many more
On one tour in the middle of July the group had the pleasure of street artists Neon Savage and MeandBlue turning up and after a friendly chat they proceeded to put some fresh street art right in front of us.
Multiple Flowers by Meandblue
Bruno The Dog by street artist Neon Savage
London’s wild parakeet population increased by one more during the month with this wooden character looking overhead thanks to Trips And Pieces, Voxx Romana and Arrex Skulls study from above.
Ring Necked Parakeet by Trips and Pieces
Some DaddyStreetFox art was spotted in a major artwork by Gilbert and George exhibited in their most recent exhibition at the White Cube Gallery. After a bit of sanitising of the bins in that area, a new fox has appeared to lay waste to the bin bags there.
DaddyStreetFox
It has been a few years since we saw art by New York street artist Stefani McDade on the streets of Shoreditch but she was spotted on the streets of Shoreditch pasting up in the company of DaddyStreetFox. This particular piece suggests Stefani has had a successful conclusion to her unicorn hunt, or is unicorn homicide what has led to them being so elusive? Apparan and Bruno, Neon Savage’s dayglo dog look on.
Unicorn homicide by Stefani Mcdade
Currently riding high on my list of break through street artists is Fat Cap Sprays who has a busy month. This absolute quacker is currently running close to Village Underground, it was spotted for the first time by a guest on our recent novelty Old Street public street art tour.
Spraypainted Neon Duck by Fat Cap Sprays
Street Art is temporary, it is short lived, the always sensational painter Ed Hicks painted this masterful void which survived in pristine condition for only a very short time. I chance upon another Ed Hicks painting in July so I took a snap on my phone, the next morning I returned to find it had been completely taken out, which as it was on a legal graff wall is standard.
The Void by Ed Hicks
Graffiti writer Only has created a succession of astonishing graffiti pieces with medieval crusades themed painted in the letter fill. The latest one appeared just off Brick Lane incorporates a Roman theme, is it just me or is there a hint of MF DOOM about the gladiator?
Rome things by Only HMZ
Dan Kitchener’s night-time street scenes are appreciated for their Blade Runneresque perpetual rain. The rainy window effect of this gorgeous piece on Brick Lane is superb. Obviously the best way to photograph this is when it is wet but the rain recently has been so biblical that the last thing on our mind was iphone snaps of street art!
Rainy Brick Lane Views by Dan Kitchener
Black Dove from Dublin was in London at the end of the month for a blink and you missed it solo show, we have seen Black Dove’s art in Shoreditch in the past though at the time of this visit I only found two new pieces, including this rather lovely sticker.
Black Dove hovers over Stik’s iconic Brick Lane Couple
I hope you like this eclectic selection of street artists active on the streets of London in July, some practicing legally, some without permission, some freehand spraypainters, some paste up artists, all committed to taking advantage of the wonderful gallery out there on the streets.
Artists links in the post. All photos: Dave Stuart
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 17th 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.
ALO work in progress
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
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!
Jonesy bronze
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.
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 19th century painter John Martin. This truly extraordinary painting lasted about 5 weeks.
Ed Hicks
All photos: Dave Stuart