Tag Archives: Graffiti

Night Street Art Photography is Back

The nights are drawing in so our unique Night Street Art Photography Tours being again. The first one was last night and what fun we had.

London, Shoreditch, Brick Lane, Night photography, street art, artists, graffiti

Of course there was a lot of new art created since last Winter to photograph.

London, Shoreditch, Brick Lane, Night photography, street art, artists, graffiti

Airborne Mark

And we photographed some old favourites which I haven’t photographed at night before, it certainly brings out a different aspect of the street art.

Jonesy – looking more sinister and ferocious than ever

Conor Harrington

The Night Street Art Photo Tours are organised as and when we can pull together a small group. You can of course arrange a private Night Street Art Photography Tour just for yourself. More details HERE (link opens in another window)

Neoh, Lily Mixe and others

Best in brick Lane!

Meeting Of Styles UK 2015

Meeting Of Styles returned to Shoreditch recently for the second Summer on the trot. Over a 2 day period spraycan graffiti writers and street artists from Brazil to Russia via Spain and UK threw a wild ribbon of colour around Shoreditch.

London, Shoreditch,Nomadic Community Gardens, Meeting Of Styles, Graffiti, Street art, tour, tours, artist, art

Tyme (Swe), Adno (Rus), Awone (Swe), DJa’Louz (Fr) and from the UK Jim Vision, Zadok and below them Kak, Ekto and Wisher.

Meeting Of Styles UK 15

Meeting of Styles is an international and not-for-profit federation of spraycan festivals, this year 22 MoS festivals around the world are responding to the “Mind Above Matter” theme, though not all were as focussed on the theme as Neoh below.

Neoh

The focal point for the festival was a dramatically transformed elbow of land trapped between a knot of railway tracks now under new ownership and currently renamed the Nomadic Community Gardens. A primarily Bangladeshi community have transformed the Fleet St Hill end of the gardens with raised beds of allotments while a temporary village of tents, vans and dens of upcycled wood and canvas housed kitchens, bars, decks and admin.

Nomadic Community Gardens

Wall locations were geographically more wide spread this year, the centre of weight shifted over to the Bethnal Green side of Brick Lane with some painting taking place even further east than the Nomadic Gardens Community Centre.

Stendec & Soma

Traditional bubble letters and wild style sit happily alongside 3D, abstract, the “post graffiti graffuturism” and calligraphy based graffiti writing. It is not all letter writing though, characters and creatures and even sculpture made an appearance.

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For a lot more photographs and a bit more analysis, check out the Graffoto post of which this is essentially an abstract of highlights.

All photos: NoLionsInEngland

Meeting Of Styles 2015

Meeting Of Styles returns to Shoreditch and it needs your help!

London, Shoreditch, Graffiti, Street art, meeting of styles, festival, party, artist,

Beatbox and Jazz!

Donate, support, and be a part of London’s largest graffiti and street art festival right by participating in Meeting of Styles’ Kickstarter fund raiser – amazing rewards HERE.

Lovepusher

We were wowed by the range of top domestic and international artists who participated in MoS 2014 and produced a load of brilliant art, find out just how much here

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all photos: NoLionsInEngland at Meeting Of Styles 2014, Shoreditch

Awarded Certificate Of Excellence

Shoreditch Street Art Tours is delighted to announce that it has been awarded the prestigious and prized Tripadvisor 2015 Certificate of Excellence.

This award is testament to two things, the most important is our wonderful guests who have chosen to share their appreciation of the Shoreditch Street Art Tour activities with the public through Tripadvisor. The second, and we blush here, is down to the quality of the tour.

London, Shoreditch,streetart,tour,walk,guests,guided,

Tripadvisor Certificate Of Excellence

At this moment a quick glance at Tripadvisor shows that since its first review appeared in July 2013, Shoreditch Street Art Tours has received 601 reviews and a massive 587 – that’s 98% – of those are 5 out of 5 stars. The other 14 of course are all 4 stars.

The art always changes, the route may changes, the message often changes but the quality of the experience is unwaivering.

London, Shoreditch,streetart,tour,walk,guests,guided,

photo: Ron de Vos (guest)

We thank all the guests who have provided feedback through Tripadvisor and the other locations where independent reviews can be placed, here are just a few snippets from recent Tripadvisor reviews:

“I brought along my husband who didn’t have a previous interest in the subject and at the end he said, “This is the best tour I have ever been on in any city”. ” – Annie Y, 16 May 2015

“Don’t skip the Tate. But this is even better. ” – Gutflam5, 15 May 2015

“with Dave’s expertise, we were able to understand and decode the messages hidden in the work” – Maria V, 12 May 2015

Certificate courtesy Tripadvisor

Group photo: Ron de Vos

New Street Art By NEOH

A wall which was virgin brick as we passed at 11am yesterday this morning sported a gorgeous new piece of street art. Neoh is an unusual character with roots firmly planted in the coarser end of graffiti, the emphasis is more on being “up” than on elaborate style.

Neoh dubs

London, Shoreditch, street art, graffiti, tagging, Neoh, freehand, Escalator

Neoh escalator tag

However, when Neoh puts his arty hat on, brilliant impressionist characters emerge including this energetic ballerina conjured into existence last night. The repetition of the cubist tinged faces has resulted in the motion of the ballerina being captured in her head as her whole body pirhouettes. we get simultaneous front and rear views. This is a girl fully committed to the sinuous motion of the ballet. We are willing to speculate that no mural permission broker was involved in this new one!

Neoh Flamenco dancer

We have been unstinting admirers not only of Neoh’s graff but the awesome movement and economy in his impressionist dancers.

Neoh Ballerina

London, Shoreditch, street art, graffiti, tagging, Neoh, freehand, spraypaint, impressionism, ballerinas, Hackney Wick

Troupe of Ballerinas by Neoh, Hackney Wick, 2013

It is such a delight to unexpectedly find new pieces of art on the street and Neoh’s speed, attitude and single-minded determination to get up in a variety of different media is really what graffiti AND street art is all about.

All photos: Dave Stuart

Shoreditch Street Artists Have Spring In Their Steps

When can we be sure Spring has sprung? When muralists flood the streets? When I can do a whole tour without thermals and a heavy jacket? This Easter Bank holiday weekend saw a great uptick in the art being created on the streets. The graffiti legend GARY of MS (Mad Society Kings) crew and letterform princess Lilly Lou found a damn good reason to go out writing on Braithwaite St on Sunday.

London, Shoreditch, Street art, murals, street artists, walk,tour,graffiti, Gary MS, Lilly Lou

NO good REASON – Gary MSK & Lilly Lou

On Saturday afternoon one of our tours had the pleasure of chatting with Shoreditch’s favourite Chilean street art Otto Schade as he painted a complex ribbon figure in the Old Turman Brewery.

London, Shoreditch, Street art, murals, street artists, walk,tour,graffiti, Otto Schade

Otto Schade

An unknown artist created a couple of quite incredible stencils, the accuracy of the stencil cut suggests perhaps laser cutting and the message is certainly one for the geeks.

London, Shoreditch, Street art, murals, street artists, walk,tour,graffiti, unknown

HTML art

Intellectual criticism of a street artists endeavours can be blunt and direct at times, this “feedback” on Friday night on Bambi’s bikini clad figures painted last December pulls no punches. (more about Bambi’s piece here)

London, Shoreditch, Street art, murals, street artists, walk,tour,graffiti, Bambi, tagger

Bambi critiqued

In keeping with the Easter theme, Horror painted this drippy chick off Brick Lane.

London, Shoreditch, Street art, murals, street artists, walk,tour,graffiti, Horror Crew

Easter Chick

A wonderful tribute to an author whose work we loved appeared on the old Shoreditch Tube Station and Jim Vision’s work received a huge amount of coverage in the press.

London, Shoreditch, Street art, murals, street artists, walk,tour,graffiti, Jim Vision

Detail, Terry Pratchett tribute by Jim Vision

Scale isn’t everything in the world of street art, we loved this tiny mixed media sculpture and sticker piece stuck on a window ledge.

Cozen art

And it does look like the temperature is climbing into double figures at last so all the signs are that Spring has indeed sprung (but I’m not going to be fooled, warm clothing remains a la mode).

VERY NEARLY ALMOST (VNA) Issue 29 – Launches in LA!!!

Coming soon, something that should interest anyone from LA who has been on the Shoreditch Street Art Tour (and indeed anyone interested in culture who ought to come on the SSAT) – the latest issue of Very Nearly Almost magazine. More of the same street arty and graff stuff but this time a little bit different too. Now taking on the world, oh yeah! Issue 29 launches in Los Angeles this Saturday (Valentines Day, 14 Feb).

Cover artist is Cleon Peterson, painter of black and white man beasts pillaging, fucking and slaughtering their way across the pages and onto a special limited edition (150) silk screen printed box-set featuring a custom screen-printed box, die-cut sticker set, postcards and hand screen-printed copy of VNA 29. Compare the silk screen printed cover in the box set contents pic below with the scan of the regular cover further down

Box set contents

There are elements of the traditional photos of street art, photo specials on the murals of Las Vegas and San Juan (and of course London), a great interview with Blek Le Rat (France) and the wonderful “Diggin In The Crates” series continues with corporate iconoclast Ron English dissecting and reminiscing about the conception and execution of a whole bunch of his propaganda subversions.

VNA Blek Le Rat interview. Original photos – Blek, Sybille Prou

Then, as the zine editorial points out, they explore “..the broader culture that surrounds street art and graffiti”. This means profiles of a gif designer (Mattis Dovier), a clothing brand founder (Tony Arcabascio, ALife) and confessions of a New York street photographer and paparazzi (Ricky Powell).

original photo: James Bulloch

An interview with Pursue, a brand director and mural painter, take VNA right over onto classic Juxtapoz turf while closer to home Jessica Albarn, sibling to Damon and Nelly Duff artist discusses her illustrations. There’s plenty more besides and as always (cough, blush) some great photography.

Regular cover

The LA launch is being hosted by Subliminal Projects, 1331 W. Sunset Blvd, LA, CA 90026. 6pm – 9pm. Free alcohol plus a free copy of the mag to the first 100 through the door on the night. Drink sensibly (first two beers only). To be sure to get your free copy, RSVP to rsvp@verynearlyalmost.com and arrive early on the night!

Don’t worry London fans, there is something special promised for a London launch, we believe the 26 of Feb may be a good date to keep the social congestion clear. No news on where but…well, Cleon is a Laz artist ..and VNA has had some very successful launches there in the past…and they have a relatively new space people might like to see….this is most likely not what will happen as it is pure speculation on my part. For the real deal as it gets announced, follow @vnamagazine on the usual anti social media channels