Tag Archives: Jonesy

2023 Street Art Memories

2023 Street art, another year down.  Did you smile more often?  Certainly the Smokers crew aka SMO did.  A burst of activity in the Summer sun included the perfect composition of “Smokers” on a railway bridge as well as the crew acronym SMO appearing all over Shoreditch but the crowning piece was their huge Smile More Often wall with the names of all 12 crew members in smoking purple contained within the blockbuster letters, see the feature image at the top.

Smokers Crew

It there was such a thing as an award for the most up crew of the year it would go to Ghost Writers, no competition.  It seemed that there was someone representing Ghost Writers with something new almost every week.  Christmas week was no different.

graffiti and street art in Shoreditch by Ghost Writers members Minto, Tizer and Trafik and also Pablo Fiasco stencil

Minto, Trafik and Tizer repping Ghost Writers plus Pablo Fiasco

graffiti and street art in Shoreditch by Ghost Writers members Minto, Tizer and Trafik

Minto and Trafik collab, Yorgos, Tizer and Trafik

Banksy’s gift for newsworthiness did not desert him in 2023.    There was the retrospective exhibition in Glasgow, lifting the veil somewhat on the process but not the person and trumping all those shit un-authorised shows of ripped of reproductions and pure fantasy re-creations.  There was the court case which the litigant over hyped as about to lead to Banksy’s identity being revealed.  There was the artwork in Kent on the building that was demolished three days after he painted it.  Then, this being a non chronological list in which the best story is kept to last, there was the “Valentine’s Day Massacre” in Margate which led to possibly the most unfulfilling street art treasure hunt ever.  I arrived just as council contractors loaded the fridge onto a truck for disposal, how much did I rue missing by a minute the train from London that would have got me there an hour earlier.  Peter The Painter didn’t miss a thing, as anyone who Banksy’s Cut and Run show will have seen.  (Actually the most frustrating treasure hunt ever was a night spent wandering the streets of London in vain pursuit of an Adam Neate free art drop in 2008.)

Margate Council truck takes away the freezer from Banksy "Valentines Day Mascara"

Dangerous freezer captured in Margate

Banksy "Valentine's Day Mascara" Street art in Margate without the original freezer

I went London to Margate – the wall went Margate to London

There were at least four occasions this year when street art’s fleeting nature defeated my ponderous reactions. Twice I missed Banksy artworks, (the Valentine’s Day Mascara above) and the Stop War traffic sign installation which was stolen less than an hour after Banksy posted online about it.  The two other occasions were brilliant paintings by Airborne Mark, his masterpieces of virtuoso spraycan technique seem fated to be painting over immediately.  I count my blessings that there were a couple I managed to get to before they disappeared.  Everything about the origami gecko coming to life with every slant and facet of the paper catching the orange and green side lighting differently is just sensational.  All street artists’ creativity has at its core the certainty that the original piece is doomed to a very very short lifespan, yet the artists return again and again unpaid yet showing a dedication to the art which in any other endeavour would be regarded as bonkers.

spraypaint Street art mural by Airborne Mark in Shoreditch

Airborne Mark Gecko and stationery

spraypaint Street art mural by Airborne Mark in Shoreditch

Airborne Mark X Wing and stationery

Russel Shaw Higgs framed his characters beautifully within this lintel, only on the streets can such engagement with a perhaps once grand façade be realised.

street art paste ups in Shoreditch by Russell Shaw Higgs and Dr Cream

Russell Shaw Higgs, also feat Dr Cream

Yorgos first appeared in Shoreditch in 2022 but his prolific output this year has beguiled all.  He paints with influences from Picasso and traces of Matisse and his use of emulsion, which is quite rare in street art, produces a very flat and crisp aesthetic.   This pair of lovers (count the hands!) share their love with a heart that snuggly matches the bike lock frame sitting a couple of feet from the wall.

Street art mural by Yorgos of lovers whose love heart fits into the heart shaped bicycle frame

Yorgos

Yorgos

Most of Jonesy’s creativity on the Shoreditch streets this year was in the form of original drawings and paintings, check out all the oily creatures in the detail below as well as several new bronze castings atop street sign poles.

street art illustration concerned with pollution and environment by Jonesy

Jonesy Jan 2023

bronze casting sitting on top of a street sign of a see no evil monkey with hands covering its eyes

Jonesy See No Evil, March 2023

bronze casting sitting on top of a street sign of a demon with a petrol pump

Jonesy Bronze July 2023

If I have to pick a single art piece that made my jaw hit the ground it was this beauty from Minto.  Minto is a writer more associated with graffiti lettering but when I realised the alignment of the inverted face with the architecture in the background formed a stunning tribute to rapper (and occasional graffiti writer) MF Doom it was clearly a piece of ephemeral genius.

Minto

MF Doom by Minto

Cept is a bit of a renaissance man who goes through phases alternating between gallery installations and outdoor endeavours, it was great to see thet pendulum swung back to street art and graffiti this year.

comic illustration style street art by Cept supervillain with written text confession

Cept

Dan Kitchener had a brilliant year, not just because he painted abroad a lot or in terms of the scale of his murals, he also created some beautiful specimens of urban landscapes and character art in Shoreditch.  The most interesting was the mural which veered towards abstract impressionism in a painting with a point of view sitting in a car looking out through a rainy windscreen at one of his rainy night time neon lit street scenes.  The small photo cannot do justice to the impressionist beauty in the full size mural.  I could be wrong but I think Dan painted this spot three times this year, other artists occupying this wall were Inagaki (twice) and Only E1

spraycan impressionist street scene viewed through a wet window with drip or rivulets of raindrops and car lights reflecting off wet road surface by street artist Dan Kitchener

Dan Kitchener Feb 2023

Nearly every time you turn up to photograph this wall there are huge mountains of bin bags awaiting collection which makes my failure to get the photo of this image with a stack of bin bags in front of it quite unforgivable.

realistic spraycan painting relates to the piles of commercial rubbish seen regularly on Commercial Street

Inagaki, formerly known as Enigma, Feb 2022

Esauteric continued to amaze with his energetic disregard for conventional crisp spraypainting techniques, the very experimental colour combination and of course the manner of painting on walls with irregular surfaces, corners and buttresses that mean you really have to be able to walk around the wall to experience what the art has to offer from different angles.

wall mural colourful energetic face Shoreditch Brick Lane

Esau-teric. one angle only

wall mural colourful energetic face Shoreditch Brick Lane style of Futura2000

Esau-teric. Look closely, there is a 12 inch deep buttress in this picture

ODDO is an enduring Shoreditch favourite and his prolific production of wilder and wilder characters veers towards the curious, dark and scary.   “Bamboo mole” was a recurring theme.  I made one selection of snaps that captured the contribution ODDO made to my enjoyment of street art in 2023 then on the morning of New Years Eve, two more new ODDO artworks popped up on my walk through Shoreditch and one muscled right into this selection.  In a parallel universe I would be wearing clothes designed by ODDO.

crazy clothes crazy colours on harnd drawn street art paste up by ODDO in Shoreditch

ODDO, New Years Eve

crazy clothes crazy colours on harnd drawn street art paste up by ODDO in Shoreditch

ODDO, Feb 2023

crazy clothes crazy colours on harnd drawn street art paste up by ODDO in Shoreditch

ODDO, Oct 2023

Nonose has been doing quirky, lurid potatoes spiked with cocktail sticks since forever and for a little while this year a flotilla of crash-landed sputniks could be found on the tops of bus shelters and street furniture in Shoreditch and Hackney.

a dayglo potato with cocktail sticks by street artist nonose on top of a bus stop shelter

Nonose, Jan 2023

a dayglo potato with cocktail sticks by street artist nonose on top of a bus stop shelter

Nonose, Jan 2023

a dayglo potato with cocktail sticks by street artist nonose on top of a bus stop shelter

Nonose, Jan 2023

For a former graffiti writer Shaim certainly has no fear of negative space!  His hand drawn originals and paste up copies have managed to make horn rimmed glasses sexy again.  The trio of ladies are not copies at all, each is different and for the really curious, the green splats on the wall date back to a Nick Walker show in 2008.

3 black and white female faces on a wall at Old Street Shoreditch by Stephen Haim Shaim

Shaim

Ed Hicks remains the master of painterly gothic street art, he had a productive 2023 and there wasn’t a single piece I saw that I didn’t love.  It’s a puzzle that his masterworks tend to have much shorter lives than equivalent efforts from his peers, the artwork on the Grey Eagle St wall lasted barely a week before giving way to Smile More Often.

double height door gothic light and dark mural on Brick Lane by Ed Hicks

Ed Hicks

street art mural of fiery explosion, Brick Lane, Ed Hicks

Ed Hicks, Nov 2023. 1 week only.

Shoreditch visitors

Shoreditch continues to magnetically attract brilliant visiting artists working from small paste ups to the largest murals.  Alex face painted literally a scorcher, controversially short lived as it was painted over by an advert on a wall which has never hosted an advert before.

burning faces mural by Alex Face from Thailand painted on a wall on Brick Lane

Alex Face, Thailand. Jul 20263

Drash visited London twice this year and her colourful detourned fashion mag pages got brasher and Drasher.

Colourful Street artist Drash La Krasse from La Rochelle next to her art in Shoreditch

Drash La Krasse

Colourful Street art by Drash La Krasse from La Rochelle on derelict window old Shoreditch tube station

Drash La Krasse, with additional LDashD sticker

Niafase, Key and Naths Ice visited from Mexico and got stuck right in painting with some talented artists at various spots around London with Niafase contributing some technically brilliant 3D lettering.

part of large mural with goldfish, portraiture and 3d graffiti lettering

Niafase with Curiouser and Curioser

collaborative wall mural with spraypainted street art and graffiti

Moonkey, Niafaze (Mex), Achezink, Naths_Ice (Mex)

3d graffiti lettering Stockwell hall of fame

MoonkeySP, Solo, Nifazse, Casem, Ezra Kemen, Vladarts, Void One

On My Travels

The years since we were all put in detention have been spent frantically travelling to make up for lost opportunities.  This year wonderful street art was discovered in Manchester, Paris, Southend, Lisbon, Port Talbot and Glasgow.

Manchester’s street art bristles with self confidence and inventiveness.  Hornby train set art?

Geese in a Manchester streert with sign saying on the 6th day God created Manchester

On the 6th day, God created Manchester – Trafford Parsons

Street art made from model railway and figure dressed like Kevin Rowland from Dexys Midnight Runners

“Dexy’s Midnight Roller”  with miniature Kevin Rowland, Jungle Angelo, Manchester

Paris blew me away, over 1000 photos of magical street art was a fraction of what I saw and the task of selecting a few to share proved too painful to contain within just one blog post.  So I wrote two.   Paris is blessed with magnificent murals but there is way more than 10 story murals to Paris’ street art.  B-Toy Andrea’s mural makes the cut just because I loved the way a bit of light painting and long exposure melded the decoration in the subject’s hair with the blossom on the trees.  Paris of course has the largest collection of Space Invaders but I fell in love with the really esoteric things like Tegmo’s glass sculptures and mosaic arrangements.

Tegmo, Paris

2 street names, 5 legged confusion. OJI, Paris

BToy Andrea, Paris

Southend is so easy to get to from London and the Southend City Jam seaside circus has now grown to one of the coolest, happiest and indeed largest gatherings of street artists, graffiti writers and fans in the world.   I wonder what happens to all those boards?

Pink haired woman in front of mural with matching bright pink details

Bublegum, Southend City Jam 2023

Street art from Southend City Jam 2023 Asur work in progress

Asur work in progress, Southend City Jam 2023

Street art from Southend City Jam 2023 Elno

ELNO, Southend City Jam 2023

Street art from Southend City Jam 2023

Epic1, C.A.S.E.M, Southend City Jam 2023

Lisbon has an amazing city wide distribution of street art and graffiti.  Star locals Vhils and Bordalo simply can’t be left out of any Lisbon highlights but even in a city noted for its tiled décor I was delighted with the surprise find of a massive tiled mural by Monsieur A whose parents are Portuguese.

Junk street artist Bordalo studio in Lisbon

Bordalo studio, Lisbon

huge tile mural in Lisbon by street artist Monsieur Andre

Monsieur Andre Tiled mural, Lisbon

huge tile mural in Lisbon by street artist Monsieur Andre

Monsieur Andre Tiled mural, Lisbon

Mural portrait half and half collaboration in Madrid between Shephard Fairey and Vhils

half and half Shepard Fairey, Vhils collab, Lisbon

Glasgow had been invaded by the usual suspects visiting the Banksy exhibition so at that moment it was an effort to track down the local talent rather than same old Shoreditch habituees.

Stencil street art in style of Banksy of falling couple by The Rebel Bear

The Rebel Bear

clever stencil juxtaposition appears to show girl balancing on thin handrail in Glasgow

Rogue Oner, Glasgow

And so, with another New Years Eve photo A Chance Of Creatures kicks out the old and welcomes in the new, may you all have a healthy wiser better more peaceful 2024, fill it with joy and art.

New Years Eve street art 2023 2024 by A Chance Of Creatures In Shoreditch

A Chance Of Creatures – New Years Eve

All photographs: Dave Stuart


bronze statue erected without permission by Jonesy of See No Evil Monkey

Jonesy Sees No Evil

Earlier this week a lovely couple celebrating surviving to a particular milestone birthday booked a private tour.  We met outside their snazzy lunch restaurant and set off on a bespoke route, they had been on the tour “rule of 6” covid bounce back era and we just wanted to explore different territory.    Barely had we gone a few yards when my chin dropped as I spied sitting on top of a street pole a new statue by Jonesy.

bronze statue erected without permision by Jonesy of See No Evil Monkey

Jonesy

It had the body of a monkey and a rat like tail and it was definitely was seeing no evil.

bronze statue erected without permision by Jonesy of See No Evil Monkey

Jonesy

This forms a natural partner to a “hear no evil” compadre a couple of hundred yards away on Brick Lane.

bronze sculpture put up without permission by Jonesy of See No Evil Monkey

Jonesy 2019

It is wonderful when these totally unexpected surprises catch your eye, street art geeking yields these little magical moments even on a tour.

Links: 

Jonesy Instagram

All photos: Dave Stuart


street artist ALO street art female portraits in Shoreditch

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.

street artist ALO painting street art in Shoreditch

ALO work in progress

street artist ALO street art female portrait in Shoreditch

ALO, female portraits, May 2021

street artist ALO street art female portrait in Shoreditch

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

Stencil Street Art by Pablo Fiasco behind the Old Blue Last on the Shoreditch Hoxton Border in London

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!

SStreet Art Bronze castsing on top of a pole by Jonesy in Shoreditch London

Jonesy bronze

Street Art Bronze casting on top of a pole by Jonesy in Shoreditch London

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.

Broccoli street art by street artist Adrian Boswell in Shoreditch London

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.

Rare String Art Street Art by Perspicere in Shoreditch London

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.

Amazing Street Art mural by artist Ed Hicks in Shoreditch London

Ed Hicks

All photos: Dave Stuart


Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, Shoreditch street art tours, Jonesy, sculpture, castings, environmentalism, pesticides

Jonesy Art: Two Heads Better Than One?

In the mind of an obsessive street art spotter things get little more exciting than the chance discovery of new art by Jonesy.  Two new pieces have appeared recently which raise the bar for sculptural street art.

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Pesticides by Jonesy, Aug 2018

The first features a dragon fly pinned to a three headed character.  The second has what appears to be a pair of Titan beetles, the largest insects in the world against a pair of faces.

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, Shoreditch street art tours, Jonesy, sculpture, castings, environmentalism, pesticides

Beetle detail – Pesticides

Both of the pieces are called Pesticides and both have multiple heads which represent the conflict inherent in our collective agri-industrial choices.  Pesticides harm the environment and kill animals, they percolate up the food chain and accumulate in our bodies, yet without them we can’t produce enough food to feed our ballooning population.

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Dragon fly detail – Pesticides

Having had the chance to ask Jonesy himself about the meaning of multiple headed creatures within his art it is interesting to revisit some older specimens starting with this classic Tar Sand Nightmare piece, Tar Sand oil production being the incredibly polluting, energy intensive, expensive and land destroying oil production favoured in Alberta, Canada and elsewhere.

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Sand Tar Oil by Jonesy 2012

That piece is phenomenally resilient.  It lost its Native American/Aboriginal Canadian headdress, other artists occasionally paste over it yet it survives and recovers, outlasting the temporary indignities foisted upon it.

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Sand Tar Oil by Jonesy (photo 2013)

Earlier this year a painting of a double headed creature smothered in toxic air pollution appeared in Shoreditch, the dilemma here being between the damning choice between petrol (CO2 pollution) and diesel (NOx) combustion.

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Fossil Fuel CO2 v NOx, Jonesy, 2018

Back in 2014 this Genetically Modified Organism appears to be a kind of mutant Siamese twin.

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GMO by Jonesy, 2014

Links:

Jonesy Facebook

All photos: Dave Stuart


Shoreditch, London, Street art, Street artist, tour, Ben Wilson, Chewing Gum Man, Jean Peut etre, Jonesy, Howl Owl, Keef, JXC, Travel Mag

Summer Is Here – Oops Maybe Not

Sitting at my keyboard, fresh in from a perma-drizzle that looks set for the day it is a little difficult to remember that London has had two” Summers” already this year.  Twice, barely a fortnight apart, we enjoyed temperatures over 25 degrees and boy did the street artists love that!  Lots of new street art has been appearing daily so here is a little update of some of the fresh street art that has caught our eye over the past fortnight.   At the top of the page, Shok-1 produced another of his superb X-Ray images.

Ben Wilson aka Chewing Gum Man has been particularly prolific just recently in Shoreditch and he delighted me with the story behind the two characters featured in a new chewing gum pic outside the Bricklayers Arms.  Two deliverymen, Lee and Bryan were hefting barrels up from the pub cellar, Ben had a chat with them and concluded, as recorded on the chewing gum, that Lee and Bryan should be paid more!

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Lee and Bryan, Draymen, by Ben Wilson

Shoreditch, London, Street art, Street artist, tour, Ben Wilson, Chewing Gum Man, Jean Peut etre, Jonesy, Howl Owl, Keef, JXC, Travel Mag

Ben Wilson explains …

Not far away from that spot is another one of those chewing gum pics where Ben paints the view, no prizes for recognising Rivington Street:

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Rivington St Chewing Gum Art by Ben Wilson

Shoreditch, London, Street art, Street artist, tour, Ben Wilson, Chewing Gum Man, Jean Peut etre, Jonesy, Howl Owl, Keef, JXC, Travel Mag

Rivington Street

Last week Jean Peut Etre caused much excitement when he was spied by a tour group collaging his pasted images and letterpress prints in several Shoreditch locations seeming always just a few moments ahead of the group.

Shoreditch, London, Street art, Street artist, tour, Ben Wilson, Chewing Gum Man, Jean Peut etre, Jonesy, Howl Owl, Keef, JXC, Travel Mag

Jean Peut Etre Collage

One of the greatest pleasures a fan of street art can enjoy is to discover an unexpected piece by a favourite artist and this came to pass the other day.  Wandering around Shoreditch on a so-called day off, armed with a proper camera photographing loads of great street art the other day I spotted a fantastic new Jonesy I had not noticed before, an absolutely stunning cast bronze piece.  The casting shows what appears to be a vulture nestling in a roundel of blasted twigs, themselves surreally mounted on the leg of a bird.

Shoreditch, London, Street art, Street artist, tour, Jonesy, bronze casting, sculpture

Jonesy

A subsequent peek on Jonesy’s facebook account revealed that this had actually been in situ since last September, a full 7 months ago.  Just goes to show that even when your eye is constantly scanning high and low for new visual disruptions it is always possible to overlook the beauty hiding in plain sight on the streets.  This next bronze casting, believed to be more recent was something I was specifically hunting for.

Jonesy

Howl Owl is a regular visitor to these shores and the cute little owls are packed with personality and get up to all kinds of mischief.   A veritable parliament of owls came to roost in Shoreditch this week and this particular group set up a sub committee with a clowder of Keef’s cats on a stinky sewage pipe, looking like they contemplating setting off in a pea green boat.

Shoreditch, London, Street art, Street artist, tour,Howl Owl, Keef

Howl Owl and Keef collaboration

We mustn’t forget that some street art is done with permission, the weekend before last JXC painted this quality image of Judge Dredd taking out Mickey!

Shoreditch, London, Street art, Street artist, tour, Ben Wilson, Chewing Gum Man, Jean Peut etre, Jonesy, Howl Owl, Keef, JXC, Travel Mag

Mickey Mouse justice Judge Dredd style

Finally, it was lovely to receive a link to an article on the Travel Mag online where they select their 7 favourite walking tours in London and kindly featured Shoreditch Street Art Tours, we are honoured and thank them, check out the best in London here.

LINKS

Shok-1 Instagram

Jean Peut-Etre Instagram

Jonesy Facebook

Howl Owl Instagram

Sad Keef Instagram

JXC Instagram

all photos: Dave Stuart

 

 

 


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Jonesy On TV

Artist and environmentalist Jonesy features on London Live this coming Wednesday (26th July 2017) at 7pm.  Something to look forward to on TV!

Shoreditch, street art, artist, Jonesy,

Jones; wood, feathers mixed media

Jonesy is an absolute favourite on the Shoreditch Street Art and we have had the pleasure of writing about discovering Jonesy art in the past HERE.

London Live is broadcast on Freeview channel 8, Sky 117 and Virgin channel 159

 

all photos: Dave Stuart

 

 


London, Shoreditch, Street Art, Tour, Jonesy, environmental art, awareness, CO2, methane, Skeleton Cardboard, 616, Artista, Fanakapan, Voyder, Airborne Mark, Vibes RT

Bank Holiday Street Art

Some may quibble about this but…..wasn’t the cloud cover lovely on Bank Holiday Monday?  Since finishing a tour in snow last Thursday, tours have been run in sunshine and sunshine, frankly, casts a shadow on street art photography, much rather a bright day with a bit of cloud cover.

Temperatures rising (we are forecast to hit 20 by the end of the week) and no rain also help.  Not that that really mattered in the case of this find of a lovely clutch of Jonesy paintings, as they were under cover.

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Jonesy – Fossil Fuel Genocide

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, Tour, Jonesy, environmental art, awareness, CO2, methane

Jonesy – methane, it’s a pain

We also came across a lovely work-in-progress by Skeleton Cardboard.  Although normally one would be inclined to pass by a set piece “mural on a board for an audience” style  of painting, we love Skeleton Cardboard’s expressionism and bizarre twisted thoughts so paused to dwell on this latest masterpiece.

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Skeleton Cardboard, Box Park

Being a bank holiday for some reason the Seven Stars Car Park was pretty much devoid of cars which meant better views of 616’s multi-layered buttress bombing.

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616, feat Vibes RT

And clear shots of this, featuring Artista, artist unknown, Airborne Mark, Voyder/fanakapan collaboration and Vibes

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Street Art Goes Over Our Heads

Street art should never go over our heads though great examples of street art are often literally looking down on us. Street art environmentalist and master craftsman Jonesy has been adding a few wonderful bronze castings on top of lampposts around Shoreditch.

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Jonesy bronze casting

Shoreditch, London, tour, walk, Street art, street artist, sculpture, sticker, bronze, casting, Jonesy, insect, Issac Cordal

Jonesy bronze casting

Shoreditch, London, tour, walk, Street art, street artist, sculpture, sticker, bronze, casting, Jonesy, insect, Issac Cordal

Jonesy bronze casting

The first one I spotted by complete chance a couple of weeks ago caused me to spend some time wander about with my eyes cast upwards looking for more, which revealed other artists working over our heads!

Shoreditch, London, tour, walk, Street art, street artist, sculpture, sticker, bronze, casting, Jonesy, insect, Issac Cordal

Isaac Cordal

Issac Cordal – no idea how long it has taken me to notice this one

Shoreditch, London, tour, walk, Street art, street artist, sculpture, sticker, bronze, casting, Jonesy, insect, Issac Cordal

Paul Insect

Paul Insect – also getting up quite high

Finally, an older Jonesy specimen looking wonderful at night:

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Jonesy – looking more sinister and ferocious than ever

All photos: Dave Stuart aka NoLionsInEngland


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Finding Free Art

New art and free art made this day another exciting day for guests of Shoreditch Street Art Tours.

Shoreditch, London, Street art, found art, free art, Sean Worrall

Three guests went home as proud owners of new art by Sean Worrall, left as”Free art” on the streets of Shoreditch. In case you don’t know, some street artists like to leave art which people can find and collect, usually there is a message written on the back inviting the finder to help themselves to the art which is deliberatelyremovable, not permanently attached to the wall.

Shoreditch, London, Street art, found art, free art, Sean Worrall,

Sean Worrall has a #365artdrops (opens in a new page) project to leave 365 pieces of Free Art on the street usually painted on materials found on the streets then returned to the streets.  Guests have in the past found pieces of Sean’s work as reported HERE .

Shoreditch, London, Street art, found art, free art, Sean Worrall

Sunny likes #365artdrops

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This was day 2 of life on the street for an installation piece by street artist Sell Out. Sell Out’s image, a framed collage, reproduces the cockerel familiar to millions of us from breakfast cornflakes packets. Written in the frame is the repeated refrain “I hate cereal”. Sell Out is referencing the protest last Saturday night against gentrification in the area which resulted in the Cereal Killers café on Brick Lane being defaced with paint. You decide how you interpret Sell Out’s take on that event! Suffice to say, a number of Sell Out’s customary paper butterflies were flying out of the frame of the image, originally blu-tacked (is that a verb?) to the wall but this afternoon lying on the floor (photo below taken yesterday morning) and some guests helped themselves to those butterflies as Sell Out has always intended in the past.

Shoreditch, London, Street art, found art, free art, Sell Out

Sell Out

 

Sell Out’s work has been featured a few times before on our blog here

The new art?  An incredibly exciting discovery of new bronze castings by Jonesy!

Shoreditch, London, Street art, Jonesy, sculpture, bronze, casting

Jonesy’s Oroborus

All photos: Nolionsinengland