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: Mr Cenz
Night Street Art Photography
The days are getting longer, hurrah! Another way of looking at it is that the nights are sadly getting shorter. We are now over halfway through the Shoreditch night street art photography season and it has been a cracker. The season ends pretty much when the clocks go forward in Spring so there is not much time left to join the fun.
On the Night Street Art Photography tour let me help you take stunning night photos of street art such as these.
If you have never done long exposure night photography before you will be find yourself quickly immersed in gorgeous light trails, ghosts, night moods and light painting.
If you have mastered the basics of manual photography and have say for example an ND filter then you can get into really arty night photography with an amazingly photogenic subject matter.
You will find that the skills you acquire will be useful for many other urban night time urban photo opportunities.
You may even be able to create stunning gif animations such as this (Photoshop or a gif animator required).
Night Street Art Photography tours are arranged for individuals or small groups no more than 3, please contact me by email with your enquiry or you can learn more from our website. We know where to take you and how to photograph it!
All photos in this post were taken this Winter by Dave Stuart.
Links:
Stinkfish (feature photo) website
Enigma instagram
Mr Cenz website
This One instagram
Alessandro Ioviero website
Wrdsmth website
disCONNECT – Street Artists Indoors
DisCONNECT
South London
24 July – 24 August 2020
10 artists, mainly street artists, were invited to make over a house in South London and use any of the relics found in there before the new owners undertook a refurbishment. Covid-19 threw a spanner in the works though, so several of the artists incorporate a sense of the pandemic in their pieces and 6 of the artists being based overseas had to make and install their work using skype, like scientists cautiously tweaking the location of the reactor rods by remote cctv.
The art world is not providing too much in the way of real life excitement these days and while one should never confuse the art world with the real world, nor the street art world, it was a pleasure to experience disCONNECT for real just before it closes this week.
Legendary trainyard graff snapper Alex Fakso specialises in candid portraiture, his 2012 “Santa in Camo” show in Kensal Rise indicated a quite idiosyncratic approach to subject as did his 2017 Moniker contribution. Followers of my instagram account may recall that on a tour 2 weeks ago we bumped into Alex Fakso creating a graffiti painting and photo paste up hybrid on a railway bridge. On this installation crowds in the photos rush towards the viewer in a way that feels horrifyingly alien in these public-gathering avoiding socially distanced coronavirus times.
Seeing Zoerism’s geometric and intricate graffiti on the streets is a rare pleasure and his anamorphic experience echoed that hugely detailed style. Anamorphic images are designed to be viewed from one spot and look a bit skew-whiff from any other, this image was installed flat on the floor and up against the wall creating this impressive 3D “trick of the eye”.
Herakut’s fusion of photorealism and spindly elfin characters in Davy Crockett hats shouldn’t work but looks awesome. You are invited to sit for a selfie with the monkey in the nursery – if your chess game is up to scratch. The kids in the playroom have painted child-like drawings on the nursery walls, credited to a 7 year old Ryker.
A double set of doors and a single door were shipped to Portugal for Vhils to work his magic, a refreshing reminder of his talent for “discovered texture” portraiture. His mining into layers of adverts to reveal portraits works superbly where it belongs, out on the streets but it’s a bit of a puzzle why having an implausibly deep block of compressed billboard adverts would work indoors.
The dark entrance lobby was made over by a collection of Mr Cenz’ cosmic ladies, UV light brought sharpness to the highlights that define the outline of the faces, an effect we love to play with when photographing his portraits out on the streets. Unfortunately we failed to take any photos in the lobby though the effect can be vaguely appreciated in this mercifully brief video snippet.
https://vimeo.com/454116355
In lockdown Aida Wilde railed against the reckless anti social behaviour of people ignoring the social distancing, lockdown stay-the-fuck-away guidance. Her “Granny alley” installation in the most challenging room in the house distills a lot of that passion and anger into blocks of text and her emoji infused pseudo-flock wallpaper.
After years of vicariously enjoying Icy and Sot’s art finally we saw a piece in real life. The dining table apparently came from the kitchen, in which case it must have been a relic from the downstairs kitchen many years ago. The beautifully conceived and executed articulated plates and cutlery apparently represent capitalism with the extension leaves up and a full plate on the table. With the extension down symbolised socialism, in which case this neither-up-nor-down configuration pretty much sums up post-Corbyn Labour.
Issac Cordal’s morose concrete figures endured this Summer’s monsoon in the garden and just about maintained their social distance in a gloomy basement.
Flock was evidently in vogue when the house was last given a decor update as the pattern recurs in several of the installations. Adam Neate bid for the window blinds and the colour and texture makes a great skin motif in his ghostly portraiture.
This show exceeded expectation, though that says more about our expectations than the artists involved. The unbalanced capitalisation of the show title exhorts to us to somehow re-connect in these desperate times where isolation is salvation and this show is worth connecting with. Time is running out though and indeed thanks to covid restrictions tickets are very limited.
All photos & video: 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.
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.
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..
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.
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.
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 (1st 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.
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.
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.
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
Shoreditch – More Than Street Art Apparently
Shoreditch is our stomping ground and street art is our passion but it is good to be reminded that when you have finished your street art tour there are so many other things to see and do in Shoreditch. Our recent guest Lizzie has written a wonderful blog post “So You Think You Know London? – Brick Lane” which reveals Shoreditch in its broader context for visitors.
Have a read of Lizzie’s words for some great suggestions for post tour possibilities.
I know the feature photo at the top of the page looks like a photo of a car but it is actually a snap I snatched during the actual tour Lizzie was on last weekend.
Half Term – No Half Measures
Spring half term holiday has just finished in the UK and Shoreditch Street Art tours was busy. On Monday as a group admired the work in the car park behind the old Seven Stars Pub a car screeched into the yard and, like some kind of artist tardis, a dark door opened and out came a street artist and a load of working materials, Fanakapan spent the week progressing a massive dual aspect mural outside Magna on Brick Lane.
On Saturday, our tour guest Alicia managed to get a wonderful souvenir, a Fan tag on her shoulder bag.
Among other artists busy creating new artworks that we had the pleasure of encountering were Mr Cenz and ThisOne.
Several pieces of Free Art were found, firstly this lovely framed art drop by Sean Worral was discovered in a wall in Shoreditch.
Then at the end of the week, two Free Art Friday art pieces by Ninja Grl were discovered at basically the same location.
At the start of the week Adrian Boswell, the Broccoli Man, put up a new four piece broccoli rainbow installation. As the week started chilly and as the broccoli aged, the florets started to wilt and open. Then some strange interventions took place as the broccoli moved around like some strange game of chess was underway before being chopped into smaller pieces.
More about the broccoli street art on this recent blog post.
Life Is Beautiful’s Dark Wings photo opportunity, covered earlier in the week HERE, gradually decayed over the week as more and more tags accumulated but guests persevered, making the best of the opportunity to photograph some nice interactions with the work.
Then on Sunday morning, boom! Still smelling of fresh paint we found that the dark wings had been restored, as Life Is Beautiful noted they had nine lives.
Half term flew past with lots of fun and a load of great street art in Shoreditch as usual, thanks to all the guests and all the artists who make it such a wonderful week.
Links:
Fanakapan: Instagram
Mr Cenz: Website
ThisOne: Instagram
Sean Worrall: Website
Ninja Grl: Website
Adrian Boswell: Website
Life Is Beautiful: Instagram
All photos: Dave Stuart