Tag Archives: Pure Evil

Diggin In The Archives Pt 8

This week in spite of the latest official guidance to follow unofficial interpretations of the law, there have been no trips to Durham. I have followed my instinct to remain at home to see what scum is floating on the surface of the street art photography archive.

Ludo first put his art on London streets in 2009 and right from the off his Nature’s Revenge project dealt with man vs nature, weaponry, deception and death. Ludo’s work always had scale and awesome eye-catching placement. This weaponised orchid dates from 2011.

Ludo, 2011

Street artist and gallerist Rae visited London in 2013 and left an impressive range of paste ups, stickers, painted surfaces and this wacky sculpture which lasted all of 24 hours.

Rae, 2013

Rae, 2013

The Battle Of Fashion St pitted Ronzo’s monster, looking very much exactly like a medical diagram of a virus against studio stablemate Conor Harrington’s faceless soldier. Like most of Conor’s art this one lasted a long time.

The battle Of Fashion St, Ronzo and Conor Harrington, 2011

Graff snapping mate for many years Joe Epstein aka LDN Graffiti, author of street art book “London Graffiti and Street Art” has teamed up with 9 great 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.

LDN Graffiti, Joe Epstein, London Graffiti and Street Art, GOSH, Great Ormond Street Hospital, Alo, Dr Zadok, MadC, Neist, Pure Evil, Run, Stik, The Toasters, Vibes, Shoreditch Street Art Tours

Great Ormand Street Hospital COVID-19 Lottery fundraiser

For more images, details and a link to how to support the fund raiser and maybe win one of these fantastic prizes in the LDN GOSH Charity Lottery, click here

One of the featured artists in the LDN GOSH fundraiser is Pure Evil, he doesn’t so much redecorate the book cover as subject it to extreme abuse and reconfiguration, it’s bonkers but brilliant. In 2012 Pure Evil imagined the Hackney Olympics looting squad making off with some Olympics booty, as seen on this Redchurch Street shutter.

Pure Evil 2012

Pure Evil LDN GOSH Charity Book

In the happy days when I had a kind of job thing, I did one of my Street Art Photography Workshops in Hackney. I only found out this week thanks to Inspiring City’s Art Related Noise podcast interview that this stencil piece is “Lee P” by Findac. Lee P is otherwise known as street artist Eelus. The second shot illustrates the photographers’ intention – to show what Lee P was looking at.

Findac, 2013

Findac, 2013

More than a decade of pasting up street art has left no doubt that Donk has an awesome approach to impressive installations created from his own original photos. It would be very easy to dredge up one of Donk’s huge crowd pleaser paste up images like the Fashion St fence (with the tassels), the Willow Street horse facing POW (see featured image above) or the ghetto blaster on Sclater St but with no slight on any of those, sometimes his montages of smaller images show his versatility better. From 2013 this is a selection of hand finished unique Humble Magnificent and B Brave Indian images featuring Donk jr as model. Donk’s paste up’s typically decayed beautifully.

Donk 2013

Claudia Walde aka MadC is a graffiti writer and book author. She is also another of the artists to have created a unique painting on a book being auctioned to raised funds for Great Ormond St Hospital, details as above.

In culture with such a huge gender imbalance MadC is a rare example of an internationally regarded graffiti writer. In 2011 the Pure Evil Gallery hosted MadC’s first solo exhibition and graffiti writers came from all over to check out her top notch can skills and brilliant colour palette. Her 2013 abstract mural on Chance St in Shoreditch is well known and still running. Less known perhaps is this stunning 2011 graffiti on the old Micawber St launderette, look closely and you can pick out her name in there. It was huge though this is nowhere near the biggest piece of graffiti MadC ever did.

MadC, 2011

Mad C LDN Graffiti book cover

If you are interested in seeing previous DITAs, you can start with the first weekly compilation of the daily DITA uploads HERE.

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

Street Artists Great Ormond Street Hospital Fundraiser

Joe Epstein of LDN Graffiti and producer of the street art book London Graffiti and Street Art has announced an exciting fund raiser to benefit the famous Great Ormond Street Hospital.

GOSH has launched their Covid-19 appeal to help fund both the hospital’s most urgent needs now and support its vital work once this crisis is over, more details on their appeal HERE

9 Art Blitzed Books – Unique Covers

Nine artists, all of them tour favourites, have each uniquely hand-painted and signed a copy of the book London Graffiti and Street Art.

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The artists are: Alo, Dr Zadok, MadC, Neist, Pure Evil, Run, Stik, The Toasters, and Vibes.

The Pure Evil book looks pure bonkers!

Donate £5 to enter the LDN GOSH Lottery to WIN one of these unique modified LDN books, 9 in total, published by Ebury Press. £20 gets four entries, and so on. 100% of donations will go to GOSH and help the fight against Covid-19!

Dig deep, donate and enter the #LDNGOSHLottery now!

The donation link is > https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/LDNGOSHLottery

The full project info is on the LDN website > https://ldngraffiti.co.uk/shop

Here are some photos by Dave Stuart of each these featured artists as seen on the tour (to avoid confusion, these photos do not appear in Joe’s book):

Street Art, Shoreditch, London, street art tour, tour guide, Banksy, Stik, Roa, Dismaland, Dr D, Vermibus, Alo, Clet Abraham,

A Bun In Their Hair, ALO, Shoreditch 2014

Street Art, Jim Vision,Shoreditch,Street Art Tour, East End, London,Kick Ass 2, Movie, live, painting

Dr Zadok as seen on Shoreditch Street Art Tour

MadC, 2013 and still going strong

Street Art, review, 2010, Graffoto.co.uk, street art tours, tour guide, murals

Connectivity Mural – Autone & Neist detail

London, Shoreditch,Street art,graffiti,walk,tour,walks, tours,jesuischarlie,artists, Pure Evil

Pure Evil jesuischarlie 2015

Street Art Locations, London Street Art, Street Art In London, Shoreditch, Camden, Hackney Wick, Where is London's art, Banksy

RUN and Burning Candy, Hackney Wick 2013

Street art, Shoreditch, London, Stik, Falko, Falko1, street artist, street art tour, guide, couple holding hands, brick lane, interracial harmony

Couple Holding Hands, Stik, 2010

Street art, Shoreditch, Shoreditch street art tours, London, Tour Guide, Dave Stuart, street art photography

Toasters, Kingsland Road, 2009

London, Shoreditch, street art, sculpture, dust cart, hand cart, Sell Out, street artist, walk, walks, tour, tours

Vibes, ALO and also feat Sell Out and Brush

Diggin In The Archives 1

Two weeks ago today I received a text message from the NHS telling me I had to isolate, though I had actually gone into a self imposed lockdown a week earlier when I returned from my Father’s funeral in Ireland. On a daily basis I have been digging through the photo archives and posting some older gems with a few thoughts on why I had picked them. This is a compendium of the first two weeks worth.

This first photo I captioned “When dumpster diving goes wrong.” but it was about combining street art with found surreal elements, also the strong colours complemented the colour of Gianni Lee’s character outside Cargo.

Gianni Lee, Mar 2019

Sweet Toof, Rowdy and Knapple shenanigans last year, check their instas for a dose of artistic positivity . This photo reveals the scale of this collab which perhaps isn’t so apparent when you view it from street level. Also, light as candyfloss as Knapple is, impressive piggy back stamina from da Toof geezer.

Knapple, Rowdy, Sweet Toof, January 2019

In 2009 David Choe dropped a heap of awesome stuff in London, I only found out [last week] that the guy spraypainting the underpass from the passenger seat of a moving car in the opening montage of Exit Through The Gift Shop is David Choe.

David Choe, Nov 2009

Own that intrigue. Street art stimulates passers by in a way that adverts don’t. People notice. Circles by L’Enfant, figure by David David, tile by Nathan Bowen, calligraphy (aka tag) YAS21. This is the Old Truman Brewery wall that now is a canvas for Shepard Fairey’s Shadowplay mural.

L’Enfant, David David, Nathan Bowen, Yas21, 2018

Although captioned “Give Us A bite”, I will confess that in 2011 I captioned this street photography style picture of Stik’s family group “Who Ate All The Pies”.

“Give Us A Bite”, Stik, 2009

Of all the weird, wonderful, beautiful, clever and funny stuff that appeared on Cargo’s walls, this by Bortusk Leer has to be the wackiest! Anyone else remember his kid’s tv series?

Bortusk Leer, 2009

A squadron of Banksy Happy Choppers on Holywell Row, Shoreditch, there is a better photo by Steve Lazarides in his “Banksy Captured” book.

Banksy, 2006

Escif got a lot of coverage in the past week for his spectacular sculpture in Valencia which was torched as part of the Fallas celebrations, though with Spain in lockdown few got to see it actually live. In 2010 Escif had a show at Pictures On Walls in that period when it was welcoming folk in off the street, as opposed to the “by apppointment only” fortress it had been in its Scrutton St and Willow St days. These are POW’s shutters painted by Escif with Petro on window dressing detail.

Escif, also feat Petro, 2010

Elbow Toe had a stunning installation at the urban art epicentre The Leonard St Gallery. He visited London more than once in that era. He commented to me at the time that getting up in London felt so chilled compared to NY. This piece if I recall correct was a representation of his wife. 2007.

Elbow Toe, 2007

This context photo also features then Shoreditch based artist Jawa, and Mudwig is a small puce apparently but the many faults of Mudwig were regularly discussed on walls in those days.

Elbow Toe feat Jawa and Mudwig, 2007

Burning Candy owned the East End. Sweet Toof and Cyclops went large here on the plot opposite where CitizenM stands today, before the North London line curved past that building. Back of Chariots for those familiar with that landmark. Also features SNOE TRP, EINE and REAK.

Burning Candy, Snoe, Eine, Reak et al 2007

If you are going to admire someone else’s genius, nothing says “wow” quite as much as having your art admire theirs. Pure Evil’s Pearly Kings express what the rest of us thought of Swoon’s 2007 amazing filigree paste up on Coronet St. Also features Jef Aerosol looking pretty hyper and The Krah. This wall used to host some great street art. Street art photography companion Howaboutno and I always disagreed on whether you should clear shit and rubbish out of photos.

Swoon, Pure Evil, Jef Aerosol, The Krah, photo 2008

Judith Supine from NY made surreal psychedelic art which really paid attention to its surroundings, location was everything. This one is by the entrance to the long lost iconic Dragon Bar. Such a shame we don’t get visits from Judith Supine any more.

Judith Supine, 2007

Nurses and doctors are the front line, they are performing heroics without thought of their own safety and in the face of apparent shortages of safety equipment that would render their service less fraught with risk. It is saddening to hear just now (when first posted to Instagram) of two nurses in the UK who have passed away after treating patients affected by COVID-19. Both were mothers of 3. My thoughts are with the family. This piece by Stik now seems sadly prophetic.

Stik, 2009

Roa had been dropping an amazing menagerie of dishevelled creatures in Shoreditch since 2009 but this gate in 2012 kicked thing up another level in terms of making visible a degree of gore which characterised man’s relationship with his fellow creatures. If it was shocking then, you hadn’t been paying attention. Also, this was one of his less long lived London pieces and is correspondingly less well known.

ROA, 2012

Damn tourists getting in the group portrait, Suriani’s dramatic pasteups made great photos.

Suriani, 2009

Standby for more blasts from the past for as long the shutdown prevents my return to work.

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

Tellin’ Stories: Street Art

The lovely people at Speak Media just off Brick Lane have just published a cool feature about street art story telling featuring Shoreditch Street Art Tours founder and chief guide Dave.

It’s a lovely little piece, the photos look stunning and we hope that we won’t be around in 1000 years to see if our prediction for future story telling is accurate.

Just for fun, here are a couple of bonus photos of two moments related in the Speak Media feature;

Alex Patterson from The Orb, rocking the Pure Evil Gallery basement, 2012

Bankers grieve at the K-Guy Boom Economy Memorial, October 2008

Check out the Speak Media piece here.

Links:

Speak Media homepage

Pure Evil gallery website

K-Guy website

Cartoonneros In London

A few weeks ago a fresh collection of stencilled portraits by Argentinian street artist Cartoonneros of the lead singer of Radiohead appeared in Shoreditch. The memorable thing about this collection was that in going over existing artwork by King Headswim, the underlying naïve expressionist portrait with its compelling blue eyes radiated through Cartnoonneros’ work in a way not visible to the naked eye.

Stencil, street art, street artist, Cartoonneros, Pure Evil, Pure Evil Gallery, Shoreditch, London

Thom Yorke by Cartoonneros over King Headswim

Around the corner were more multi coloured stencilled portraits, similarly executed over someone else’s existing artwork as opposed to a prepared background. The three characters depicted are the artist Keith Haring, David Bowie and the Pink Floyd musician Syd Barrett.

Keith Haring, David Bowie, Syd Barrett by Cartoonneros

A day later I had the pleasure of bumping into Cartoonneros on the streets whipping up some more stencils, this time the images included Vincent Van Gogh and Kate Moss.

Van Gogh by Cartoonneros

Kate Moss by Cartoonneros

Cartoonneros explained that he usually employed three stencilled layers in his street art but that he would often spray different colours in different parts of the stencil, meaning that a single layer could be used to render multiple colours. In this next photo you can actually see the three different stencil layers used for the Van Gogh portrait are in position and each card bears the spraypainted remnants of the various colours from previous uses of the stencil.

Van Gogh 3 layer stencil

Cartoonneros is also a sticker artist, several of his quite small stickers have been found lurking nearby.

Cartoonneros Sticker

Cartoonneros then nipped to Amsterdam, Paris and Berlin but the lure of Shoreditch was too great and he returned last night to co-host “Wordplay” with Pure Evil, an evening of art and music. The simple idea was all were welcome to spray stencilled words over a background pre- sprayed by Cartoonneros with a collection of multicoloured stencilled turtle and Keith Haring images.

Love Keith Haring

Evil Passion at The Pure Evil Gallery

The evening involved an overseas street artist previously virtually unknown on these shores exhibiting in the Pure Evil Gallery and creating beautiful mayhem on the streets, quintessential Pure Evil. A fuller description of the event is on the Graffoto blog.

LINKS:

Cartoonneros Instagram

Pure Evil Gallery website

King Headswim Instagram

All photos Dave Stuart

Street Art, Politics, Money, Fame

Shoreditch Street Art Tours’ guide Dave was interviewed on TRT World alongside illuminati such as street artist Pure Evil and gallerist Steve Lazarides, exalted company indeed.

Journalist Emma Birchley put together a well thought out assessment of street art as both a political voice and a career for urban artists. It becomes clear that the two are not mutually exclusive.

Street artists who work features in the clip that regularly feature on our tours include Manyoly (France), K-Guy (UK), A.CE (UK), Tizer ID, Amara por Dios (Swe), Bambi (UK) and someone called Banksy.

Links:

JeSuisCharlie

Shocked by the tragic events in Paris this week, street artists have been quick to respond.

In France: Jef Aerosol

London, Shoreditch,Street art,graffiti,walk,tour,walks, tours,jesuischarlie,artists, Jef Aerosol

photo: Jef Aerosol

In London:

je suis charlie

Pure Evil je suis charlie

London, Shoreditch,Street art,graffiti,walk,tour,walks, tours,jesuischarlie,artists,Graffiti Life

je suis charlie Graffiti Life

More details on Graffoto blog

Pure Evil Free Art And The 365 Project

Captured yesterday afternoon, a Free Art drop by London street art legend Pure Evil. Someone’s day is going to be made.

London,Shoreditch,Street Art,tour, walk,walking,spraypaint,graffiti, Pure Evil, street artist

Gonna drop this…somewhere

Pure Evil is currently embarked on an ambitious project to make at least 1 piece of new street art every day for 365 days. In part this has been inspired by the recent sad loss of his father the artist John Uzzell-Edwards.

London,Shoreditch,Street Art,tour, walk,walking,spraypaint,graffiti, Pure Evil, street artist

Pure Evil temptation

There was a really good two page interview in the Evening Standard last week discussing Pure Evil’s 365 Project and a lot more about this street artist, whose work and interactions with many many street artists from all over the world have helped in a large measure to create the varied, colourful and truly international street art scene we have in Shoreditch.

Oh, the collector of that piece of free street art came from Belgium. Spreading the love abroad and bringing the love from abroad, that’s Shoreditch’s international street art scene!

New Street Art In Shoreditch At The Weekend

We have just had another exciting weekend of fresh new street art created by local and international street artists around Shoreditch this weekend and all of the pieces in this selection were seen as “work in progress” by guests of the Shoreditch Street Art Walk.

Belgian artist ROA is in London for his tremendous new show at Stolen Space Gallery and on Saturday not even a mid afternoon downpour put off painting the stunning scary looking flea.

London,Shoreditch,Street Art,tour, walk,walking,spraypaint,graffiti,ROA, Pure Evil, Pedro Saci,Sell Out

ROA work In Progress, also feat. Tizer ID

Nearby, British artist Pure Evil continued his 1-a-day-for-365-days project with this stunning rampant flock of evil bunnies.

London,Shoreditch,Street Art,tour, walk,walking,spraypaint,graffiti, Pure Evil

Pure Evil Bunnies

The artist Sell Out played to the “3 Lions on the shirt” theme prior to England’s shock defeat to Italy with this little flotilla of butterflies on a Rolls Royce on Brick Lane (you read that correct!). We have seen street art on cars before but not quite like this before!

Sell Out v. Spirit Of Ecstasy

Pedro Saci from Brazil got busy with a quick one on new hoardings, the structure of his work, particularly the way the mouth is done reminds me a lot of Mymo from Berlin who was here back in 2009.

London,Shoreditch,Street Art,tour, walk,walking,spraypaint,graffiti, Pedro Saci

Pedro Saci, Sao Paulo, Brazil

In the background you can see parts of the art by Cept (UK), Run (It), Faith47 (S. Afr), Mysterious Al (UK) and Rone (Aus).

This busy weekend caused much excitement for the guests of the Shoreditch Street Art Tour!