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: Sell Out
Street Art Highlights in August
August has been a month of surprises – it stayed dry – and as Banksy trumps everything in the street art world, this month’s review starts with a flashback to an exciting daytrip to East Anglia to witness Banksy’s Spraycation street art fest. Banksy put up 10 new street art pieces, two were never found by members of the public as they were swiftly removed by council workers but the 8 we did find were thankfully on the whole in superb condition. Sorry to spoil the photo of the Banksy piece at the top of this article.
Banksy rat chills out at Lowestoft, August 2021
Seeing one new Banksy street art piece is a “Hold the front page” moment, EIGHT new Banksys put that spin to the coast spin right up among the most exciting art days I have ever enjoyed, that Banksy goodness is reviewed HERE.
Banksy mini fire extinguisher graff on model village stable, Aug 2021
We also produced a guide to the locations which earned great feedback.
“Thanks for the directions on your website, they were the first proper ones we found and with 2 kids in tow we always appreciate not having to cart round for hours trying to find somewhere!”
News of the first ever private daytrip to space prompted street artist ODDO to speculate that Jeff Besos was boldy going forth in search of new tax avoidance strategies.
Jezz Bezos cartoon by Oddo
Vez, leading light of the “spoonerists” movement really got the full flower power thing going, dig that groovy dress daddio.
Spoons by Vez
We believe you can’t beat a decent street art collaboration so it a great to see two of our faves Face The Strange and Smiler getting something truly surreal up.
Face The Strange and Smiler collaboration
Butterflyman, the artist formerly known as Sell Out, had a prolific month with paper butterflies and oil pastels. He provided a police escort for The Postman’s Debbie Harry and we also loved the paper butterflies escaping the maw of Orrible’s shark. Sell Out provides top quality street art “augmentations”, torn between the two and unable to choose we thought ok, let’s include both pics! There is a crazy amount of great art in the photo of Debbie Harry’s police protection squad, you should be able to pick out 4 expressionist policemen (the 5th face isn’t a policeman) and 1 police dog!
Debbie Harry by The Postman rescued by Butterflyman’s policemen
Orrible, augmented by Butterflyman752, also featuring Subdude
Jace has been out putting some of his great faces in more small places, he clearly loves the spot next to Stik’s Brick Lane couple which is where you will find Lola.
Lola by Jace
Tom from Tom and Jerry featured in Fat Cap Spray‘s art output this month, this shone neon bright but ever so brief, lasting less than a week!
Tom by Fat Cap Sprays
Perspicere had a show at BSMT Space which to our huge regret we failed to check out, thankfully we did find this gorgeous example of his novel string art on a doorway of an empty and heavily graffitied office block in Shoreditch.
String Art by Perspicere
Just sneaking in at the end of the month is this beautiful painting in a very soft palette by Enigma.
Shadow hands by Enigma
Among the large amount of brilliant graffiti spotted this month a real jaw dropper was the piece by legend Vibes RT, check out the glitchy cloud detail.
Vibes RT graff
Vibes RT graff detail
Allen Gardens is a location frequently explored as there is always fresh art and graffiti there, just this weekend this pair of pieces by Reves One and Sidok both featuring “split screen” letter design took my breath away.
Reves One and Sidok
Bonzai’s liquid mercury lettering is truly an eyeopener for guests whenever we come across it on the Shoreditch Street Art Tour.
Quicksilver Bonzai
As travel becomes more and more a reality we are looking forward to seeing an increased number of international artists beautifying Shoreditch’s walls and more tour guests from overseas would be nice as well! Book HERE for the best street art tour and perhaps you will get to admire the candidates for September highlights in the flesh.
Links to all artists are incorporated in the text.
All photos: Shoreditch Street Art Tour guide Dave Stuart
Environmental Campaign on Shoreditch Streets
Murals depicting images of the Birds Of Paradise have been painted by street artists in Cities across the World to support a Greenpeace environmental campaign. Rainforests are being devastated across Papua in the quest to increase palm oil production, the consequence is loss of wildlife habitat, collapse of biodiversity and displacement of communities.
Work in progress #Wingsofparadise Shoreditch
This campaign has appeared in Tokyo, Geelong, Long Beach, Berlin, Breda, Wellington, Taipei and here in Shoreditch London, below.
Wings Of paradise by Matt Sewell
This idea is to get up images of the birds, replicating in the cities their colourful plumage, their flight and their life, and thus to promote the conversation about the need for action to halt the eradication of their lands and habitat.
#Wingsofparadise Shoreditch
Curiously in London the campaign started with a commissioned piece of artwork but then Greenpeace supporters/activists extended the action with quite a flock of non permissioned paste ups on walls from Brick Lane to Old Street.
#Wingsofparadise Shoreditch
The Greenpeace campaign appears to have taken wing as a vibrant Bird Of Paradise in Sell Out’s distinctive expressionist style was spotted on Brick Lane, suggesting that other street artists are independently picking up on the campaign. There is always room for campaigning political street art, particularly when it comes with a novel legal-illegal combo strategy and picks up momentum in such an unusual way.
Bird Of Paradise, Brick Lane by Sell Out
This is a slightly abbreviated version of a post by same author which appeared on Graffoto.co.uk which also has a lot more photos of the paste ups put up in London
#Wingsofparadise Shoreditch
LINKS:
Greenpeace website
Matt Sewell website
Sell Out instagram
All photos: Dave Stuart
Trash Sculpture Wants To Break Free
This morning one of our favourite trash sculpture street artists Sell Out created a hugely amusing street art sculpture paying homage to rock legend Freddie Mercury, the late lead singer of Queen. In a classic rock video Freddie and fellow Queen band members appear in drag living in domestic drudgery with Freddie swanning around scandalously dressed in a tight pink top, short leather mini skirt and suspenders proclaiming “I want to break free” as she vacuums and dusts around their congested living room.
Freddie Mercury: Screen Grab from official Queen video
Sell Out has recreated Freddie at his provocative cross dressing best complete with upright hoover. A swarm of his trademark cut out paper butterflies swarm around Freddie’s head.
I Want To Break Free
This video scandalized America’s bible belt, radio stations deleted Queen from their playlists, MTV banned the video and it put Queen’s US commercial career on ice. Europe LOVED it.
The song appeared on Queen’s album The Works which Wikipedia says was released on 27 February 1984, 22 years ago almost to the day. Damn tune was going through my head for the rest of this morning’s tour.
This isn’t Sell Out’s only rock star tribute, a few weeks ago while the world made a shrine of a pointilist portrait in Brixton by Jimmy C, David Bowie appeared immortalised in trash by Sell Out in Shoreditch.
Photo: Alex Arnell
Links: Alex Arnell (Sell Out) Facebook: Alex’s photo shows the trash sculpture without the …errr..trash
ALex has featured many times on previous Shoreditch Street Art Tours blog updates, click here
Photos: Dave Stuart aka NoLionsInEngland except where noted
Not Too Cold For Street Art
After several days of freezing weather it was nice for the Shoreditch Street Art Tour to have merely “crisp” conditions on a bright clear day on Sunday. Not that a cold snap deters street artists, plenty of new street art was discovered on this morning’s tour and we start above with a beautiful paint spattered peacock on Brick lane pasted up by Bastek.
Under a railway bridge Bastek also dropped this Ali G portrait intricately stencilled on paper, another preening peacock perhaps.
Ali G – Bastek
Framed symbolism labelled Miah pleads “Fall in love with me”. Perhaps, but only for your art.
And unsurprisingly Sell Out had been about creating topical trash sculptures and what could be fresher than a clone trooper just ahead of the next Star Wars movie. Bet clone troopers don’t feel the cold.
Trash Cloe Trooper – Sell Out
All photos: Dave Stuart aka NoLionsInEngland
Finding Free Art
New art and free art made this day another exciting day for guests of Shoreditch Street Art Tours.
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.
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 .
Sunny likes #365artdrops
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.
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!
Jonesy’s Oroborus
All photos: Nolionsinengland
Ducks and Superheroes Street Art from Sell Out
The London street artist Sell Out was very busy in Shoreditch on Saturday morning and the Shoreditch Street Art Tour found a variety of his work at various locations.
This fountain on Brick Lane has been used as a scene for a number of Sell Out installations, this time a Sell Out Duck floated around while butterflies skirted around its head. There was something about this duck’s stare…..not the kind of duck that hangs around nurseries, kids baths or fairy tale illustrations!
Duck
Then we found Spiderman scaling this sheer brick wall, the lattice detail was stenciled by Mexican duo Lapiztola but in the close up of Sell Out’s Spiderman, it takes on the appearance of a web.
Spiderman
We also found Batman who seemed to be helping the citizens of Shoreditch by handing out Sell Out’s butterflies.
Batman
Finally, a huge flock of hand painted butterflies stuck on with blu-tack invited people to find the butterfly with their name as a souvenir of the Shoreditch street art, the effect was a bit like those tourist shops where you buy personalised gifts with individual names but of course with Sell Out’s particular spin on artists using street art to promote their art sales, he actually wants people to find their name and keep the butterfly. There were several dedicated to Dave 😉
name butterflies
Sell Out website
All photos: NoLionsInEngland
New Street Art Sculpture by artist Sell Out
Last night on our Night Street Art Photography Tour last night we came across the artist Sell Out creating a new structural installation making use of a street cleaner’s hand cart which is often kept in the car park. With a paint pot face, tape arms and hands propelling the cart around and butterflies streaming in the wind as its hair.
We managed to get a few nice shots of the sculpture lit in a variety of different ways, night street art photography offers so much opportunity for experimentation.
We had a pleasant chat with Sell Out who wasn’t at all fazed with the expected fate awaiting his new installation. This morning the Shoreditch Street Art Tour revisited the scene and found that the hand cart had already been re-assigned to its normal use and was no longer there. Such ephemerality is the almost inevitable fate of street art and we were pleased to be able to record this one’s mayfly like existence.
Sell Out, morning after, feat Vibes RT, Brush
Sell Out’s Doggedly Inventive Installation in Shoreditch
Yesterday afternoon the Shoreditch Street Art Tour found plenty of evidence that the Street art provocateur Sell Out had been out conjuring up new butterfly installations. The centrepiece of his latest installation isn’t actually a butterfly, it’s a multi coloured manically slobbering canine who is doggedly (boom boom) careering around on a scooter trailing a slipstream of butterflies in its wake.
This isn’t the first time that the presence of this motorbike has inspired creative clandestine sculpture making:
Sell Out
The tour also found that further up Brick Lane Sell Out had been active creating a beer swilling fixie riding skinny trousers wearing Shoreditch hipster out of a notice board on a wall.
Brick Lane – great place for a drink
Hats off to an artist who works without permission in daylight, accepts members of public will collect souvenirs from his art and who yesterday happily signed butterflies for some of the younger members of the tour group!