Tag Archives: Street Art

Paste up street art put up for the London International Paste Up Festival Second Edition

London International Paste Up Festival 2

The second edition of the London International Paste Up Festival took place 20-23 October 2022.  Artists from all over the world, about 300 all told, sent in paper-based artwork which the organisers pasted up on a number of walls mainly around the Brick Lane area.

Fashion Street LIPF2

Street art was put up on a total of 7 locations, or 8 if you include the numerous paste ups that accumulated around LIPF HQ on Hanbury Street during the festival opening event.  None of the LIPF2 locations had been used in the inaugural 2021 London International Paste Up Festival.

Seven Stars LIPF2, Brick Lane

In 2021 all the locations bar one were legal, permission had been granted by the owners.  The exception was one wall where the LIPF team thought they had permission but it turned out they were listening to the wrong person!  For 2022 there was no permission and indeed at several spots the apparent wall owners remonstrated with the paste up teams with varying degrees of forcefulness.  At one spot the ground floor occupant harangued the team to be followed by an occupant from the floor above later saying how much they loved the art and the constant change.

Grimsby St LIPF2

In 2021 all the LIPF surfaces were virgin surfaces or tarps tied to walls.  For the second event all bar one of the LIPF walls had long term prior history as paste up street art walls.   The paste up festival waved a transformational wand at each wall, bringing complete more or less change in a single moment to surfaces more accustomed to perpetual evolution through gradual change.   Last year’s art was essentially one layer deep whereas this year LIPF2 looks all the better for layering onto each walls accretion of texture, patina and depth.   Also there were no gaps where original wall surface can be seen.  So this year’s locations just looked more like street art from the wild compared to last year’s festival.

Puma Court LIPF2

Street art lends itself to collaborations, interactions and augmentations.  Emo Ryan screenprints portraits of punk version of Queen Elizabeth  garnished with Jamie Reid/Sex Pistols influenced wording, a recent paste up of the Queen by Silvio Alino had the right scale and similar text providing a perfect juxtaposition.  The lily was well and truly gilded with the later addition of an artificial flower.

Silvio Alino, Emo Ryan and Me and Blue, Hanbury St

Coloquix/Appaaran collaboration for LIPF2

Paste up street art put up for the London International Paste Up Festival Second Edition

Tsunami_Mignonnerie / Raddington Falls interaction

One paste up spot with a long history of street art got the LIPF paste up team into spot of bother with an un-appreciative owner.  Stik painted the Brick Lane Couple on Princelet Street in 2010.  The adjacent wall was decorated in fine style with a succession of stencil images by Otto Schade from 2014 and paste ups really started appearing in large numbers in 2015.   Someone in the property had a tirade against Benjay Crossman in 2019 leading to this sought after artist mulshing out his own art and leaving little doubt as to his feelings towards the owners.  It would appear that the same person objected to the LIPF team decorating this long running spot and scrapped off the paste ups within his reach (short arms, stiff knees?).  In the process of destroying the art he created a truly unsightly mess.   Ironically, within the vague unwritten rules of paste up culture, ripped, torn, peeling and destroyed art gives a free pass to other artists to place fresh art over the desecration.

Princelet Street LIPF2 before the anti art attack

Princelet Street after the art desecration

2019 Benjay Crossman

Tweet_streetart from Melbourne collaborated with Metraeda from Dusseldorf on a balloon breathing faceted dragon.   A barred gate locked to a wall provided appropriate context for several artworks including Palley’s R2D2 which was kept company by a rocket taking David Bowie to heaven and Cultof.XYZ’s “Allow access”.   Old School street artists who submitted artworks included the famous London Police and West London writer CodeFC.

Tweet_streetart & Metraeda

Coloquix/Apparan collaboration for LIPF2

Puma Court – including Jace, 33WallFlower33, Tuby, Broken Hartist, Corrosive8, Cultof.xyz, Knapple

London Police, Uberfubs

Keith Flint and Queen Elizabeth by CodeFC.  Also feaet No.rules art & LT66

Street artists are used to surrendering control over the fate of their art once they leave it on the streets.  The London International Paste Up Festival begs artists to relinquish more, they are absent from the placement process.  On the whole, with the exception of some artists who assisted with the pasting up or who attended some of the events in person, the gift of placement was in the hands of the team who spent many days pasting art on the walls.  The aesthetic of the resulting walls was determined by opportunist interactions, intentional and chance colour combinations and a preference for chaotic randomness rather than disciplined straight edged borders and overlaps.

The Viaduct – early stages

The Viaduct LIPF2

Homo Riot, Vision Ox, Oddo, Punk Flamungo, Raffaele Giovani, DaddyStreetFox, TFA, Vermin, Pissandvinegar art, fiftyseven designs,Slow Shrug,  Grimsby St, LIPF2

So.Schoen.Immer.Weider, Cameron twins, Hello The Mushroom, Taxed, Olly Walker, Apparan, Zelda Bomba at Puma Court

The LIPF2 spots are live and active street art locations, they remained dynamic and constantly changing even over the period of the Festival itself as new art was added by artists.  K-Guy had been a participant in the 2021 LIPF but in 2022, having not managed to get ready in time for the submission deadline decided the best means of getting involved was simply to pop up and add his contributions himself.  Those contributions were themselves subject to very rapid augmentation by another reliable contributor to the Shoreditch street art smorgasbord, Alex Arnell.

K-Guy

Fashion St

People immersed in the street art scene, in particular the practitioners, the artists may ponder what gives someone the right to take over whole walls and go over existing art in the name of a festival.   Specially one in which very few of the participants are active in the installation, necessitating an element that might be construed as curation.  If there is a conceit at the heart of the method, the actual achievement in elevating the appreciation and status of paste up street art justifies it.

Princelet St Oct 2022 pre LIPF

Princelet Street LIPF2

Shoreditch Street Art Tours had the pleasure a few years back of introducing the artist Apparan who is one of the main organisers involved in conceiving, managing and generally pulling off the London International Paste Up Festival to the charity Urban Heart Guate.  Urban Heart Guate promotes various forms of therapy including art to support a better life and environment for young children growing up in communities in Guatemala blighted by poverty, crime and gang violence.  A free street art tour by Shoreditch Street Art Tours on the last afternoon of LIPF2 raised donations to support the work of Urban Heart Guate.   The official link to contribute via LIPF to this fabulous cause can be found HERE

The organisers of the London Paste Up Festival are continuing to raise funds in support and have partnered with Pepita Coffee to raise funds from purchases of reusable coffee tins packed with luxury ground coffee and featuring a collage of photos of LIPF1 art, they look stunning!

Collectors edition Pepita ground coffee for for the London International Paste Up Festival Second Edition

Collectors Edition Paste Up Festival coffee jar by Pepita Coffee

Message London International Paste Up Festival on Instagram for more details on how to get your mitts on one of these beauties.

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With apologies to the 300 artists who participated in LIPF2, it would be wonderful to provide links to all artists or indeed to identify everyone whose art features in the photographs in this summary but sadly this isn’t practical.

The 2nd London International Paste Up Festival was supported by:

Shoreditch Street Art Tours

Brick Lane Shisha Lounge

Great Art UK

Inspiring City

Pepita Coffee

La Tundra Revista

All photos: Dave Stuart


City Kitty, RX Skulls, Toastoro, Voxx Romana and Wrdsmth visited Shoreditch with a group of street artists from Portland and New York and created original street art

Portland and NY Street Artists visit Shoreditch

This August a group of street artists from Portland, Oregon as well as their friends from other endz visited Shoreditch to bless the public realm with their creativity.   Various combinations of this group have been visiting Europe regularly over the years and the street art they create is never short of impressive.

City Kitty, RX Skulls, Toastoro, Voxx Romana and Wrdsmth

Gang mural (above and feature image) : City Kitty, RX Skulls, Toastoro, Voxx Romana and local friend Wrdsmth

RX Skulls and Voxx Romana have been at the centre of the previous manifestations of this team, on this occasion they were joined by City Kitty from New York, Toastoro from Portland and team photographer Cody Keto.

Toastoro and RX Skulls

Cat Bus Toaster by Toastoro, Chonk by RX Skulls (also feat Boxitrixi, ODDO, DaddyStreertFox)

Each artist has embraced differing themes and influences yet there is commonality in the techniques, placements and energy.   Paste ups, stencil, stickers and various installations are all deployed in the name of public decoration, sometimes in adventurous and novel ways.

Voxx Romana

My name is Voxx Romana, observe my stencil

Toastoro

Toastoro stencilled paste up

RX Skulls is one of the best known art sticker makers around and he came prepared with masses of stickers, as well as paste ups and stencils.

RX Skulls

RX Skulls paste up

RX Skulls

RX Skulls sticker

RX Skulls, Voxx Romana/Vane PDX collab, Toastoro (also feat D7606, Slow Shrug)

Visible in the very corner of the photo above is a small RX Skulls paste up on the corner of the window ledge, a relic from 2018 which can be seen in its early days in the photo below.   Also visible in the following photo is a sculpture by 3x3x3 and a paste up from C3, C3 is one of the UK artists RX skulls has collaborated with and if you look closely above you can see the carbonised remains of that C3 in the layers of historic grime.

RX Skulls vs C3 also feat 3x3x3, 2018

Which leads to the next photo in which another aspect of the art practice of this posse is apparent, their enthusiasm for an art collaboration.  A collection of conjoined skeleton RX Skulls characters called the Chonks are seen in partnership with art from his UK friends D7606 and C3.  The Chonkening reflects RX’s intention to cram in tons of movies this year, don’t we all have an accumulated cinema deficit following the pandemic?  Another conjoined couple are off on a tattoo spree with a tattoo gun.

RX Skulls & C3; RX Skulls & D7606

RX Skulls & C3; RX Skulls & D7606

RX Skulls

RX Skulls wall of fame

In a lovely gesture RX gave a number of stickers which were hugely appreciated by guests of the Shoreditch Street Art Tour.

RX Skulls stickers

By the way, sticker placement at seriously impressive height was achieved using a special applicator I have seen on the net but never seen in action before.

Toastoro

Toastoro sticker

Voxx Romana came similarly prepared and perhaps most striking were his collaborations with Danny Ebru who provided the marbled paper background to Voxx Romana’s stencils, something Voxx brought with him on his previous visit.  The backgrounds are simply delicious.

Voxx Romana & Danny Ebru

Voxx Romana & Danny Ebru collaboration

Voxx Romana & Danny Ebru

Voxx Romana & Danny Ebru collaboration

Voxx Romana & Danny Ebru

Voxx Romana & Danny Ebru collaboration

Voxx Romana & Danny Ebru

Voxx Romana & Danny Ebru collaboration

Voxx got inventive with stencils wrapped around corners, borrowed background colours complement the stencilled definition of the face as if the whole thing was a single original collaborative art piece.

Voxx Romana

Voxx Romana 90 degree stencil

Another returning member was the collaboration machine City Kitty.  City Kitty focusses more on hand painted paste ups rather than print runs and consequently gets up fewer pieces than the other guys.   City Kitty does the street art podcast Scratching The Surface which is so damn good, several recent episodes were interviews recorded on this European foray.   If you are interested in the sticker arm device mentioned above then listen to all of City Kitty’s podcasts, one of them is with the artist whose side hustle is selling those poles.

City Kitty

City Kitty

City Kitty

City Kitty

Toastoro, whose pseudonym is a fusion of the word “toast” and the name of Studio Ghibli animation character “Totoro”, has had art up in Shoreditch in the past courtesy of friends putting him up but this visit really marked his first overseas in-person “campaign”.  Toastoro introduced two art techniques rarely seen in London street art: LED illuminated street art (hold tight Lost Hills) and layered art which Toastoro calls vinyl topography, the textured layered effect is hard to relive or convey through “mere” photographs.

Toastoro

Literally lit Toastoro

Toastoro

Toastoro vinyl topography

Toastoro

Toastoro vinyl topography

The Studio Ghibli reference implicit in the compound name Toastoro influences his subject matter which included sightings of Totoro (obvs) with a body shaped rather like a slice of bread, susawatari dust bunnies and funniest of all, a souped up cat bus (“My Neighbour Totoro”) with added toaster functionality.

Toastoro

susuwatari pavement stencils by Toastoro

Toastoro

Cat Bus Toaster by Toastoro

Toastoro visited Shoreditch with a group of street artists from Portland and New York and created original street art

Toastoro sticker

Voxx, RX and Toastoro all felt pavement stencilling was in order, something Voxx Romana and RX Skulls have done in Shoreditch on previous visits.

RX Skulls & Voxx Romana

RX Skulls & Voxx Romana pavement stencils

RX Skulls

Pavement Stencil by RX Skulls

Toastoro

Toastoro pavement stencil

The boys from Portland also put out some #FreeArt.  RX Skulls became only the second street artist I can recall putting out bronze street art.

RX Skulls

RX Skulls

Accompanying the street artists was the amazing and super cool photographer Cody Keto.  While out one evening the group bumped into Stik, a chance encounter which gave Cody the opportunity to create some amazing light trail photographs at Stik’s famous Hoxton Couple statue.  Cody has kindly given permission for his stunning photos to appear here.

RX Skulls, Voxx Romana, Toastoro and Stik

Portland guys vs Stik with Stik guest appearance. Photo courtesy Cody Keto Photography

Cody Kato and Toastoro

Catching Brick Lane Action – (behind) Cody Keto and (closer)Toastoro

The love extended to this group of visiting artists is really a reflection of the way they reach out to and embrace the wider world.  This is most apparent in their collaborations, these guys are total collaboration engines and it is not surprising to see them collaborating by design, on opportunity and by chance.

City Kitty and Toastoro

City Kitty/Toastoro cats and bamboo shoot collab (also feat Pablo Fiasco, RSH & an older Mowcka)

City Kitty and Toastoro

City Kitty/Toastoro collab detail

City Kitty & RX Skulls

City Kitty & RX Skulls collaboration

City Kitty hooked up with Neon Savage, the pair having collaborated many times down the years since meeting in Croydon in 2017 a fact gleaned from their podcast conversation on the always excellent City Kitty podcast.

City Kitty & Neon Savage

City Kitty & Neon Savage collab

RX Skulls & Polar Bear

RX Skulls & Polar Bear collaboration

One of the group told us that the highlight of the visits had been the welcome they received in Europe, visits were made to Manchester, Hackney Wick, Paris as well as Shoreditch and Southbank.  There were planned hook-ups as well as chance encounters with street artists and many artists and fans travelled to meet the team.

a group of street artists from Portland and New York and created original street art

Hanging at Montys for the “Bring and buy”

Toastoro

Toastoro at Southbank Undercroft

City Kitty

City Kitty at Southbank Undercroft

RX Skulls

RX Skulls at Southbank Undercroft

Mowcka has previously collaborated with City Kitty and travelled to hook up in Shoreditch.

Toastoro, City Kitty and Mowcka

Toastoro, City Kitty and visiting friend Mowcka

The combination of artists in this travelling circus changes on each visit but fear not, art by absent friends appears courtesy of those who do make the trip.

Vane PDX

Vane PDX (Voxx Romana obliged)

Vane PDX

Vane PDX transparent sticker

Vane’s sticker is printed on a transparent background, Voxx’s placement on Vane’s behalf intentionally responds to the red letterpress print by Jean Peut-Etre.  One of those “chance” collaborations perhaps.

DRSC0

DRSC0 – absent friend

visited Shoreditch with a group of street artists from Portland and New York and created original street art

Eye see Pam Goode – present in spirit

Also making appearances were friends from their local scenes that London did not have the pleasure of welcoming in person this time such as Cheer Up, Cuz Chris and Robots Will Kill

Cheer Up

Cheer Up

Notice the writing of Cheer Up’s name in the glitched font in the face – genius!

Cuz Chris

Cuz Chris

City Kitty & Chris RWK

City Kitty & Chris RWK sticker collaboration

RX Skulls, Chris RWK and Knor

Tracy Blackstock by Dreph admires stickers by RX Skulls and a Chris RWK/Knor collab

This visiting group of artists peppered Shoreditch and other parts of Europe with new street art embodying innovative, novel, collaborative, improvised fun wherever they went.  There were so many dimensions to the art and the activities they got up to and we thank them all for their contribution to the street art scene.

Links:

RX Skulls Instagram

“Art From Arrex. Stick It.”  RX Skulls 2014 stickers in Shoreditch

“Secrets Of The Sticker Shed – Sticker Making Workshop” (How to become RX Skulls)

Voxx Romana instagram

City Kitty instagram 

Toastoro instagram

Cody Keto Photography Website 

RX Skulls

RX Skulls stencil

RX Skulls visited Shoreditch with a group of street artists from Portland and New York and created original street art

RX Skulls stencils


Pasteup paper street art of simple blue and orange bug like characters from Val Jones aka Novelondon influenced by Miro

Novelondon

Novelondon street art: Street art from the artist Novelondon has appeared around Shoreditch within the past fortnight and there is nothing we love more than delicious new art from an unfamiliar artist.

Pasteup paper street art of simple orange and green bug like characters from Val Jones aka Novelondon influenced by Miro with Rolling Stones lyrics

Novelondon vs The Rolling Stones

Novelondon’s new street art combines characters and text with the unmistakable influence of Spain’s Miro.   The Rolling Stones and The Beatles lyrics feature.

Pasteup paper street art of simple orange and green bug like characters from Val Jones aka Novelondon influenced by Miro with Rolling Stones lyrics

Novelondon vs The Rolling Stones

Pasteup paper street art of simple blue bug like characters from Val Jones aka Novelondon influenced by Miro with Beatles lyrics

Novelondon vs The Beatles

Pasteup paper street art of simple red bug like characters from Val Jones aka Novelondon influenced by Miro with Rolling Stones lyrics

Novelondon vs The Rolling Stones

Pasteup paper street art of simple Green and blue bug like characters from Val Jones aka Novelondon influenced by Miro with Bob Dylan Lyrics

Novelondon vs Bob

There is great consideration given to placement, colour coordination with the background looks superb.

Pasteup paper street art of simple red, green and blue bug like characters from Val Jones aka Novelondon influenced by Miro

Novelondon in Shoreditch. August 2022

Pasteup paper street art of simple colourless bug like characters from Val Jones aka Novelondon influenced by Miro with Jimi Hendrix lyrics

Novelondon in Shoreditch. August 2022

A particular favourite seems to tip its hat to Rothko with its placement over graffiti removal colour washes.

Pasteup paper street art of simple blue and green bug like characters from Val Jones aka Novelondon influenced by Miro against a Rothko like background of grey and pink

NoveLondon in Shoreditch, August 2022

Links:

Novelondon instagram

all photos: Dave Stuart


Banksy Antonelli and Marziani Book Review

Banksy, the best known living artist, is an enigma with a perverse attitude to celebrity status and personal information.  In an age where non-entities share every plate of food, change of eyeshadow and ill-advised swimwear hot, this is this is a major anomaly.

Anonymity and secrecy fuels curiosity so there have been many books about Banksy, though none actually by him since “Wall and Piece” in 2005.  The economically titled “Banksy”, Stefano Antonelli & Gianluca Marziani, Rizzoli International Publications, 2022, unauthorised, collects together a significant amount of material addressing Banksy the street artist, the art world darling, the enfant terrible and Banksy the “polite vandal”.

Liberally illustrated with large photos, Banksy’s indoor gallery art and his outdoor street art get pretty much equal billing.

Having two authors lends two distinct dimensions to the book.  A significant portion of the book is basically chronological, with photographs illustrating Banksy activity from very early freehand collaborations in Bristol right up to screengrabs of the two videos released by Banksy during lockdown.

The years 2014 and 2016 are omitted so curiously no references to Banksy’s only known signed confession (Mobile Lovers) and his use of a QR code in 2016 to link the Gassed Cosette street image opposite London’s French Embassy to his underlying humanitarian political point.

The second and perhaps more interesting aspect is the philosophical, art history and political analysis.  These aspects are covered with far superior writing quality, though I am perhaps too easily impressed when I have to google the words.  The book makes a strong case for Banksy as a serious and art-world credible artist, something art critics are often inclined to deny.

The one thing no one wants revealed is thankfully not addressed in any great depth.  The authors simply acknowledge the oft-repeated un-confirmed guess from the Telegraph years ago, seemingly on the basis that repetition by enough other people provides validation.  The car park attendant in Weston Super Mare must be gutted.

Some cultural nuances are strangely overlooked such as in the dissection of the title of Banksy’s last book, there are cross references to Tolstoy’s “war and peace” and a tricky allusion to a wall as a source of social media output (me neither) but Banksy’s key joke that to a graffiti writer, a “piece” is a complex multi-colour graffito is not mentioned at all.

There is an excellent Banksy mind-map placing Banksy in context between street art and graffiti with a stream of influences and effects.  Many similar graphics exist such as Cedar Lewisohn’s hand scribbled 2008 street art mind map, they are endlessly fascinating and never easy to agree 100% with, this is the first I have seen regarding Banksy and the authors have done a great job with it.

The book would have benefited from more careful fact checking with errors in dates slipping through and even one artwork which wasn’t by Banksy but is not attributed to anyone else.

There is always room for another Banksy book in the market.  The passage of time provides perspective on Banksy’s earlier career and as long as he remains active there is scope for updating on his latest twists and subversions of the act of creating and disseminating art.  Its range of photographs earns it its position on the bookshelf of the Banksy curious and the in-depth analysis will provide food for thought for the die-hard fan base.

Banksy ©Stefano Antonelli and Gianluca Marziani, Rizzoli Electa, 2022

Hardcover / 10.25” x 11.25” / 240 pages / 194 colour illustrations

£29.95 / ISBN: 978-0-8478-7276-3

Rizzoli Electa / Release date: June 28 2022

Page extracts courtesy the publisher; see book for photograph copyright statements


paste up street art in Shoreditch by comedian Bill Boorman also known as street artist Beirdo celebrates 50th anniversary of Pride in London with the message Pride is more that a parade

Pride Street Art In Shoreditch

Last weekend marked London’s main 2022 Pride celebration and a lot of new Pride street art appeared in Shoreditch in celebration of and support for the LGBTQ community.

On the Shoreditch Street Art Tour on Sunday I was asked by one guest why the London Pride was in July rather than June as they were used to.  Post tour digging revealed that “Pride in London”, the official title at present, is timed for the closest Saturday to the anniversary of the Stonewall riots in NYC which followed police raids on the Stonewall gay bar on 28th June.

The pride rainbow flag features in a lot of the Pride art pieces in its 6 colour traditional colour form, as opposed to the usual 7 colour representation of a rainbow.  The first rainbow flag was designed by the artist Gilbert Blake in 1978 at the request of Harvey Milk (see the film Milk, excellent).  It had 8 colours, the traditional 7 colours of the rainbow plus hot pink above the red.  Each of the 8 colours was assigned a specific meaning.  In 1979, aiming to increase flag production, the pink strip was dropped as hot pink material was not readily available.  The turquoise stripe was also dropped so that the flag could be split and displayed in symmetrical paired halves each having three stripes.  Thus the common Pride 6 colour rainbow evolved.

Subdude used an 8 stripe Pride flag to highlight statutory homophobia on the African continent.

paste up street art in Shoreditch by political street artist Subdude points out that homosexuals are legal targets in 30 African nations celebrating 50th anniversary of Pride in London

Subdude – Pride London 2022

Street artist Beirdo prefers 6 colours, or perhaps was just out of hot pink and turquoise A4.

Anti Conversion Ban Therapy paste up street art celebrates 50th anniversary of Pride in London with of messaages on rainbow coloured paper comedian Bill Boorman also know as  street artist Beirdo in Shoreditch

Beirdo – Pride London 2022

Apparan sends her greetings and wishes you Happy Pride, with 7 rainbow stripes.

paste up street art by street artist Apparan in Shoreditch celebrates 50th anniversary of Pride in London with a heart depicting love with 7 stripe rainbow flag motif flowing through it

Apparan – Pride London 2022

Drash La Krass has a list.  No homophobia, no biphobia, no transphobia, no sexism!

Drash La Krass glittery paste up street art in Shoreditch celebrates 50th anniversary of Pride in London with a no homophobia no bi-phobia no transphobia no sexism message

Drash La Krass – Pride London 2022

Ghead_Tra is a new name this year to the Shoreditch street art scene and his art hates hatred and Conservatives.  The God Loves Gays tricolour specifically aims at the vile spewing Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas USA.

Anti gay anti abortion extremist with Westboro Baptist Church placards held by children

Westboro Baptist Church anti gay anti abortion message – credit Jerod Harris

 paste up street art celebrates 50th anniversary of Pride in London opposing Westboro Baptist Church anti gay  art with messages by street artist Ghead_tra in Shoreditch

Ghead_art – Pride London 2022

If this next text based piece isn’t Ghead then Ghead ought to get together with the unknown artist as the message seamlessly blends two big issues Ghead has gone long on (anti gay bashing, anti Tory).

 paste up street art celebrates 50th anniversary of Pride in London with anti Tory text set in rainbow flag colours  by an unknown street artist in Shoreditch

Unknown artist – Pride London 2022

Sidenote: on another matter the same so-called place of worship also espouses extreme views on abortion and Ghead_tra parodies another specimen of Westboro extremism in opposition to that message.

Street artist Ghead_tra mocks Westboro Baptist Church anti-abortion views with modifications of their own anti abortion text say “abortion is my bloody choice”

“Abortion is my bloody choice”, Ghead_tra, July 2022

Ahead of this week’s Tory party implosion Social Sniper homed in on an issue which highlighted the breakdown of trust by members of the LGBTQ community in politicians.  This may need to be read slowly.  Conversion therapy is a process aimed at “curing” or changing expressions of gender behaviour, identity or expression.  To describe it as controversial would be to miss the most unacceptable aspects of the practice by a million miles.  Boris Johnson decided not to proceed with legislation to ban the practice which provoked howls of horror, at which point he flipped and decided there would be a ban except it wouldn’t apply to trans conversion therapy.

Anti Conversion Ban Therapy paste up street art depicts a trans woman and trans flag by street artist Social Sniper in Shoreditch

Social Sniper – – Pride London 2022

For the curious, the background to Social Sniper’s art is another form of colour spectrum specifically representing the trans community and their supporters.  Trans Pride is taking place this weekend (Saturday 9th July 2022), the weekend after Pride weekend.

Wandering down a parallel track again, one senior tory we didn’t know about before appeared on TV regretting that he had had to support the flip flops on conversion therapy policy.  When politicians publicly admit to supporting policies they fundamentally disagree with, how can voters expect to elect a representative possessing even the tiniest fragment of integrity.

Mike Freer MP

I am hugely indebted to my Shoreditch Street Art Tours co-guide Subdude for his insights and information regarding the content and installation of the art discussed.

All photos: Dave Stuart except where  stated

Featured artwork: Beirdo


Enigma street art surreal painting of multi part horse and human centaur

Enigma Street Art and a show with friends

A significant amount of Enigma street art, who is one of our favourite street artists, has been spotted over the past few weeks.  A quite wet Shoreditch Street Art Tours party bumped into Enigma the Friday before last who was finding the morning’s rainy conditions and wet wall not conducive to painting but as soon as we arrived, the cloud parted, the sun shone and Enigma was able to complete a stunning centaur, part man part horse.

Enigma street art surreal painting of multi part horse and human centaur

Enigma May 2022

This was the week Enigma opened in a group show at BSMT Space alongside Ed Hicks, Perspicere and Roncho.  This elevates Enigma to the level of some heavyweight artists in a very impressive show.

Art in the group show New Surrealism: Ed Hicks Enigma Perspiscere Roncho

New Surrealism: Ed Hicks Enigma Perspiscere Roncho

Close to BSMT is a stunning collaborative mural painted with Ed Hicks that week.  The dramatic portals and volcanic landscapes Ed has been painting recently have been amazing.  The group show attempts to bind the four artist together on the basis of surrealism, in this street art the fusion of enigma’s heads and skulls with Hick’s fractured portal, a woodland scene and a landscape certainly nods in that direction.

Ed Hicks and Enigma collaboration, Dalston, May 2022

Street art collaboration in Dalston by Ed Hicks and Enigma

Ed Hicks and Enigma collaboration, Dalston, May 2022

Street art collaboration in Dalston by Ed Hicks and Enigma

Ed Hicks and Enigma collaboration, Dalston, May 2022

In Shoreditch that same week our tour troupe turned a corner and instead of an Enigma shadow puppet we found a “Forty winks” graffiti throwie.    Two days later on yet another tour we discovered that Enigma had returned to reclaim the spot with a painting of a study on paper of the human torso with a line element head.  Unpick that one!!

Graffiti over street art in Shoreditch

Forty Winks over Enigma shadow hand

Enigma street art surreal painting of male body with line diagram head

Ed Hicks had painted a diptych “as above so below” in Shoreditch the previous week with  Emma Richardson, a private tour group came upon Ed’s painting the day after it had been created but Emma’s panel had already been totally painted over, such is the mayfly-like existence of street art in Shoreditch.  As I have a photo of only Ed’s half, with thanks and apologies I have taken the liberty pinching Ed’s photo from his Instagram.

Streert collaboration in Shoreditch Ed Hicks and Emma Richardson

Ed Hicks and Emma Richardson: As above so below (Photo Ed Hicks)

Perspicere’s string art was highlighted in our 2021 Street Art review as one of the two forms of innovative street art to appear that year.  Perspicere has remained prolific this year with plenty of new specimens revealing the vague semi solidity of their subjects which is seen more clearly the further one stands from the art.

Perspicere string art in Shoreditch of woman in Niqab

Perspicere – former site of Hitchcock Reel

Perspicere string art in Shoreditch of woman holding a face mask

Perspicere

Perspicere’s string art provokes a high “how is that done” curiosity so has a tendency to deteriorate fairly quickly as people pluck at it, though one of Perspicere’s faces has been the subject of a royal update Butterflyman aka Sellout.  The quizzical smiley face one has been installed high off the ground and its longevity has benefitted from the effort that went into that placement.

Perspicere string art in Shoreditch of woman holding a face mask

Perspicere String Art Smilies

The group show ends this weekend so pop up to BSMT if you have the chance, or if it is all over by the time you read this hopefully a few photos will capture some of the magic.

Art in the group show New Surrealism: Ed Hicks Enigma Perspiscere Roncho

New Surrealism: Ed Hicks Enigma Perspiscere Roncho

Art in the group show New Surrealism: Ed Hicks Enigma Perspiscere Roncho

Why Enigma didn’t have his usual coat on in the rain 🙂

Art in the group show New Surrealism: Ed Hicks Enigma Perspiscere Roncho

Perspicere “Walking Head”, “Chair Head”

Art in the group show New Surrealism: Ed Hicks Enigma Perspiscere Roncho

New Surrealism: Ed Hicks Enigma Perspiscere Roncho

Art in the group show New Surrealism: Ed Hicks Enigma Perspiscere Roncho

Ed Hicks: Anniversary

Art in the group show New Surrealism: Ed Hicks Enigma Perspiscere Roncho

Perspicere detail

Art in the group show New Surrealism: Ed Hicks Enigma Perspiscere Roncho

Perspicere Shadowman Watching detail

Art in the group show New Surrealism: Ed Hicks Enigma Perspiscere Roncho

Perspicere: Shadowman Watching; Shadowman Tear

Art in the group show New Surrealism: Ed Hicks Enigma Perspiscere Roncho

Enigma

Art in the group show New Surrealism: Ed Hicks Enigma Perspiscere Roncho

Roncho

Art in the group show New Surrealism: Ed Hicks Enigma Perspiscere Roncho

The Dialogue, Enigma

All photos Dave Stuart except where stated


Cardiff street art and graffiti visited by Shoreditch Street Art Tours

Cardiff Street Art and Graffiti

Any excuse to blow the London vapours from the lungs will do so my travels recently took me West to explore Cardiff street art and graffiti thanks to a cheap rail ticket promotion.  Cardiff is the capital of Wales and, as a specimen of street art informs me, the 6th most “at risk” city in the world from rising water levels.

Cardiff street art and graffiti visited by Shoreditch Street Art Tours

Cardiff At Risk – artist unknown

I have previous with Cardiff, having been born there, schooled there and fled from there.  It was a shithole until I left, now look at it!   In the mid 00s when I joined Flickr with its global community of artists, writers and photographers I realised early on that Cardiff has some seriously good spraycan artists, so an art visit was well overdue.  This is not a guide to Cardiff’s street art and graffiti scene, I am certain there is more and there are different artists and other locations.  Think of it as me sharing a snapshot of some of the stuff I happened to find and enjoy on one particular day.

Cardiff street art and graffiti visited by Shoreditch Street Art Tours

My Dog Sighs & others

I headed into the area south of the train station, dark streets where we used to drink and play pool in the old Bristol Hotel, drawn in that direction not by an awareness of any art locations, just simple curiosity at a new exit from the train station which I don’t think existed when I was a kid.

Cardiff street art and graffiti visited by Shoreditch Street Art Tours

N3KOcardiff trans rights stickers

South of the station there was barely a single building I recognised but one thing they never change are the railway bridges so it was nice to find to rough and raw pieces on those familiar surfaces.

Cardiff street art and graffiti visited by Shoreditch Street Art Tours

Past Jams

Rmer1, as in “Armour”, stood out in my online remote appreciation of Cardiff’s street art scene, my 150% certainty was that if I did find any Rmer artwork it would be one of his photorealistic portrait pieces.  I was dead pleased when one of the first tags I found was Rmer1.

Cardiff street art and graffiti visited by Shoreditch Street Art Tours

Hoxe1 Rmer1 Cardiff

That tag was found on Womanby Street, a drag that screams “diehard 18 year old drinkers from the valleys” and most of the art seemed bar related.  There was some good stuff and when you have talent like Dr Zadok combining with Karm and Rmer the result such as this portrait of 2015 Welsh Music Prize 2015 winner Gwenno Saunders is inevitably impressive.

Cardiff street art and graffiti visited by Shoreditch Street Art Tours

Zadok Karm Rmer

After a delicious humus and felafal sourdough in the indoor market a hired bike took me west the short distance to Sevenoaks Park in Grangetown where I found this enormous RIP tribute to deceased graffiti writer NERVE.  The fragmented blockbuster letter outlines served as a frame within which writers paid their respects in a coordinated colour scheme.

Cardiff street art and graffiti visited by Shoreditch Street Art Tours

Nerve RIP wall Grangetow

I couldn’t believe my luck in coming across this crisp, clean, colour coordinated graff seemingly painted quite recently given its pristine freshness.  It was quite a surprise when a bit of research revealed it dates back to June 2021, there is absolutely zero chance, almost, of anything lasting that long unscathed up here in London.

Cardiff street art and graffiti visited by Shoreditch Street Art Tours

Nerve RIP wall detail

Cardiff street art and graffiti visited by Shoreditch Street Art Tours

Nerve RIP wall

One writer who’s style caught my eye in that Nerve tribute and a couple of other spots was Elvs.

Cardiff street art and graffiti visited by Shoreditch Street Art Tours

ELVS Grangetown Cardiff

TIP: When exploring art in a new town, never take the same road twice.  A different route back to the centre led to the chance find of a long extent of graffed up hoardings on the embankment of the River Taff leading to an entrance to the Rugby stadium.  Rugby fans have to have something to piss against I suppose.

Cardiff street art and graffiti visited by Shoreditch Street Art Tours

Millenium Stadium Taff Embankment Cardiff

Cardiff street art and graffiti visited by Shoreditch Street Art Tours

Newer, Cardiff

Cardiff street art and graffiti visited by Shoreditch Street Art Tours

AMOK Cardiff

Cardiff street art and graffiti visited by Shoreditch Street Art Tours

Cesto Cardiff

Cardiff street art and graffiti visited by Shoreditch Street Art Tours

Sepr Cardiff

Apart from strange spiky posts covered in furious tags, the pieces on the boards were virtually unblemished with little to no dogging or lining out.  Close inspection of one piece did show evidence of some local beef, lining out had been repaired and the same taking out style deployed against the same writer was observed in several spots across the city.

A longer ride took me through Cardiff’s impressive civic centre towards the Roath area where spectacular murals and cobbled alleyway pieces can be found.

Cardiff street art and graffiti visited by Shoreditch Street Art Tours

Lowther Keys Dan Green Cardiff

Cardiff street art and graffiti visited by Shoreditch Street Art Tours

Helen Bur, Colour Doomed collab Cardiff 2014

Cardiff street art and graffiti visited by Shoreditch Street Art Tours

City Road ish, Cardiff

Familiar artists abound though the art piece that excited me most was a My Dog Sighs painting in support of Ukraine in which the photorealistic eyeball reflection expresses the explosive horror or a Russian missile attack.  My Dog Sigh’s painting went viral on social media in the early weeks of the current conflict.

Cardiff street art and graffiti visited by Shoreditch Street Art Tours

My Dog Sighs Ukraine

Cardiff street art and graffiti visited by Shoreditch Street Art Tours

My Dog Sighs

With spring light holding up well a random loop up the side of Roath Park then back west hemmed in by the Western Avenue revealed individual isolated art works are to be found by the vigilant eye.

Cardiff street art and graffiti visited by Shoreditch Street Art Tours

Alex Pawson

This mural by SPK dating from 2015, survives on a wall which has all the hallmarks of a building extension jerry built on top of an existing garden wall, Boris was a pariah among the righteous even before becoming PM (but you knew that).  It’s the legs of the badger down the badger sett painted where once would have been a garden gate is a use of wall topography that amuses and impresses.

Cardiff street art and graffiti visited by Shoreditch Street Art Tours

Boris Johnson fox hunt supporter – SPK

It’s the legs of the badger down the badger sett painted where once would have been a garden gate is a use of wall topography that amuses and impresses.

Cardiff street art and graffiti visited by Shoreditch Street Art Tours

Boris Johnson fox hunt supporter – SPK

They say one of the first signs of gentrification is street art moving in; I remember this cut-through to the train station opening some 35 or so years ago, seems Cardiff’s street art lags the gentrification :-))

Cardiff street art and graffiti visited by Shoreditch Street Art Tours

Helen Bur / Wasp Elder Collab

This trip to Cardiff was part art, part graffiti and part nostalgia.   Despite no prior research into locations a random exploration of Cardiff yielded a satisfying quantity of art and for that randomness was actually all the more interesting.  We shall return.

 

All photos Dave Stuart


Street Artist Enigma In Shoreditch

Just suppose someone decided the missing ingredient in street art was monochromatic medieval woodcut images of public hangings or fantasy horror representations of bizarre sea creatures attacking intrepid seafarers venturing beyond the realm of worldly knowledge.   Japanese street artist Enigma has stepped up to fix this obvious void in Shoreditch’s globally acclaimed street art scene.

Shoreditch street art by Japanese artist Enigma sailing ship and sea serpent

Sea Serpent

Street art has developed to a level of variety and sophistication that it takes something quite special to stand out.  As observed in our look back at Shoreditch street art 2021 favourites, the street art of this new (to us) artist Enigma was a highlight of a rather unusual year It won’t escape your attention that the leviathan serpent traumatising that unstable looking ship above spells out ENGM, a contraction of Enigma’s moniker in a style barely removed from graffiti.  The sea serpent was our first stop-you-in-your-tracks encounter with Enigma’s art last year.

Shoreditch street art by Japanese artist Enigma based on Altas with an origami paper plane

Ready To Fly

A sepia appearance coupled with extensive use of cross hatching lends Enigma’s art an unfashionable antiquated appearance.  Street art is awash with pretty but very average photorealistic portraiture, there is a huge gap for new artists prepared to buck the trend, to not follow fashion.  Enigma’s vision of Lucifer cast out of heaven, based on a detail of Cabanel’s Fallen Angel has butterflies where others paint wavy locks of hair.

Shoreditch street art by Japanese artist Enigma showing a detail copy of Fallen Angel by Alexandre Cabanel

Fallen Angel

Elsewhere faces are sliced to reveal what a proper clockwork orange looks like.

Shoreditch street art by Japanese artist Enigma with a sliced face showing an oragne and clock face so clockwork orange

The Clockwork Orange

Surrealism and distortions suggest an artist enjoying playful imagery and experimentation. How many eyes can you or indeed should you fit on a bowler hatted whale or on a chequered finish flag winged stag beetle?

Shoreditch street art by Japanese artist Enigma of a surreal whale with a bowler hat and lots of human eyes

Whale Watching

surreal Shoreditch street art by Japanese artist Enigma of a stag beetlewith a human eye in its body ad wings with chequered flag design

Love Is A Verb

Fish currently feature frequently in Enigma’s compositions, though the circumstances are typically bizarre.

Shoreditch street art by Japanese artist Enigma of Santa with a huge fish in his present sack

Santa

Enigma’s representations of body parts might resemble pages torn from vintage anatomical studies though a recent fish emerging from an ear could owe more to Hieronymus Bosch.

Surreal Shoreditch street art by Japanese artist Enigma showing a fish peeped out of an ear

Pink Fish

Another theme in Enigma’s recent art has been shadow hands creatures.  Those “how to” guides to shadow puppetry never convince you that the contortion of the hands could cast the demonstrated shadow, Enigma teases you into the same shadow guessing game.

Shoreditch street art by Japanese artist Enigma shadow puppets

Shadow Puppet Series

Shoreditch street art by Japanese artist Enigma showing a shadow puppet stag

Shadow Puppets

A conceptually paired couple of paintings play with the notion of a shadow rabbit created by hands then the actual creature casting a shadow of a hand.

Shoreditch street art by Japanese artist Enigma shadow hand making a rabbit with a passer by

Don’t Follow The Black Rabbit

Shoreditch street art by Japanese artist Enigma of a rabbit and a shadow rabbit looking like a hand

Follow The Rabbit

Jeopardy crops up frequently in the paintings and this ship in its shattered bottle certainly faces stormy seas and rocky Shoreditch shores.

Shoreditch street art by Japanese artist Enigma of a ship in a broken bottle

Bon Voyage, 2022

Enigma even infiltrates occultist references onto Brick Lane walls, the grinning jester in his harlequin clothing is based on the Hanged Man in the tarot card system and represents submissive states such as surrender or sacrifice.

Shoreditch street art by Japanese artist Enigma showing The Hanged Man tarot card with upside down jester

Hanging Jester, 2022

Enigma garners respect and praise from fellow street artists and when you watch Enigma’s painting style close up you can see why.    His can control would be admired by many graffiti writers, those fractured cross hatching strokes come from practice and skill not accident or chance.

Shoreditch street art by Japanese artist Enigma detail of a mounted butterfly and a fractured Greek head statue

2nd Century Greek bust detail

Enigma has thus far had few gallery outings in London, what has been seen indicates his street art translates beautifully onto rough canvas, as spotted at the Secret Life Gallery in Shoreditch last year.   Instinctively it feels like there is more and better non street art to come from Enigma.

Painting of a rabbit and its shadow by Japanese street artist Enigma

Follow The Rabbit Canvas

Painting of a whale with human eyes and a bowler hat by Japanese street artist Enigma

Whale Watching Canvas

painting of a stag beetle by Japanese street artist Enigma

Love Is A Verb Canvas

There is a lot of fun to be had with a little light painting, a long exposure at night and Enigma’s high contrast imagery.

Shoreditch street art by Japanese artist Enigma showing a shadow puppet stag at night glowing at the edges because of light painting

Stag hands

Shoreditch street art by Japanese artist Enigma

Hanging Jester at night

Enigma has proved to be very engaging with the public.

Shoreditch street artist Enigma fromm Japan talks to Shoreditch Street Art Tours guests

Hello

We just don’t see enough thematic street art paintings, if you want an idea of the kind of level Enigma is operating at it Ed Hicks might be a suitable peer, a comparison that neither insults Ed nor flatters Enigma.   The sources Enigma mines for his art, fractured ancient Greek busts, tarot cards, cast out demons and psychopathic Kubrick films do a bit more than merely hint at dark undercurrents within his art.   There is an intellectual depth and creative variety to Enigma’s painting and in the high turnover here-today-forgotten-tomorrow world of street art it is testament to Enigma that his paintings are memorable.  Let’s hope Shoreditch continues to play host to his street art for a long time to come.

Shoreditch street art by Japanese artist Enigma mackerel fish

Mackerel

All photos: Dave Stuart

Canvas art photos courtesy Enigma

Photo captions from Enigma’s Instagram