Tag Archives: Street Art

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

Jonesy Art: Two Heads Better Than One?

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

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Pesticides by Jonesy, Aug 2018

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

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Beetle detail – Pesticides

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

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

Dragon fly detail – Pesticides

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

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Sand Tar Oil by Jonesy 2012

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

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Sand Tar Oil by Jonesy (photo 2013)

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

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Fossil Fuel CO2 v NOx, Jonesy, 2018

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

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GMO by Jonesy, 2014

Links:

Jonesy Facebook

All photos: Dave Stuart

Epic New Mural In Shoreditch

A beautiful mural on the theme of “connectivity” which truly stands alongside the best in the world has been created in Shoreditch and it is stunning. The fun started in Spring this year and went on until August, 8 groups of artists working in pairs have painted a long montage of murals thematically linked on the idea of “connectivity”. The whole piece has been placed with permission on a building owned by a communications company and Graffoto has had the pleasure of discussing many aspects of this brilliant new mural with Lee Bofkin representing Global Street Art which managed the project.

Shoreditch, London, Colt, Mural, Connectivity, network, communication, street art, street artists, Busk, Mr Switch, Ed Hicks, Dr Zadok, Best Ever, Ninth Seal

Busk and Oliver Switch, flanked by Ninth Seal and Best Ever to left, Ed Hicks and Dr Zadok to right

The first visible signs of dramatic change appeared in March 2018 when Hunto and Mr Thoms painted the end or perhaps the start of the building. The mural has “connectivity” as its theme. This can be seen in how the network of talkers, listeners and webcams painted by Thoms connects into the kissing cubist couple by Hunto and then the pipes in the network were left hanging on the fringes until Captain Kris and Tizer came along to paint the next section.

Shoreditch, London, Colt, Mural, Connectivity, network, communication, street art, street artists, Hunto, Mr Thoms

Then we can see how Captain Kris and Tizer, in their section which depicts a connection between the real and the virtual, took the hanging connections and blended them into their artwork, in particular the yellow conduit at the bottom morphs into a triangular branch like enclosure which closes right at the point where the robot with the VR headset is connecting with the female dancer.

Shoreditch, London, Colt, Mural, Connectivity, network, communication, street art, street artists, Captain Kris, Tizer

Captain Kris & Tizer

The dancers are dancing on a woodland floor which then flows seamlessly into the amazing woodland scene by Ed Hicks and Dr Zadok.  The connectivity depicted in the Hicks/Zadok woodland is provided by the fungal mycelium network, an organic information superhighway which actually really connects plants, trees and mushrooms across the forest floor.

Shoreditch, London, Colt, Mural, Connectivity, network, communication, street art, street artists,Ed Hicks, Dr Zadok

 

Ed Hicks, Zadok – The Mycelium network

The corner panel where King John Court meets New Inn Yard supports a vanitas painting by Busk and Mr Switch. The connection aspect here is the ammonite shell at the top which has not changed over millennia and thus provides a connection across the ages.

Shoreditch, London, Colt, Mural, Connectivity, network, communication, street art, street artists, Ed HIcks, Dr Zadok, Busk, Mr Switch, Best Ever, Ninth Seal

Busk and Mr Oliver Switch

This then flows into a collection of hands in a lattice structure, the hands depict meetings, greetings, introductions, friendships, Ninth Seal and Best Ever have captured a very human form of connectivity.

Shoreditch, London, Colt, Mural, Connectivity, network, communication, street art, street artists, Best Ever, Ninth Seal

Mobile connectivity

Next to this is a beautiful tribute to old school modes of connection and communication by Nomad Clan, a pair of artists from Manchester. The lost art of letter writing sits alongside the pigeon post, now superseded by email.

Shoreditch, London, Colt, Mural, Connectivity, network, communication, street art, street artists, Nomad Clan,

Nomad Clan Rewind

Those curious double headed arrow symbols in Nomad Clan’s art will be instantly familiar as “fast forward” and “rewind” to anyone who ever played or recorded on C60 and C90 cassettes. The fast forward arrow draws your eye to a collaboration between Mr Cenz whose multicoloured portraits are a familiar sight across London and Lovepusher, known for his amazing 3D letter writing. On the left Nomad Clan pay homage to retro connectivity, the female character to the right has the future of connectivity in the palm of her hand.

Shoreditch, London, Colt, Mural, Connectivity, network, communication, street art, street artists, Nomad Clan, Lovepusher, Mr Cenz

Connectivity past, present and future

The whole project in its current form (not to suggest that this is anything other than the final manifestation) was brought to a conclusion by an abstract multi layered network created by AutOne and Neist whose complex handstyle we have loved for years.

Shoreditch, London, Colt, Mural, Connectivity, network, communication, street art, street artists, AutOne, Neist

AutOne, Neist

The organisation and logistics behind such a colossal mural is also hugely impressive and generally is something that Global Street Art is tremendously qualified to undertake. Just a few stats making the rounds: the mural is about 115m along its base and 13m tall making a surface area of almost 1500square metres; 250 litres of black emulsion (who buys black?) were applied as background and over 500 cans of spraypaint went into the painting.

Shoreditch, London, Colt, Mural, Connectivity, network, communication, street art, street artists, Lovepusher, Mr Cenz, night photography, light painting

Future Connectivity – Lovepusher, Mr Cenz

The end result of all these dynamics and the organisation and dare I say the connections is just about the most impressive, fresh, single piece themed collaborative mural Shoreditch has seen. All the artists involved deserve a magnificent pat on their respective backs and Lee and the Global Street Art team have every reason to feel very proud of this incredible achievement.

This post is an extract from a post on sister blog Graffoto in which Lee Bofkin of Global Street Art explains in an interview the genesis for this project, how the artists were selected and the mechanics and process of actually creating the mural, hopefully you might think it worth popping over to Graffoto to read a little more and see more photos.

Links:

Global Street Art website 

Hunto instagram

Mr Thoms instagram

Captain Kris instagram

Tizer instagram

Ed Hick instagram

Dr Zadok instagram

Busk One instagram

Mr Oliver Switch instagram

Best Ever instagram

Ninth Seal TBA

Nomad Clan instagram

Mr Cenz instagram

Lovepusher instagram

AutOne instagram

Neist instagram

All photos: Dave Stuart

London, Shoreditch, street art, street artists, street art tour, Shoreditch street art tour, Brazil, Argentina, Memi Martinez, Veracidade, Reveracidade, Mauro, spraypaint, umbrella

Latin Weather – Latin Street Art

England is experiencing a temporary geo-psyche shift; our footballers think they are Brazil and our weather thinks we are Los Angeles and for the time being we have almost no need for weather forecasts.  This past week Memi Martinez and Veracidade, two street artists from far sunnier countries have made London their temporary home bringing a Latin heatwave of their own.

I don’t know if their presence at the same time is coincidence but any excuse will do to post this picture capturing two international artists in action on opposite sides of the same property.

Memi Martinez is from Argentina and over three days painted a colour scorched surreal cartoon of one three legged being pouring tea into an umbrella masquerading as a teacup held by a mirror image plump thighed “thing”.  It’s about Brits initially spurning umbrellas as an effete French fad before eventually adopting them so ubiquitously that they became almost as British as that other great tradition we appropriated from another culture: a cup of tea.

We had the opportunity several times over three days to bump into this charming visitor and all who came across Memi were overwhelmed by her bright spirit and her generosity, here we see a group of international students from the USA over for a semester excitedly showing off some stickers Memi kindly gave them.

Memi’s stickers

Memi made a small video clip of this group and it appeared on her Instagram as a “story”, lovely to see who pleased the character on the passing truck is with the artist interacting with her new fans.

Memi in action:

Memi worked for three days on this single mural and when you look closely at the solidity of the limbs and the beautiful graduation of the shading on the inside and outside of the cup clearly her meticulous approach paid off.

London, Shoreditch, street art, street artists, street art tour, Shoreditch street art tour, Brazil, Argentina, Memi Martinez, Veracidade, Reveracidade, Mauro, spraypaint, umbrella, Panoramic view, Great Eastern St

Meni Martinez detail

Veracidade aka Mauro from Brazil paints portraits and drops images of houses as a tag.  First sighting was last weekend, a “quick thing” down Brick Lane.

Then a couple more paintings all featuring people raising their eyes to the skies appeared.

Veracidade, also featuring Brazilian artist Milo Tchais (detail of)

Both the artworks above feature a stylised house in the image, Mauro totes his painting gear around in these fabulous pvc bags in the style of the houses that he uses as his tag.

 

This piece is opposite the Pure Evil Gallery and features a lovely “hat tip” to Pure Evil’s “nightmare” series with the long tear running down the face

Two Veracidade artworks, a bag and the artist!

Here are a few of those Veracidade tags that have sprung up around Shoreditch:

Veracidade – also featuring Glor Mowcodelico

Now, I must dash, something about the heat and the colours Memi has brought to London has left me with a craving for a Harvey Wallbanger.

LINKS:

Memi Martinez Instagram

Vercidade Instagram

All photos: Dave Stuart

Street Art, Shoreditch, London, Graffiti, Tours, Meeting Of Styles UK 2018, Nomadic Community Gardens, Jim Vision, Xenz, Fanakapan, Voyder, Kaes, Core, Irony, Samer, Aches, Woskerski, Carleen De Sozer, Candie Bandita, Minto, Tom Blackford

Meeting Of Styles 2018

At the end of May there is a Bank Holiday in the UK and a couple of weekends ago this provided a marvellous opportunity for a huge array of spraypainting talent to gather in Shoreditch for a frenzy of graffiti and art at the Meeting Of Styles Festival.  Since that date a load of the artists who participated in the meeting Of Styles have been mentioned on the Shoreditch Street Art Tour.

Street Art, Shoreditch, London, Graffiti, Tours, Meeting Of Styles UK 2018, Nomadic Community Gardens, Jim Vision, Xenz, Fanakapan, Voyder, Kaes, Core, Irony, Samer, Aches, Woskerski, Carleen De Sozer, Candie Bandita, Minto, Tom Blackford

Dan Kitchener Meeting Of Styles UK 2018

Meeting Of Styles is an international series of festivals which takes place in multiple locations around the world each year, this year 11 events are scheduled spread across the far east, South Africa and 6 cities in Europe.  Since 2014 the London edition of MoS has found a home in the extraordinary Nomadic Community Gardens in Shoreditch.

Street Art, Shoreditch, London, Graffiti, Tours, Meeting Of Styles UK 2018, Nomadic Community Gardens, Jim Vision, Xenz, Fanakapan, Voyder, Kaes, Core, Irony, Samer, Aches, Woskerski, Carleen De Sozer, Candie Bandita, Minto, Tom Blackford

Nomadic Community Gardens

Here are a few of the highlights of this amazing festival of art and music.

Street Art, Shoreditch, London, Graffiti, Tours, Meeting Of Styles UK 2018, Nomadic Community Gardens, Jim Vision, Xenz, Fanakapan, Voyder, Kaes, Core, Irony, Samer, Aches, Woskerski, Carleen De Sozer, Candie Bandita, Minto, Tom Blackford

Nomad Clan Meeting Of Styles UK 2018

Street Art, Shoreditch, London, Graffiti, Tours, Meeting Of Styles UK 2018, Nomadic Community Gardens, Jim Vision, Xenz, Fanakapan, Voyder, Kaes, Core, Irony, Samer, Aches, Woskerski, Carleen De Sozer, Candie Bandita, Minto, Tom Blackford

Xenz Meeting Of Styles UK 2018

On the Graffoto blog we have done a longer set of highlights which includes some of the history of the London meeting of Styles festival and a look at the development of the Nomadic Community gardens which has become a thriving vital community space in Shoreditch.

Graffoto Blog Post

All photos: Dave Stuart

 

I Don’t Like Cricket – I LUVITAAAAAAH

It is not often that cricket and street art meet but that did happen today in the home of street art, Brick Lane, Shoreditch when a small but perfectly formed group from the Shoreditch Street Art Tour came across the Cricket World Cup being displayed on Brick Lane.

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ICC Cricket World Cup meets Shoreditch Street Art Tours Group

The gentleman holding the trophy on behalf of the ICC confirmed that he was English (albeit not a cricketer), let’s hope this is not the only pair of English hands to be placed on that trophy next year.

Shoreditch, Street art, cricket, London, graffiti life, world cup, tour group

Mine!

The other street art connection is that a huge mural welcoming the World Cup to the home of cricket appeared on Brick Lane last night painted by the professional spraycan artists Graffiti Life – good job guys!

Shoreditch, Street art, cricket, London, graffiti life, world cup, tour group

It’s Britain; all welcome (photo Chris Howell)

 

Photos: Chris Howell (featured image and where noted above) and Dave Stuart (using Chris Howell’s camera cos he forgot his own phone this morning!)

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

Summer Is Here – Oops Maybe Not

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

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

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

Lee and Bryan, Draymen, by Ben Wilson

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

Ben Wilson explains …

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

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

Rivington St Chewing Gum Art by Ben Wilson

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Rivington Street

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

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

Jean Peut Etre Collage

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

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

Jonesy

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

Jonesy

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

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

Howl Owl and Keef collaboration

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

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

Mickey Mouse justice Judge Dredd style

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

LINKS

Shok-1 Instagram

Jean Peut-Etre Instagram

Jonesy Facebook

Howl Owl Instagram

Sad Keef Instagram

JXC Instagram

all photos: Dave Stuart

 

 

 

Shoreditch, London, Airborne Mark, The Pilot, Street Art, Graffiti, origami, origami riots, maquette,

New Origami Street Art In Shoreditch By Airborne Mark

Street Artist, rapper and origami guru Airborne Mark returned to Brick Lane a couple of weeks ago to paint a new origami mask inspired mural, which was a pleasant surprise for the Shoreditch Street Art Tours group who stumbled across the artist at work.

Shoreditch, London, Airborne Mark, The Pilot, Street Art, origami, origami riots, maquette,

Work In Progress April 2018

Airborne Mark was using a folder paper origami model as the reference for the painting and we have often seen Airborne Mark using his own origami models.  Airborne Mark, who is always very pleasant and happy to have a little chat with the tour, told us that this wasn’t his piece of origami, it was sent to him from Sweden by master origami mask maker Flynn Jackson,.

Shoreditch, London, Airborne Mark, The Pilot, Street Art, Graffiti, origami, origami riots, maquette,

Maquette – Flynn jackson

You can see what a stunning realistic painted interpretation of the actual model airborne Mark produced.

Shoreditch, London, Airborne Mark, The Pilot, Street Art, Graffiti, origami, origami riots, maquette,

Airborne Mark vs Flynn Jackson

Airborne Mark has produced a really cool video of both receiving the model through the post and the work in progress painting at the wall.  Blink and you’ll miss it but there is even a subliminal glimpse at about 5.05 of our tour group admiring Airborne Mark at work.

Here is a little selection of other occasions we have seen Airborne Mark painting from his own origami masks as well as a few shots of other Airborne Mark masterpieces put up over the years.

Shoreditch, London, Airborne Mark, The Pilot, Street Art, Graffiti, origami, origami riots,

Airborne Mark (crouching in shot), Massai, Dan Kitchener, Jimmy C 2012

Shoreditch, London, Airborne Mark, The Pilot, Street Art, Graffiti, origami, origami riots, maquette,

Airborne Mark Origami Riots 2014

Shoreditch, London, Airborne Mark, The Pilot, Street Art, Graffiti, origami, origami riots,

Van Painting – Meeting Of Styles 2015

Shoreditch, London, Airborne Mark, The Pilot, Street Art, Graffiti, origami, origami riots, maquette,

Work In Progress March 2017

Shoreditch, London, Airborne Mark, The Pilot, Street Art, Graffiti, origami, origami riots

Greek Mask work in progress 2017

A tiny smidge of background: Airborne Mark moved to the UK in 2005 and had a graffiti pedigree, he used to write the name Pilot before switching to the still aviation related street art moniker Airborne Mark, here are a couple of his older graffiti pieces in Hackney Wick and Leake street, both from early 2009.

Shoreditch, London, Airborne Mark, The Pilot, Street Art, Graffiti, origami, origami riots

The Pilot, Leake Street 2009

Shoreditch, London, Airborne Mark, The Pilot, Street Art, Graffiti, origami, origami riots

The Pilot, Hackney Wick 2009

Links:

Airborne Mark: website

all photos: Dave Stuart

video courtesy Airborne Mark

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.

Photo by Lizzie on the Shoreditch Street Art Tour

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.