Tag Archives: Tours

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

Shoreditch, Street Art, Tours, London, Three, 3x3x3, sculpture, street artist, Hong Kong, cast concrete

Three by Three

“Good Things Come In Threes” isn’t really a saying but it would be particularly apt for the recent sightings of mini street art sculptures by Three, also known as 3x3x3.

Shoreditch, Street Art, Tours, London, Three, 3x3x3, sculpture, street artist, Hong Kong, cast concrete

Three Up

One of the curious things about a piece of art by Three is that you spot one, then you don’t notice it the next twenty times you pass by and then it catches your eye again, at which point you wonder if it is a new one or one you had spotted before.

Shoreditch, Street Art, Tours, London, Three, 3x3x3, sculpture, street artist, Hong Kong, cast concrete

Threedom

After spotting a lovely new specimen in August Three confirmed that this was new and that he was back in the UK – Three is from Hong Kong; and that there were more to find.  However, you just can’t go and hunt these tiny concrete accretions and expect to find them, try for yourself, you just drive yourself bonkers spotting small little things on walls and you trot over only to find it is just some random old bit of plastic or something, Three’s sculptures reveal themselves to you when they are ready or when you are sufficiently deserving.

Shoreditch, Street Art, Tours, London, Three, 3x3x3, sculpture, street artist, Hong Kong, cast concrete

Threeology

We have located three new ones so far, there are definitely more out there.   One of the new ones photographed here has sadly already been harvested by a street art thief.  C’est la vie.

Shoreditch, Street Art, Tours, London, Three, 3x3x3, sculpture, street artist, Hong Kong, cast concrete

Three degrees

Shoreditch, Street Art, Tours, London, Three, 3x3x3, sculpture, street artist, Hong Kong, cast concrete

Threeism

Links:

Graffoto Interview “To The power Of Three”

All photos: Dave Stuart

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, Shoreditch street art tours, Jonesy, sculpture, castings, environmentalism, pesticides, Tar Sand Oil

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.

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, Shoreditch street art tours, Jonesy, sculpture, castings, environmentalism, pesticides, Tar Sand Oil

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.

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, Shoreditch street art tours, Jonesy, sculpture, castings, environmentalism, pesticides, Tar Sand Oil

Fossil Fuel CO2 v NOx, Jonesy, 2018

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

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, Shoreditch street art tours, Jonesy, sculpture, castings, environmentalism, GMO, Genetically Modified Organism

GMO by Jonesy, 2014

Links:

Jonesy Facebook

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

 

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, broccoli, broccoli man, Adrian Boswell

Adrian Boswell Is Shoreditch Broccoli Street Art Man

Go broccoli street art spotting with the Shoreditch Street Art Tour, book HERE (opens in new tab)

We often bump into Broccoli Man and have a lovely chat

In early 2017, broccoli supplies in England collapsed due to a crop failure in Spain, prices soared, shops set up barricades.

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, broccoli, broccoli man, Adrian Boswell

Broccoli Panic Spreads

A street artist made light of such woes as real broccoli started to appear in art on Shoreditch walls!

January 2017

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, broccoli, broccoli man, Adrian Boswell

January 2017

The art consisted of real broccoli cut in half with additional collaged elements showing the face, hands and feet of a bearded gentleman.   From January 2017 on round and square mirrors Broccoli Man appeared, then from March the natural greens of the broccoli were replaced by reds.

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, broccoli, broccoli man, Adrian Boswell Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, broccoli, broccoli man, Adrian Boswell

The placement was often amusing, such as on this huge unofficial billboard advertising a tv program about a certain recreational plant, suggesting that the programme was an in-depth feature on broccoli.

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, broccoli, broccoli man, Adrian Boswell

Adrian Boswell, the artist behind the face in the broccoli introduced himself one morning, and in addition to being a very friendly chap who regards putting broccoli up on walls as an obvious thing to do, Adrian is also a prolific collage artist.

Hairpin – original collage

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, broccoli, broccoli man, Adrian Boswell

Acid Rain – original collage

Adrian’s gallery is on Brick Lane at the Old Truman Brewery, just ask for Broccoli Man.

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, broccoli, broccoli man, Adrian Boswell

Gallery, Brick lane

Adrian is a quiet spoken, industrious indeed prolific artist.  He acknowledges that his work ethic and intense bursts of activity may see him working 30 hour continuous sessions without sleep in his studio.

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, broccoli, broccoli man, Adrian Boswell

Adrian Boswell in his Gallery

Adrian has a number of projects in the pipeline including opening a gallery abroad, taking the broccoli street art concept to another level and, of course, producing more studio art.  He is also engaged on an ambitious book project, hoping to produce a book a year for 10 years.

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, broccoli, broccoli man, Adrian Boswell

Adrian Boswell Books

Broccoli continues to appear on the street, the broccoli has turned gold, perhaps in response to that brief period in 2017 when it became a luxury item and recently a rainbow spectrum of broccoli appeared.

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, broccoli, broccoli man, Adrian Boswell

Golden Broccoli, Jan 2018

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, broccoli, broccoli man, Adrian Boswell

In the most recent installations in Shoreditch, gold Broccoli Man has appeared imprisoned in a cage

Shoreditch, London, street art, tours, broccoli, broccoli man, Adrian Boswell

Caged Broccoli, Feb 2018

This blog post is based on a longer blogpost on Graffoto in which we examine the whole broccoli crisis in more depth and ponder an unexpected role for government spits in suppressing evidence of the broccoli crisis.

Link: Adrian Boswell website

All photos Dave Stuart except additional gallery photos of artwork courtesy Adrian Boswell website

Other sources: Websites of The Times, The Daily Telegraph, www.her.ie, www.bbc.co.uk

London, Shoreditch, Street art, tours, Dr Cream, springbot, Spring, linoprint, linocut, animation, stopframe, timelapse, Shoreditch street art tours, paste ups,

DR CREAM PROCLAIMS SPRING

We love signs of Spring!  Today London bathes in well above seasonal average temperatures and blue skies, the cherry blossom has been out for several weeks and street art feels warmth in its bones.

London, Shoreditch, Street art, tours, Dr Cream, springbot, Spring, linoprint, linocut, animation, stopframe, timelapse, Shoreditch street art tours, paste ups,

Springbot by Dr Cream

Last Sunday Dr Cream heralded Spring literally when he introduced his Springbots to the streets of Shoreditch.   These jagged looking characters, linocuts on hand torn paper appeared in several locations around Brick Lane.

London, Shoreditch, Street art, tours, Dr Cream, springbot, Spring, linoprint, linocut, animation, stopframe, timelapse, Shoreditch street art tours, paste ups,

Springbot by Dr Cream

As usual for Dr Cream the final “art” in his project comes in the stop frame animation seen online not on the walls, here is his Springbot in animated action created by photographing the Springbots he pasted up on the streets.

Spring is here for sure – hip hip hurray!

London, Shoreditch, Street art, tours, Dr Cream, springbot, Spring, linoprint, linocut, animation, stopframe, timelapse, Shoreditch street art tours, paste ups,

Springbot by Dr Cream also feat The Rolling Fool, The Cat Rider and Robot Shark Army

All photos Dave Stuart

Artist Link: Dr Cream

London, Shoreditch, Street art, tours, Stik, 3some, threesome, trio, stick figures, legal, free, uncovered, released

It’s A Stik Up

Stik’s three Shoreditch characters have been hidden away more or less since the week they were created, trapped under a sludge of canvas corporate adverts but with a leap and a bound suddenly they are free just in time for Christmas.  This is great news for the legions of Stik fans who are aware of this Stik but have not had the chance to see it.

London, Shoreditch, Street art, tours, Stik, 3some, threesome, trio, stick figures, legal, free, uncovered, released

Stik – likes a threesome

Stik has been freed for Christmas (perhaps) but don’t hang around, who knows how long it will remain uncovered before the next massive invasion of our eyeballs by a landscape hogging advert.

In September video was released on the Guardian website which features not only the painting of this mural but also the personal quest Stik embarked upon to establish what emotional traits this trio of Shoreditch characters should portray.  This is a fascinating video which touches on many issues affecting Shoreditch including homelessness and gentrification. Please be aware there is an interview insert in which a quite distasteful anecdote is told.  Although this video is hosted on the publicly accessible website of a hugely respectable quality newspaper, I must leave to you judge for yourselves the suitability of viewing the video on the Guardian website.

photos: Dave Stuart

 

Where Is London’s Street Art

Fashion, lifestyle and goss magazine Instyle loves London so much!  We were honoured when they asked us to pick out favourite street art spots in London, THIS is what they did with our photos and interview:

London, Shoreditch, Street art, tours, artist, Hackney Wick, Aida Wilde, Instyle Magazine, Lord Napier,

phonegrab from inStyle website

Although the list is in no particular order, the pro-artist anti-gentrification art decoration of the derelict Lord Napier pub curated by Aida Wilde was placed at the top of the list.  You might like to know that at the end of next week out in Hackney Wick, Stour Space is hosting an art extravaganza from Oct 14th to Oct 31st – this is what they say:

“This October 14th at Stour Space, Aida Wilde will once again assemble the ‘Lunatics’ from the recent takeover of the Lord Napier pub (Hackney Wicked 2016), bringing you an immersive, visual and historical experience.”

London, Shoreditch, Street art, tours, artist, Hackney Wick, Aida Wilde, Instyle Magazine, Lord Napier,

 

Yet more news, independent travel blogger Sara wrote THIS on her “All Aboard The Skylark” blog about her recent tour with Shoreditch Street Art Tours.  Sara, we are delighted you had such a wonderful time and wrote so kindly about Esther’s tour.

London, Shoreditch, Street art, tours, artist, All Aboard The Skylark,Sara Chardin, Esther

“All Aboard The Skylark” extract

photo: Sara Chardin

 

links:

“All Aboard The Skylark” blog

“All Aboard The Skylark” facebook page

Instyle Magazine

Free Art – Finding Sean Worrall

An unprecedented event occurred on the Shoreditch Street Art Tour at the end of last week, we found a piece of free art which no one in the group wanted to take home with them.   We will spare the blushes of the artist and not put up an image of the artwork.

Free Art is art left out on the streets by artists, usually street artists, which is intended to be found by a lucky person who is allowed to take the art home.  This morning normality was restored when the tour came across a beautiful piece of free art left as a gift  by the artist Sean Worrall.

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, Tours, Free Art, Found Art, Sean Worrall, Louisa, #ArtDrop

With the number of people in the tour group there always a dilemma as to who should take home the piece of free art, so it was very sweet that the group agreed this morning that the youngest person on the tour should take home the free art, which is how the delightful and very excited Louisa became the proud owner of one of the finest works I have seen Sean drop on the streets.

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, Tours, Free Art, Found Art, Sean Worrall, Louisa, #ArtDrop

Louisa said that she couldn’t wait to hang it on her bedroom door, so it will be her own personal original piece of art.

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, Tours, Free Art, Found Art, Sean Worrall, Louisa, #ArtDrop

London, Shoreditch, Street Art, Tours, Free Art, Found Art, Sean Worrall, Louisa, #ArtDrop

“Please Take” #ArtDrop

Sean has left many items of Free Street art on the streets, he famously ran a project last year called #365artdrops, a piece of free art for every day of the year and several guests on the Shoreditch Street Art Tour went home as delighted owners of a piece of Sean’s work.  You can  read more about those in the link below but the best story about the purpose of Sean’s project and how it touched on people’s lives is in this beautiful and moving story Sean published in January this year.

Links:

Sean’s blog post about this piece

Sean Worrall’s Website

Free Art on Shoreditch Street Art Tours

All photos: Dave Stuart