Hanging a new calendar signals a lovely excuse to look back over the best of Shoreditch street art 2022. Here is a slide show of some of the best, there is a full write up on Graffoto, my personal street art blog, which goes into more depth regarding the hows and whys of these highlights.
Tag Archives: Wrdsmth
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
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 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.
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:
All photos: Dave Stuart
October Street Art in Shoreditch
October ushered in a tipping point in our weather and our clothing choices changed through the gears through the month. Autumnal colours compete with fresh new artwork on the walls and one exciting development in October was the return of visiting artists from overseas.
Enigma is a Japanese artist who was based in London for a while pre pandemic, went back to Japan and has now returned to London on a permanent basis. I count seven murals painted since his return in August, five of which he painted this past month.
Enigma
It was fascinating to see Italian artist Alex respond within the week to Enigma’s maudlin male with one of his own, did you spot the tear from the right eye in each?
Alessandro Ioviera
It was brilliant to see graffiti legend Nylon splashing some colour on Shoreditch walls, these 3 faced pots just blew my mind.
Primative cubist objects by Nylon
Nylon was accompanied by his friend ACE, as evidenced by this screenprint which has what I believe to be a tribal primitive embellishment by Nylon. See also the featured image at the top which includes earlier tags from graff kings Drax and Flash.
Ace and Nylon
A long awaited trend we spotted this month was the return, at long last, of visiting international street artists because they truly sprinkle a dash of talent and genius on the Shoreditch streets. Stinkfish is from Columbia and has been visiting Shoreditch leaving spraypainted and pasteup art in his wake.
Stinkfish Mural
Stinkfish pasteup
Combo CK was a new name to us and his non permissioned pasteups made a great impact for their size and beauty, his homage to “Girl With Pearl Earring” was a standout.
Combo CK
Dan Kitchener yielded one long held Shoreditch spot to Stinkfish but cranked up the impressionism another notch with a new “through the rainy window” style mural at another spot.
Dan Kitchener
We had the pleasure of coming across the versatile Woskerski writing a graffiti piece, he found time to paint a couple of lovely pieces of art including this hound fully prepared for the change in weather.
Woskerski
Wrdsmth has been visiting London since 2014 to place his wry and uplifting typewritten messages on the streets of London. He recently gave in to the irresistible charms of London and relocated en famille here and has been taking Shoreditch spots by storm. Here he has added his clever wordplay alongside a DONK from a few months back
Donk and Wrdsmth
Wrdsmth and Donk have both part of the posse preparing the London International Pasteup Festival, several locations were prepared in October so while technically they are within the scope of this post I am saving the best of the bunch until the November highlights as the Festival takes place next weekend 4th – 7th November. Lets have another great month and hopefully we will see you back on the street art tour soon.
All photos: Dave Stuart
WRDSMTH Comforts Girl With 2 Roses On Her Arse
“Liam cheered up Cheryl” according to the headline in a free newspaper in London this morning and it wasn’t how you think! Popular Holywood street artist Wrdsmth’s large paste up declaration of brimming love suppressed was how singer Liam Payne visiting Las Vegas chose to express to Cheryl how he was missing her back in London.
The Metro, 26 Oct 16
If you are from the wrong generation or country you may not be aware that Liam is Liam Payne from pop band One Direction and therefore pretty important in this country. Cheryl is sooo mega important that she doesn’t even need a surname though the paper does see fit to keep us abreast of her derriere, which apparently sports a couple of tattoos (photo awaited).
WRDSMTH’s uplifting and oft romantic bon mots have been a pleasure to discover many times in London, as we mentioned just a few months ago.
WRDSMTH, London Phone box, Summer 2015
Liam needn’t have gone to Las Vegas to find WRDSMTH ’s articulation of Liam’s tongue-tied romantic word bloc, for WRDSMTH has already put the same message up in London.
Photo: WRDSMTH
Photo credit: WRDSMTH
Here is another one that Liam could have used to woo singer, tv personality and serial wedding bride Cheryl if only he had taken the Shoreditch Street Art Tour:
WRDSMTH, 2015
Thanks to our wonderful guide Esther for letting me know as I returned to the UK this morning that despite refugee camps and airport expansions, British newspapers were still giving the real news the exposure it merits.
Photos: Dave Stuart except WRDSMTH and courtesy The Metro where noted
WRDSMTH and Megzany In London
A few weeks ago (I have been trying to find time to write this post for quite a while) London was visited by two artists from LA, Megzany and WRDSMTH. WRDSMTH is no stranger to London, this by my recollection could be his 4th visit to London for the purpose of putting up some street art. On his last visit just before the New Year he collaborated with a number of street artists from the UK.
Working with mixed media stencil and pasted paper, WRDSMTH’s work has charm, occasional pathos and a subdued humour often tinged with romance. His work is thus, very popular. On this occasion, WRDSMTH put up his largest typewriter piece on his visits to London.
There was also the small matter of his words appearing on large paste ups on the back of London’s iconic red telephone boxes.
The same day these new WRDSMTH pieces were spotted, a large crisply sprayed biplane with a curious message appeared on a wall on Brick Lane. A bit of searching online revealed the artist to be Megzany, also from Los Angeles. Megzany certainly knows how to spray a clean single layer stencil and her stencil construction technique has a lot of similarities with WRDSMTH’s.
Apart from stencils, Megzany also pasted up images evoking sentiment about objectification exploitation of women and errr mermaids, placing them in vending machines.
A fellow LA artist Kai Aspire has also been putting up loads of art over the past couple of months in London in entirely different forms, that may be the subject of another port sometime but it is great to see artists from a city so noted for its creativity coming all the way to London to brighten up a rather dull Summer.
All photos: Dave Stuart
Let’s Stick Together 2015
2015 was another great year for street art in Shoreditch. Street art was big, small, political, sexy, collaborative, disruptive, international, domestic, legal, illegal, sculptural, painted, printed, hand stitched, amusing, thought provoking but never anything less than inventive.
Noriaki adds a rider to Anat Ronen’s cat
Over on Graffoto there is a quite large review with many beautiful photographs of a load of street art that blew my socks off personally, so that’s covered. Last New Year Shoreditch Street Art Tours looked back over art whose creation had been witnesses on the tour by our guests. This year, we are going to look back on collaborations. Some were legal (possibly), some illegal (perhaps); some were planned by two artists working together, some are collaboration by dint of later intervention. Do enjoy.
D7606 has adopted collaborative practices for a long time, creating art with a range of UK and international artists. Here City Kitty from New York answers one of D7606’s pop art phones.
City Kitty (NY), D7606 (UK)
Two absolute legends from the world of graffiti and street art combined for the first time during London’s Art Week to produce this beguiling pair of colourful characters.
Kid Acne, Inkie (UK)
Wrdsmth creates beautiful pithy stencil and paper combinations and here he worked just before Christmas on a gorgeous collaboration with UK street artist C3 who creates seductive but dangerous heart breakers on recylded financial newspapers. Look how Wrdsth’s stencil goes over C3’s paste up, and the paste ups from both artists mutually overlap eachother, truly collaborative.
WRDSMTH (LA), C3 (UK)
Avem pasted an enormous white hand onto a wall, a couple of weeks later Frankie Strand sent her lizards in to have a play with it
Avem, Frankie Strand
Another Anat Ronen, this time graffiti writer DERS makes it clear that Vincent van Gogh has admiring glances for one thing only:
Anat Ronen, DERS
HNRX’s pearly white teeth soon rotted, it is not clear whether this intervention was the hand of another artist or actually a witty evolution by HNRX himself:
HNRX
D7606 (again) collaborated with KafkaIsFamous to give the dog a pair of spectacles with Liz Taylor reflected in the lenses. He then got up very high for impressive placement over the barbed wire:
D7606 (UK), KafkaIsFamous
Noriaki does like an amusing intervention, here proclaiming himself unique like all the rest on St8ment’s angry boy lineup:
St8ment, Noriaki
Masterful ink painter Alexis Diaz got a new painting on this wall which in 2014 featured his Octophant which from time to time guests on the tour still enquire about. Working here with Elian from Argentina in May 2015.
Elian (Arg), Alexis Diaz (Puerto Rico)
Finally, a tour favourite. Let’s hope we see more witty and inventive collaborations, interactions and interventions in 2016.
mosaic – artist unknown, Endless, Himbad, Noriaki
Featured image: Mazatl and Fusca from Mexico collaborate in Shoreditch
All photos: Dave Stuart aka NoLionsInEngland
No Rest For The Wicked
Do you think street artists take a break over Christmas? Not a bit of it, we found some lovely fresh street art on the tour today which all appeared since yesterday.
D7606 was spied around town, for him it’s a pretty long trip to visit London and this time he brought this gorgeous collaboration with City Kitty of New York
D7606 (UK) & City Kitty (NY)
Several new stencil and paste up multimedia combos from US West Coast WRDSMTH also appeared overnight, this modern world romantic twist was a new one not seen here before:
WRDSMTH – instagram validation
It’s always good to see street artists seeing out the old year in style, look out for the Shoreditch Street Art Tour annual review appearing in the next few days.
Links:
All photos: Dave Stuart aka NoLionsInEngland