Showing posts with label Grafter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Grafter. Show all posts

Wednesday 2 December 2009

Is Street Art Dead?

all photos: NoLionsInEngland


I come to praise street art not to bury it. If that gives away my answer to my own question fear not, for purpose of dramatic suspense the best is still saved till last.

There are a myriad variety of ways I can cycle across London from home in the West to work in the East and luckily today I was able to choose a meandering tour-de-W1 which took in two new pieces which I had spotted in Ian Cox aka Wallkandy teaser pics.

This Paul Insect was not difficult to locate (ok – it’s W2 but lets not quibble) and as I took some flicks the adjacent door disgorged a family of mum and three kids under the age of 5. They loved the art but hadn’t witnessed its creation as the kids asked if I did it, ho ho ho ho. Somewhere in London, a young family may now believe Paul Insect goes to work in Lycra.


Paul Insect


The Mode 2 piece is rather saucy and of course, being W1 I couldn’t get this shot without some damn gorgeous woman walking into the frame.


Mode 2



Mode 2


Lunchtime presented the opportunity for a 1 hour whizz around Shoreditch, wandering the streets is great for blowing through the synapses after a hectic morning and this time I had five specific objectives.

I met Fauxreel aka Mr Dan bergeron at Pure Evil’s gallery last week and although he has been a flickr contact for a while I wasn’t really conscious of his art, my ears pricked up when he talked of his plans for a paste-up in a grubby but frequently hit alleyway. Seeing a flick of the end result on unusualimage’s flickr put the idea in my mind for a shot as if the camera was the eye of someone holding the ladder looking upwards, the pic here is the full piece, the “propping-up-the-ladder” shot is here on my flickr. Tick the box marked “not permissioned”, always worth an extra star on the street art rating scale and also the piece works so well with the wall furniture so top marks for placement.


Fauxreel


Continuing towards Brick Lane I paused at End Of The Line’s Curtain Road wall to photograph some Aryz, Tizer, Probs, Nychos, Biser and Does pieces, when I chanced upon them painting this last week i got some comedy pics of a grass on a moped watching them brazenly painting away in daylight without a care.


Aryz


Just yards further on, there were the Village Underground wall panels painted last week in parallel with Probs/Tizer’s stunning “Shades of Things To Come” show. Got some decent pics of more Probs, Aryz, Snugone, Does, Nychos, Biser among others and this masterful and witty Tizer confection.


Tizer


And on, still on a 1 hour schedule, came across a very nice new Mantis, check the paths in the maze, they're not as random as you might think.


Mantis


Yards further on came across another Fauxreel that I hadn’t known about, so with this one there was not only the illegal aspect but also the chance discovery element as well, getting close to perfect (free hand spray required for top marks!).


Fauxreel


And I haven’t mentioned the two new (to me) Elbow Toe written word pieces or the Sinboy shutter character and tags, save them for another day though recently there has been a lot of pieces kept back for such “nothing new” days which have been a long time waiting.

Sickboy’s flickr streamed yesterday revealed a new Sickboy letter piece on a familiar gate – so freehand spray but not “chanced upon”, Sickboys part had been partially spoiled by someone tearing off the flyers it was painted over, perhaps an audacious attempt to steal the whole piece!


Sickboy, Word To Mother (I think)


Mr Cox’s weekend flicks confirmed suspicions this Vhils piece was only about 80% complete when I snapped it last Thursday but it was still worth strolling into the Old Truman Brewery to capture the piece in its finished state, my fifth intended location. Curiously the lunchtime curry stall often positioned in front of it wasn’t there, sometimes you get lucky (other times, there’s be a bloody white van parked hard against it).


Vhils (sculpted render)


How did I get to the Brewery from the Sickboy piece, well I paused and pondered - go back to brick Lane or round the opposite side down a dog-legged road between a wall and a derelict warehouse. Easy choice! Rounding the corner I spied a cherry picker up against a warehouse brick wall and even from about 100 yards at a very oblique angle there was no doubt in my mind what I had found.

However after a matter of feet I came across this lush Grafter stencil piece that I had seen pics of but whose location I didn’t know, this wonderful and peaceful innocence in the midst of the urban crush feels like a throw-back to a rose-tinted previous world where kids could play outdoors unsupervised and un-threatened. Try leaving your kids alone at that age today and people not only wonder if she is safe they mentally start forming the unfit negligent parenting accusations. When street art triggers reflections like that, it’s clearly doing something right.


Grafter


Finally, the crowning glory of the walk, the un-expected chancing upon a street art legend in the act of creating a piece which stands a chance of lasting for the life of the building it is placed upon. They don’t come much more revered than the legendary French street artist Space Invader and here he was in front of me, working with a friend putting up a piece which is going to be enormous when it is finished.


Space Invader


Of course, quite a bit of the art photographed today isn’t there by chance, apart from the “Shades Of Things To Come” show mentioned earlier, the Paul Insect, Mode 2 and Space Invader pieces are connected to Lazarides “The Grifters” Christmas Show” which opens this week. The joy of discovering un-expected street art and illegal street art creates a wonderful rush and whilst today my cup truly did runneth over, thankfully this is not as rare an emotion as some might have you believe.

Monday 22 June 2009

Royal Albert Hall - LOAD


The Wonderland Collective
The Royal Albert Hall, London
22 June 2009 – only!


The Royal Albert Hall has an almost un-paralleled status in the history of high-brow entertainment and in its’ 138 years has hosted some of the truely iconic performers. And my kids did a percussion workshop and this is the story of how a troupe of stencil based urban artists came to together to pay tribute to them.

Under the Albert Hall is one of those backstage areas most of us never get to see, a place where artic lorries transport huge stage sets and overblown egos, also known as a loading bay. The Wonderland Collective were commissioned to create an enormous freize in the loading bay, hence the title of the opening, as tribute to the hall’s own history and today the fruits of their squirts were on show to the public for one day only.


Load


The beauty of this work is that the real legends, those icons from the pioneering days when British bands ruled the world and American torch singers and balladeers found their audience in the UK remain legends to many generations. Their famous poses and celebrate moments from the archives still have the power to thrill.


Bob, Elton and The Bolshoi Ballet


The installation splits into four distinct elements. There is the Icon wall featuring a montage of giants and Jay Z. Painters on this wall included Grafter and Eyesaw.


Roger Daltry, Muhammed Ali, Noel, Shirley, Jimi, Jay Z, Pavrotti and Frank


Opposite this curve piece is an elongated timeline featuring luminaries such as Paul Weller, Elton John, Jimi, Mick, The Beatles, Eric Clapton and Einstein, the last somewhat out of context but apparently he spoke at the Albert Hall before the outbreak of World War II.


The Beatles, Albert Einstein, Eric Clapton


The third wall looks somewhat spartan, with a collection of translucent Union flags arranged either side of a silhouette of Henry Wood conducting the BBC Proms under a large RAH motif and some popular classical musicians.


Vanessa Mae, Andre Previn


Apart from the stars from the entertainment business, the mural also pays homage to the many others who have used the RAH either temporarily as a passing moment in history or routinely as a local albeit remarkably specialised amenity – the suffragettes, majorettes and brass band competitors, children and ....er.... sumo wrestlers.




The turnout was impressive and varied, opening a behind the scenes space in a location like the Royal Albert Hall to show new paintings of everyone’s heroes draws a fresh crowd considerably different to that found slumped in the gutters in Shoreditch after a Pure Evil opening on a Thursday night.


Naomi, Mick, Winston Churchill, Basket players, Bob and The Bolshoi


The illuminations were a tribute to the fact that one of the first displays of electric lighting was held at the Royal Albert Hall and also explain the eery bluish tint in the pics.

The work will remain on the walls for ever, locked behind the private doors and out of sight from the public. You have to envy the sense of historic achievement The Wonderland Collective must enjoy, they have created something that is destined to last, something to be viewed for decades and decades by generations of roadies and drivers.



For the record, street/urban artists who contributed to this wall, the members of The Wonderland Collective (and possibly some friends) were: Ben Slow, Snik, Blam, Finbarr DAC, Grafter, Eyesaw, DanK, DBO and Babel.

Wednesday 27 August 2008

Diggs We Are Shitting . . . .

Loving the new Grafter street works. You can definately see his style evolving with each outing and more and more details being added to the simple but elegant one layer stencils that made him famous.



His studio work seen recently at the Urban Angel "Corked" show, and then small outing at the recycled Cans Festival this weekend also go a long way to putting a "cork" in the gobs of the Grafter haters thinking all he was capable of was simple stuff, some real emotion showing in his "Shoe Shine" piece. Very evocative and many have said in the style of Chris Stain, but in my book Grafter wins as his characters dont have abnormally sized heads*.

@ Cans Festival "Recycled"

"Shoe Shine" - Urban Angel original piece - Pic courtesy of Nolions..."tarted" by HowAboutNo!

* This is in no way intended to be a dig at Chris Stain in any other way than I think his characters should be a tad smaller and situated at ground level...they tend to scare me in the same way those bumblebee things with babies facies in the back of the News of The World Sunday magazine do.