Saturday 25 July 2009

K-Guy Framed!

We generally know what to expect wandering Shoreditch, the epicentre of London’s street art scene so more than a little curiosity was provoked by the oddity of a picture frame stuck to a garage door known in the past as a street art magnet but more recently just splattered with gig flyers. The latter phenomenon is a product of the zero tolerance buff on street art but that’s a debate for another time.




Cursory inspection determines that the frame comes from Ikea, it’s a totally standard package even down to the standard IKEA backing sheet inside the frame and the impenetrable and unlikely scandi product name visible. So we thought.


ITIFFARG


It is immediately obvious that this is conceptual art on the street and the concept is thankfully not obscure. Actually, there are several concepts, the anomalous mass produced frames is referencing the commoditisation of art, decrying the exploitation of the street art phenomenon as a shameless marketing tool and then there’s the dig at people who are happy to buy their art pre-packaged from any soul-less furniture emporium, shrink-wrapped and anodyne, bland and innocuous and brimful with the deception of a designer lifestyle on a mass production budget.


YUGK


The current state of street art is pretty damn poor, anything aspiring to imagery more complex than photoshopped cartoon characters or production values beyond inkjet printouts put up with flour and water or poorly cut single layer stencils is going to stand out. This particular example shines because it takes the simplest art necessity and by putting it in the street context raises so many interesting thoughts and questions.


Tranabru


Close inspection reveals that what looks like standard IKEA packaging is in fact clever re-modelled work from the artist. Firstly those Scandinavian product names, turns out they are just street art descriptors spelt backwards, add a couple of dots over the odd vowel and Bobs your uncle, you have a whole new Ikea product range.

The street art references continue in the small product icon in the middle of the sheet, you know, the one inside the picture frame to remind you that you are looking at a picture frame, the artist had installed a couple of spray cans.




The identity of the creator is revealed down among the patent labels and hazardous picture frame warnings were you will spot the tag of the artist, none other than K-Guy! This isn’t meant to be smart-arsed or deliberately smug writing, initially I thought they were completely un-modified frames and missed the detail that K-Guy had introduced his own Ikea product sheet into the frame. Too be honest all the concepts had been realised just by positioning picture frames in these street art halls of fame, the rest is vanity! (same can be said of any artist siggy).


It’s Sheep We’re Up Against


Frankly, it should have been easy to spot the hand of K-Guy much earlier because if there is one person who has consistently gone for a clever and more ironic level of street art installation it’s our political and social satirist K-Guy. This blog is beginning to look like K-Guy’s PR bitch but in terms of actual art on the street there’s not much else hitting his quality on the streets these days.


ITIFFARG


We found three IKEA frames today, there is apparently a fourth and K-Guy got his collar felt by the fuzz when installing the fifth, losing his ladder and drill into the bargain and in the process suffering the scorn and derision of some tag fag who was amused at the sight of an artfag getting arrested. Kept it real bruv!


Tranabru

Saturday 18 July 2009

INSA – “Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places”

Bateman Row Arches, London
17 – 29 July 2009

all photos: NoLionsInEngland


I’m a sucker for Illusion rooms. From Cept’s mindblowing 3 week individual labour of love in Dalston last year to D*Face’s memorable Haring inspired room at his Apopalypse show, any time an artist gets to indulge themselves in something which is more experience than product, I raise a glass and a cheer.

Entering Insa’s show to find a large part of the space given over to a dis-orientating ultra-perspective black and white illusion room with a pair of chrome buttocks at its’ focal point presses all the right buttons.


Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places


The words Insa and fetish often appear in the same sentence. If you ever come across a website which has sidebar links such as Legs, stockings, heels, booty, candy pink, ankles and stilettos, chances are that INSA has started a porn site based on various favoured fetishes.

But before getting to that, it’s worth reminding ourselves that Insa has awesome skills with a spraycan. At the 2009 London Meeting Of Styles INSA got his name up with nice fades, sharp lines and a perfect facsimile of what since has been found to be the signature tune logo of 80s sitcom Cheers.


Insa 2009


INSA’s warped stilettos have popped up on shutters, walls and boarded up shopfronts in colour (pink) and black and white across Shoreditch.


Insa - 2009


This Escheresque repeated image mural in a suitably sleezly Shoreditch location has been done more than once by INSA. Some people believe the sculpted piece is a heart, they could be right, even the PR company sits on the fence in its printed puffery, describing them as his trademark hearts/asses (which I thought was an animal Jesus rode in the bible. I always have seen these as a pair of buttocks and stocking topped thighs, perhaps I am tuned to the man’s wavelength.


Shoreditch Relief


Evidence of Insa’s presence on the street has even extended to reaches inside windows in derelict slum properties and stiletto paste-ups. Check out Insa’s pieces and production pages on his website (link at the bottom)

Back to the central feature. What is the point of Insa’s exercise? What is the......bottom line? Well, Insa must be aware that the shortest distance between two points on a 3 dimensionally curved surface is a curve. In Insa-world this translates into the shortest between any two points on a lady’s leg definitely being a curve, no matter how straight the seams on her stockings or the bands on the stripey tights may be. No curve shall go un-touched. The point of this work is not the huge display of perspective lines guiding into the chrome buttocks, or the two tone patterns on walls ceiling and floor, it’s about how the chrome buttocks turns those straight lines into curves, how the reflected lines caress the curve of the buttocks and generally about drawing attention to a bit of bootilicious magic, follow the landing lines, hurtle down those tracks and let your fingers trace those curves baby.


Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places (Caution: Objects May Appear Larger Than They Really Are)


The show title “Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places” is not immediately resolved by the work on display except possibly to the extent that the dominant piece of the room shares its’ title with the show. It is left to you to decide why the chrome arse piece should be graced with this moniker.

Of the more conventional framed art on the wall, most interesting is this twist on graffiti culture, where the lines of his repeated booty motif are overlapped to suggest a chain link fence and inside a “break in case of emergency” style box are a pair of wire-cutters, the train yard graffer’s best friend for effective access to secure train lay-ups.


Sunny Sky Over My Favourite Park In South London [blah blah] With Some Expensive Bolt Cutters


The subtle but most extraordinary eroticism of the curves in the repeating motif is most evident in the pink print version, the essential femine curves are distilled down to a simple pop art abstract style.


Empty Aspirations print


Three monochrome mirrored screen prints continue the core themes of the stiletto, the “In All The Wrong Places” arse and the repeating arse, the challenge with each of these was distinguishing the reflection of the black and white illusion room from the print on the mirror itself, these mirrors probably will create a stunning effect in a different coloured room. Say pink for example.


Looking For Love Mirror


The very large legs straddling the opening to the art room (there is an adjacent trainer salesroom or something) make an impression which leaves you in no doubt of two things, firstly Insa’s subject matter and secondly, the corporate logo providing the sponsorship. The humour in entering between the legs is not going to be lost on many and you need to sit outside the show looking in to appreciate how INSA has screwed around scale at the entrance in a “through the looking glass” manner.


Enter between the legs


It is of course easy to get prissy about the supping with the devil corporate connection with some of the work in the show but whatever it takes to give the funding and time to create this temple to the female curve is forgivable.

You might forgive the corporate logo integrated into one of the black and white prints too but I bet you wouldn’t put it on your wall. So, instead of that print, lets end contemplating how Insa manages to take that most effeminate of colours, pink and by combining it with black and white creates the effect of intense masculine fetishism and, here a little fun for the kids, scroll your screen up and down see how the surroundings around the arse throb. It’s what this work is all about.


Looking For Love print


These and a few other pictures from the show here

Insa’s pieces, productions and other shizz here

Thursday 16 July 2009

Dead, Abandoned and Pieced

The Trans Pennine Nomads (TPN) could rightly be considered to be the best writers crew in England, and a lot of their pieces co-exist with the rubble of the old Huncoat Power Station in Lancashire. Join me for a visual ride into them thar hills….



All photos by shellshock


The disused power station at Huncoat (between Accrington and Burnley) is easily the best hidden graff den I’ve ever been to. Rubble and shit are everywhere, right next to stunning pieces from the TPN crew (and a few others). A visual overload, you don’t know where to look (actually I do know where to look….. look up for graffiti… and look down for that pit full of glass and old shoes that you are about to fall in….). Local taggers, toys and throwuppers also use the place, and being quiet and off the beaten track it’s a great place to practise and perfect. Take your time, have a can, and use your cans……

It’s not as difficult to find as you might think, and there is even an old sign to welcome you :-)



Crie and Pryme (local lad and founder of the TPN) are my two fave writers and as you duck down into the building one of their (relatively rough) joint pieces greets you. But there is far far more than that to come….



Despite all the advantages of being next to a colliery and railway line, the power station actually had a fairly short life, only working from 1956 to 1984. Most of it was demolished by 1990, apart from this one building. At some point it is due to be turned into a waste treatment plant.

The end wall of the central area is obviously an attention grabber, including for photography angles, as the suited characters hold the pieces out as canvases.





Small rooms abound everywhere, all with rubble and paint. It’s so peaceful, yet so loud, as glass crunches under your unsteady feet. Photography angles are everywhere, and old bits of the power station workings still live on (plus the toilets - I had a waz there rather than onto the rubble - it just felt right…)





A whitewashed separate room actually has the top pieces though. A Crie & Pryme collab on one wall, and Pryme’s collab with Riot 68 on the other. These are skills you don’t learn overnight; many of the best writers are approaching middle age now, and / or have come back into the game after time away in the 90’s.





There are also bits upstairs, and great views out over the Lancashire hills. It’s a bit weird actually, being in this bombed out wreck, yet such natural beauty being what seems like only an arms length away.



This Pryme (left) and Crie (right) collab is the main piece upstairs. [I’m sure you can easily now recognise who does which bit! They are so different yet it works together…]





But remember.....shuuuush... Don’t tell the toyz where the best spots are :-)



More photos on flickr

Tuesday 14 July 2009

The Short Guide to 'Banksy vs Bristol Museum'



By less than popular demand, shell shock (a train spotter and admin monkey at the Banksy group on flickr, and author of ’Banksy Location & Tours’) trawled 2,000+ photos, poured over a hotch potch of info, asked people stupid questions, and drove many miles to the Museum, just to bring you this short guide to the greatest exhibition of all time (well, maybe....the art jury is drunk and is utterly incapable of anything, including a verdict)


What is in the Exhibition?

The exhibition is officially ginormous. Easily Banksy’s biggest exhibition ever.

Apparently it contains 100 artefacts, of which 78 of them are new.

Although there are several whole rooms dedicated just to Banksy‘s work, there are also bits of his work dotted all around the various rooms of the Museum / Gallery. The guide below tries to round them all up.

People have already noticed that some exhibits seem to have moved over time (or possibly even turned up late for the bash...?), so please don't think we are totally mad if something isn't there, has moved, is wrong, makes you looks stupid, causes an argument with your partner, etc

NOTE - the names I've given them aren't necessarily 'official', correct or sensible. Some may be funny, but it can't be guaranteed. I’m not paid [in peanuts] to make you laugh you know......

There is a free small flyer/guide to exhibition available at the venue (see below). For ease of wandering, this guide references some of the (usually unofficial) room names given on there.

unusualimage

Many thanks to unusualimage for scanning this in (click to enlarge)

unusualimage


GROUND FLOOR


Entrance

Part of the ‘Boghenge‘ installation that was done at The Glastonbury Festival in 2007 (note entrance sign, and the gross Crow with Tampon on top of the portaloos!)

Reception Area (Labelled ‘Information’ on the flyer for the show)

• Ice Cream Van
• ‘Metropolitan Peace’ Riot Copper on a children’s ride
• 7 statues (clockwise from front left side)

- David as Suicide Bomber
- Angel of the North
- Angel with Paint Pot on Head
- Lion Tamer (eaten)
- Bashed Up Buddha
- Homeless Venus de Milo (& melted bicycle)
- Renaissance Paris Hilton goes Shopping

British & South West Wildlife Room

• Riverbank Ratty (with spray can) - In the 'River Bank' cabinet - This looks the same as the ‘Banksus Militus Vandalus’ rat sneaked into the Natural History Museum in 2004.

Assyrian Reliefs Room

Carved model of Jerusalem (by Tawfiq Salsaa) - with 284 toy soldiers and 1 terrorist added by Banksy

Egypt Room

‘Reduced’ Terracotta style Soldier



Left hand Passage between Reception and Unnatural History - by the Ladies toilets

Michael Jackson modified oil, and shrine (This was added after Jacko's death - On 6th July the Bristol Evening Post reported that another Banksy painting was being added to the exhibition - ".....placed above a black shelf on which stand several lit candles.")

Animatronics Room (Labelled ‘Unnatural History’ on the flyer)

(clockwise from front left side)

• Food Store (Sausages)
• Swimming Fish Finger(s) [originally there were 2 fishes, but they broke down and were later replaced by one larger one]
• Chicken Nuggets
• Stone Slab (“The Bad Artists Imitate, The Great Artists Steal”)
• CCTV Mothers and Babies
• Leopard Skin Coat
• Tweety Pie
• The Monkey as an Artist
• Vanity Rabbit

Costume Jewellery Area

Suitcase of Cash (Di-faced Tenners)

Café (Labelled ‘Another Cafe’ on the flyer)

Wooden Crate with Balloons

The Art of Banksy Room

(Clockwise from Entrance - approx)

Rodeo Girl on Spraycan
You have got to be Kidding me (a.k.a. £10,000)
The Artists Studio (including a paint splodged fire extinguisher shown on the exhibition leaflet)

Collection of Seven Images & Sketches (clockwise from top left)
- Degas X Factor
- Guns Magazine
- Isambard Kingdom Brunel (Rail Replacement)
- Portrait of the Prophet Muhammad
- Rhino Hunters
-’The Exact Same Bowls’
- Bomb Disposal Unit
Who Are All These People?

This Is Not A Photo Opportunity
The Key to Making Great Art is all in the Compositio
Go Flock Yourself

Dorothy - Not on Canvas Anymore
Hardhat Tortoise

The Lone Roller
‘Banksy’ tag in Cage
Heavy Weaponry

CCTV Britannia & Union Flag
Old St Cherub
Workers of the World Unite!
Punk with Mum
Luxury Loft Complex
Nob Artiste
Thomas the Tag Engine
Masked Writer / Bandit (& Step Ladder)
* Subject to Availability for a Limited Period Only
Rembrandt with Wobbly Eyes
Toff with Toy Arrow on Head
Idyllic Klan Hanging
Monkey Parliament
Flies on Still Life
Panda Trophy Head
Woman with Groucho Marx additions
Exit Through Gift Shop
The Power of a Big Gold Frame

Renaissance Couple (Seaside Style)
Riot Police Meadow
Plant Holder with Head

Donut Cavalcade
Fat Tourist Rickshaw
I Hate Mondays

Graffiti Related Activity Recorded by the Police
No Ball Games
This Is Where I Draw the Line (in dustbin)
Warped Wall


FIRST FLOOR

Landing (Labelled ‘Maps’ on the flyer)

• 'Escape from Guantanamo’ - A Guantanamo prisoner in the Bristol Boxkite
• Leathered Priest (statue)



Geology / Minerals Section

• Dildo in the Stalagmites and Stalactites area
• Shopping Trolley Hunter on Rock

Wildlife in Glass Boxes Section

• Lamb with Muzzle

Gypsy Caravan

• Eviction Notice and Wheel Clamp on the Caravan

British Wildlife Section

• Fox and Countryside Alliance Fox Hunting Placard


TOP FLOOR

All modified oils, except those marked #

Most of the modified oils have a small label next to them, saying ‘Local Artist’, and giving a name and date for the painting.

On the Stairs

• UFO Invasion - 2006

French Art Gallery

• Agency Job (Gleaners) - 2009
• Girl At The Windows - 2006
• Water Spillage (No label on this one)

European Art Gallery

• Silent Night - 2005
• Venus (After Surgery) - 2006
• Landscape Near Hartcliffe - 2005

British Art Gallery

• Flight To Egypt (Budget Version) - 2009
• How Do You Like Your Eggs? - 2009
• Dogging - 2006

Modern British Art Gallery

• Improved Spot Painting - 2009 (Banksy, over a Damien Hirst painting)

Victorian Art Gallery

• Home On The Hill - 2006

Glass Cabinet on the staircase between the Victorian Art Gallery & the Artists from Bristol Gallery

Ice Cream Turd (this was originally on a plinth in the 'Art Of Banksy' room, but was moved at the start of the exhibition - I imagine it was considered a hinderance to the large crowds!)



Artists from Bristol Gallery

• Home Sweet Home (No label on this one)

Boring Old Plates

• Hash Pipe #
• Ballet Girl (with Gasmask) #



All the boring (I'm a practical man...) bits.....

Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery
Queen's Road
Bristol
BS8 1RL

13 June - 31 August

FREE EXHIBITION
Open Daily 10am- 5pm
Tel: 0117 922 3571

“Situated in between the very tall H H Wills memorial building (University of Bristol) and Browns restaurant, at the top of Park Street.

By Bus: Numbers 1, 8, 8a, 9, 40, 40a, 41, 54”

Website - http://www.bristol.gov.uk/ccm/navigation/leisure-and-culture/museums-and-galleries



How Do I Get There?


From Bristol Temple Meads Train Station (BS1 6QF)

Bus - The numbers 8, 8A and 9 all leave from just outside the main station entrance and stop opposite the museum. Follow the link below for an online timetable (this one is for Monday to Friday but there are links on that page for weekend tables):

http://www.firstgroup.com/ukbus/southwest/bristol/timetables/timetable.php?day=1&source_id=2&service=8/8A/9/9A&routeid=593741&operator=3&source=sp

Or you can get a number 54 or a number 1 (both heading for ‘Cribbs Causeway’) from the main road (A4) that runs past the entrance road to the station. Just walk down the incline from the station, and cross over the road, and you’ll see the bus stop outside the Reckless Engineer pub.

If you can’t spot where the museum is, ask someone. It should be pretty easy to spot though. It’s on the right hand side, at the top of the steep ‘Park St’, next to the very tall Wills Building (it looks like a Cathedral, but it isn’t…that will teach you to nudge your friend, pretending to be clever, saying "That's the Cathedral..." )

Walk - It’s about a 30 minute walk from the train station, and once you get off the busy roads by the station it is a pleasant walk. Past St Mary Redcliffe (famous Church with enormous spire). Over the floating harbour, through Queens Square (which is pedestrianised to a degree), or a detour to see Bansky’s boating reaper on the side of the Thekla (floating club). Then up Park St (past the Bristol Cathedral if you want, especially convenient if you’ve come through the harbour area) and have a photo op at Banksy’s Window Lovers (bottom of Park St - opposite the end of the crescent shaped Council building). Continue up Park St and you can hardly miss the Museum at the top of the street, on your right. If you are around late enough, or on a Sunday, the shutter at the Rollermania shop (62 Park Row, BS1 5LE) is usually down in the evenings and on Sunday. It’s a very early Banksy and Kato freehand collaboration, although it’s nothing like what you’d now expect from Banksy!

Ferry Boat (we kid you not….) - If you want a slightly different experience, you can also get the Ferry from Temple Meads. The landing stage is a 3 minute walk from the railway station's main foyer (follow the white 'ferry' signs). This is West Country so bring yer own life jackets :-)

Take the ferry to the landing stage by The SS Great Britain. Then walk through the Harbourside Village towards the new City of Bristol College, over Deanery Road, up York Place onto Brandon Hill. Then past Cabot Tower on your left and into Berkeley Square right opposite the museum.

If you prefer to use other landing stages, there are others that might be of use (e.g. ‘Prince St‘, ‘Millennium Square‘, and ‘City Centre’).

For full information, use their website - www.bristolferry.com



From Bristol Coach / Bus Station (Marlborough Street, BS1 3NU)

The coach / bus station is easier to walk from than the train station, and is no longer the skanky tramp hangout that it used to be :-) It’s also close to the main shopping area so if your other half / friends need retail therapy, they can do that whilst you look at Banksy’s anti-consumerist messages...

From the front of the coach station you just walk up and up the main road basically, bearing right when needed (Marlborough St / Upper Maudlin St etc - the road changes name 4 times before you get to the museum!). Around the half way mark you also come across Banksy’s sniper (look backwards down the hill to see it - it‘s just after the hospital, on the side wall of the office for the ‘Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Appeal’)

It’s hardly worth taking a bus, unless you really want to, but several will go up that way I imagine. Frankly I got bored of writing this guide at this point.....

If you have time, it’s a 15 minute round detour from the coach station to see Banksy’s ‘Mild Mild West’ mural (walk along Jamaica St, and it’s at the junction with the main rd - Stokes Croft).


By Car

Central Bristol is relatively easy to get from any direction. Many people use the M32 route. You can keep to the signposted main roads, or if you feel brave enough to navigate the smaller streets, you can come off at J3 of the M32 and go up through St Pauls or Cotham / Kingsdown.

There are plenty of car parks (e.g. NCP car parks at West End and Trenchard Street) and on-street parking in the area. If money is tight there's some free on street parking you can fight over, about a 5/10 minute walk away. It’s around the back of the main roads, near the various University and hospital buildings in the area (e.g. Tyndall’s Park Rd, Belgrave Rd, and part of Elmdale Rd)


A big thank you to the Banksy group members on flickr whose information helped this guide

Saturday 11 July 2009

Bill London: They Seek Him Here

Rarekind Gallery
London
Jul 10 – Aug 1 2009


all photos: NoLionsInEngland


After a fallow period buried beneath the post Banksy tidal sludge of pasted lazer jet print-outs, real painted graffiti has been showing signs of a pulse the last four months or so in Shoreditch. Some spark has triggered an avalanche of graffiti in all its' full glorious letterform manifestations from pissed up tags to Olympic standard wild-style burners. Many sperm have nibbled at the egg to create this fertile explosion of life, one of the most potent seemingly being the arrival of Chrome and Black in the area, the other obviously being the Meeting of Styles event.

Among the various species making up the spectrum of graffiti life, at the top of the food-chain are master writers from RT crew such as Vibes.


Vibes RT


Of course, there is no link between the artist Bill London whose show opened in the Rarekind Gallery beneath Chrome and Black and anyone who would write VIBES RT on walls around London, at least there isn’t in the show flyer, and no one met at the show preview went by the name VIBES (actually, no one I met went by the name Bill London either but there ya go, just one of those evenings where people weren’t wearing lapel badges).


Vibes RT, Parklifers, DasR


First impression of the show was a refreshing sense of restraint, this wasn’t a pile ‘em high sell em cheap “here’s everfink from my black book ‘n stuff the gallerist had out the back” exercise. The gallery walls have been given an illusionist relief jigsaw treatment, providing a background matrix to small number of canvasses spanning themes from urban realism to oriental fantasy landscape.


They Seek Him Here


With the range of styles in the show, Bill London transcends the limited graffiti form. The show can be divided into canvasses with letter forms for folk who like graff content in their wall decoration and art with no particular links to graff. The work ranges from almost realism to abstract and from austere urban to the almost pastoral.


Rising Down


Using classic fades combined with splatters, the charmingly named Chlamydia forms a wild calligraphic exercise in writing letters, in a form recognisable instantly as VIBES, compare with the street pieces photographed above. I’m told that the colouring in the picture is similar to the colour of a pair of skimpies tossed on the bedroom floor in a public information film here in the UK, maybe I just haven’t found the right channel.


Chlamydia


One common and somewhat baffling gallery show feature is the part-wall-part-canvas mural, it always seems weird to contemplate taking away a small piece of what is a larger single artwork, They Seek Him Here offers some kind of way round this defect by throwing in a photograph of the complete piece separately with each of the ten canvasses in the mural.


VIBES


The individual canvasses from this wall piece are going to look fairly abstract, in the example below there is a horrible Andrew McAttee type thing going on (horrible if that’s your reaction to McAttee’s squeaky clean bubbles)


They Seek Him Here (1 of 10 unique canvasses)


Signs of Life takes a macabre eco-doom stance and combines it with a futurist urban landscape, where close scrutiny reveals all is not as it seems. Buildings made of ghetto blasters, grenades and hand signs crowned by a winged spraycan deity form a backdrop to yoots lobbing molotovs across an arena of dead bodies, syringes and pipes like fat doobies leaking toxic waste.


Signs Of Life


If graffiti is art lying in the gutter then Broken Window Theory is a trompe l’oeil looking up at kind of tenement whose rough inner-city appearance condemns the place to become a self fulfilling kind of housing project hatchery breeding crime and attracting crime. Sufficiently flat and cartoonish to avoid looking like an attempt at photorealism (thank god), details like the clothes line emphasize the residential and community use of the building, perhaps appearances can be deceptive.


Broken Window Theory

At the other end of the spectrum from the gritty urban feel of the last two pieces Bill London tends towards a eastern natural minimilism in the trio of tryptichs Bamboo which owe no debt to the alphabet at all.


Bamboo


The rustic theme is maintained in the rural pond scene “Untitled”. The dragonfly which may be about to become fodder for the fish is a motif element which repeats in several places (and had me scanning though old photos of un-attributed graff as this dragon fly has been seen on walls recently if recollection serves).


Untitled


Take You There (below) follows the countryside theme of the two works above, though if you were to take a stab at where the scene might be, a molten sunrise over the Yangtse Gorge might be a reasonable guess. The cloudscape being scorched away by the rising sun has VIBES wild tag in the formations but the impact is almost subliminal, non-graff heads could be forgiven for not realising that there are any letters at all. So, good one for the parents and other-halves.


Take You There


The usual reaction within the graff community to writers putting work in galleries is to treat them as sell-outs and call them art-fags, Bill London exposes himself to this knuckle minded reaction but shows his work is varied enough and strong enough to make such sentiment pretty irrelevant (not to mention irrational). Curiously, whereas street artists prize an element of roughness, grime and runs in their work when they move indoors, as a writer Vibes seeks to display his incredible refined skills to produce a very clean image and highly proficient collection. Rarekind have done a great job of staging a very interesting show in their utilitarian white space.


Untitled


More pics from the show here