The Buff - RIP Graffiti and Street Art in Shoreditch

all photos Nolionsinengland except where stated


Shoreditch is a colourful, artistic furiously beating heart within the borough of Hackney. Among many forms of creative and cultural excellence, street art within Shoreditch is significant on the global scale if not even world leading. Visitors come from far and wide specifically to see the street art and graffiti, indeed the Graffoto inbox is often filled with emails from overseas visitors looking for advice and information prior to their visit. The actions of the local council, Hackney are exposing the ridiculously confused and inconsistent practise over the control of graffiti and the development of the area.


Blatantly Criminal


Returning to the streets after a few days outside London this week, probably the most notable new piece of street art was this painting by Neonita on the side of The Foundry, a legendary decade old arts and social space on Old Street.


Neonita


This piece is more notable for the politics of its existence than its artistic accomplishment. This spot spent a long time hidden behind builder’s scaffolding, though that itself provided a suitable canvas for various quasi political artistic statements.


PMP

After removal of the scaffolding a series of beautiful pieces were executed at the invitation and permission of the owners of the Foundry Bar.


The Krah/FORS (2008)



Inkfetish (2008)


Then to everyone’s horror, about three days after another masterpiece was created the council’s contractors came along and without so much as a “may we” obliterated the art using a semi glossy black tar.


mmmmm - Thats better (Dec 2008)


The council’s view seems to be that this commissioned public art is graffiti and therefore vandalism and must be cleaned up. Hackney Council’s stance on graffiti is summarised on their website, regarding private buildings which means almost any wall not owned by the council, this is what their policy says:

“The Council has no authority to immediately remove graffiti from buildings that it does not own or manage.
When graffiti is reported on one of these buildings, we will notify the owner/occupier and can undertake works by default if they fail to act.”

From conversations with the staff at the Foundry, no notice to remove "graffiti" was served on them and there is no record of anyone ever making any kind of complaint. The managers at the Foundry even protested that the work had their permission and was neither racist nor offensive but to no avail. The council and their hired chimps have a penchant for taking matters into their own hands and ignoring their own required process.


Council contractors vs 10FOOT (10FOOT won, container relocated with 10Foot intact)


Frankly the council are making themselves look ridiculous with their feverish efforts to purge the un-licensed creativity from the area. There is a derelict un-occupied eyesore in a prominent position on Great Eastern St, located just a short distance from the Foundry. It looks like a burned out bombsite, the smashed windows let the pigeons in, interior walls and ceilings have collapsed, the outsides are grubby and decrepit from years of neglect.


61 Great Eastern St


The Council do nothing that has any effect on the state of this building but the moment a bit of street art appears, their buffing chimps attack. Before Christmas, after creating a gorgeous substantial art piece 50 yards away (with permission), Israeli artist Know Hope created a small marker pen piece only for it to be promptly buffed by Graffiti Solutions.


Know Hope - photo Slaminksy


The shittiest un-safest building in Shoreditch vs the most beautiful and lowest impact art from an internationally recognised street artist – which aspect would you tackle first?

Back to The Foundry, those who have been there will know of the Foundry as a centre for creativity, outsider art shows and refreshment with like minded souls, it is a notable social lightening-rod for artistic minded creatives as well as a meeting place for cyclists. This is due to go very soon though as last week Hackney Council giving planning approval for the demolition of the building The Foundry shares and its replacement by an art hotel. In a move totally inconsistent with its zero tolerance of graffiti, the Council has ordered the preservation of a very large Banksy on the outside wall to the rear of the building.


Banksy - Eat The Rich

Weird the Council should choose to have this Banksy preserved, as it is crap. Predominantly a roller job, it is very poorly executed and its meaning is a tad obscure to the average passerby. Relocation somewhere else within Hackney would sacrifice any slight shred of meaning or context. Incorporation within the fabric of a hotel whose design is driven by a signature art theme would be bizarre, there's a huge disconnect between a piece of street art and hotel art.

The Council's behavior in sanctifying this banksy piece is totally inconsistent with its actions on the street. Any fresh and vital art, which includes the Sclater St graff, is purged immediately yet they keep this piece of shit?

Also, there have been many far superior Banksy’s within a hundred yards of this piece, from the Happy Chopper across the road above the chippie to the Pulp Fiction and Ozone pieces at the roundabout to the various happy copper pieces across the Old Street railway bridge. It makes no sense to slap a preservation order on The Foundry Banksy.


Happy Chopper - photo Shellshock


Further senseless irony lies in the protective hoarding that has been placed over the Banksy rat, presumably by the building owners who Graffoto believes to be the property developers. This Banksy hasn’t been visible to the public for a couple of years. When Burning Candy did one of their signature illegal skull/teef jobs on the wooden hoarding protecting the graffiti - it got buffed. Twisted.


Rat trap; Burning Candy


The underlying motivation of the council is not improving the living quality of the Shoreditch media-arts-cool village for its “stakeholders”, it’s a cultural cleansing of the most vibrant contemporary art movement in the World today in preparation for the Olympics. OK, so not everyone appreciates graffiti but there are enough residents, workers and visitors in this area that do (check the requests for shutter jobs and wall paintings) so it's about time the mish mash of elected and un-elected busybodies in the council gave some thought to a balanced policy reflecting the balanced and varied views rather than the current "scorched wall" approach.

Graffoto bumped into a number of hard working car mechanics today who were intrigued by us taking this photo of a new CEPT on the side of their garage.


CEPT - Love Will Tear US Apart


They told us that the Council had ordered them to remove the previous Cept at this location as it was offensive and there had been complaints, or they would face £5,000 removal costs if it wasn't. The guys asked them what was offensive and to show them the complaints - no reply! See, even rude mechanicals get it. The threat issued to them of a £5000 cost of removal? That is taking the piss.


Offensive Superhero!


An innate part of the colour and character of Shoreditch that ensures the whole flourishes is being mindlessly strangled. Bring back the graffiti and bring back the soul to Shoreditch.

This post has been prepared without the cooperation or even awareness of anyone mentioned like the council, The Foundry, the developers and the buff monkeys. Banksy contributed sod all as well.

LINKS
Grafflondon on the strangulation of even legal graffiti spots here
Save The Foundry here

Mike Ballard: The All Of Everything

The Art Gallery,
University Of The Arts, London
10 Dec 09 – Feb 2010


all photos: NoLionsInEngland and Howaboutno where stated


Two major solo shows, a couple of crew shows not to mention some shutter painting have already made 2009 a prolific year for Cept.


Bethnal Green Rd, 2009


Not to be outdone, Cept’s alter ego Mike Ballard has a major heavyweight solo show to see out the old year and also to see out an old building too. The location is the University Of The Arts, an educational establishment that will be demolished in February and whose imminent demise frames the challenge addressed by Ballard which is to celebrate the existence and conclusion of the gallery’s life cycle.

In 2008, Mike Ballard and Cept had a joint solo show in a ramshackle warren of a warehouse which featured an illusion room created by Cept.


Cept vs Mike Ballard, London 2008


First thought upon entering the large single storey hall of this show is that Mike Ballard has created a very similar illusion room. But there are several critical differences; the scale is much much larger, probably three to four times the floor area; the ceiling is a wild collage of black and white digital images rather than paint and there is none of Cept’s characteristic graff writing and almost none of the lichenstein-esque pop women.






The walls are dominated by about seven key images which relate to the themes of the show. In the corner furthest from the entrance to the room, a large hand points into the wall and an explosion erupts from the finger, starting time, the universe and bringing everything to life.




Existence is dominated by man’s desire to control time whilst living the simultaneous delusion that time is something the rolls out ahead of the now, the artist sees existence as being part of a continuum in which the past, the present and the future are all equally present, always have been and always will be. The illusion and delusion of mastery of time is symbolised by the hands grasping at a tilted pyramid. At the foot of the pyramid the initials MB are the only nod towards the artist’s identity.




Around the room Ballard brings the whole of creation at a broader cosmic scale into the room. Technology clashes with the ancient everywhere, a pyramid death mask with illuminated eyes sits above galaxy rays transmitting across printed circuit board links to the ever repeating circular motif “The end of the beginning, then beginning of the end”, reflecting the parlous state of the building as it sits on the developer’s death row. The eyes are actually peep holes through to a couple of televisions replaying excerpts from Sun-Ra’s rambling shambles of a blaxploitation space oddity movie “Space Is The Place”. Satellite dishes sit on pyramids covered in hieroglyphics created by Ballard but inspired by pre hip-hop New York gang symbology fused with more Sun Ra mystical “I come from Saturn me” runes.


The End Of The Beginning, The Beginning Of The End


A sonic message is relayed through hidden speakers behind the pyramid mask, the indistinct voice sounds urgent and insistent, you can’t escape the noise and you can’t ignore it, it is hard to make out the terse phrases “I know what I have witnessed and now it is your turn, prepare yourself for a journey of self discovery” .

Although there are no graffiti style letterings in the room, the floor contains a wild and wired spray of straight lines, ray paths and links between the principal images on the wall. The pattern breaks up in places into wild style links and connections, just the actual letters themselves aren’t there. Ballard has based this on NY legend Rammelzee’s Ikonoklast Panzerism manifesto with its idea of wild style lettering locked in battle with structured and formal Roman style lettering, leading to a cyclical deconstruction of letters as carriers of language through the form known as graffiti, the rejection of received forms for letters and anarchic destruction of the way society uses written communication. Which doubtless makes sense if you have fried your brain on dope for a few decades.


Space Is The Place


Weird corrugated patterns break up the floor and trick the eye into believing the flat floor is moulded into sharp shallow peaks and troughs, the patterns also reflect Ballard’s fondness for hip-hop and modern jazz. The trompe l’oeil effect is at its most powerful in the corners and where the eyes finds it hard at times to discern where the horizontal becomes the vertical and where floor meets wall. In this photo of the artist putting in hasty last minute touches, the eye easily persuades the brain that Ballard is hovering half-way up the wall.


What floor? Photo HowAboutNo


In Cept’s Dalston illusion room the pillars in the space formed geysers of emulsion linking the patterns on the floor and the ceiling. In this rendition by Ballard, the stark black and white patterns crash to an abrupt halt against a massive paste up covering every square inch of the ceiling. The collage image fuses the ancient with the modern again, Michelangelo’s David is given an MF Doom mask, Afrika Bambaataa fuses with classical cherubs sitting alongside graffed subway trains and images of spray painters.





The point of the ceiling is really to draw eyes up to the sky and to subscribe to the belief that there is something out there, the whole idea of everything on this planet and within this space is watched and destinies such as the fate of this room are possibly under the control of greater forces than we comprehend.


Guardians Of The Galaxy


The task of pasting the enormous paper to the ceiling was made immensely complicated by light fittings, fire safety equipment and a bizarrely random mix of different height beams, so nip and tuck compromises were required to achieve the correct alignment of certain critical elements such as the mirror image subway trains.

Cept’s graff heritage is referenced in one small area and that is an astonishingly deceptive perspective piece which captures a trackside cutting leading to a train tunnel where the young Cept first honed his skills as a spraycan graffiti writer, one of Ballard’s women weeps for Cept, we don’t know why.




There aren’t any paintings hung in the illusion room but in the foyer are just three small edition prints fitting with the themes explored in the show, including a digital print of the original image pasted to the ceiling. The image is too large to absorb in a single sweep in the room and too complicated to be condensed to the small scale of the print.


The All Of Everything ceiling image


Ballard has taken on the schizophrenia of a space which is simultaneously a destination as a gallery yet a transit passageway for people using the space as a throughfare to the many doors, he also conquers the notion of the building in transition between its current manifestation as a gallery and its immediate future as a pile of rubble then subsequent re-birth. We are lucky that someone with Ballard’s skill, imagination and generally intellectual weirdness has been given the use and total abuse of this space at this particular resonant point in its life cycle.




The show makes a huge statement, the all of everything, everything from beginning of time to the end, from floor to ceiling, top to bottom and everything in the whole of time and space, Mike Ballard lays it all out in the context of the life cycle of this building and it only needs two colours. Mike Ballard sets out the all of everything in black and white.

The space is amazingly photogenic, see more here [later today]. For enlightenment and reference, check out Cept vs Mike Ballard here and reviews of Cepts 2009 Galaxy Rays show in Bristol and The Frozen Explosion show at the Writer’s Bench in London

CEPT - A Frozen Explosion

The Writer's Bench
26 Argyll Square,
Kings Cross
London

3 Sep - 25th Sep, Thurs-Sat 1.30pm til 6pm or by appointment.


Last time we met Cept, he was a cackling mad-man “I’m free; no more shows; painting streets...”.






Cept, DScreet, Mighty Mo, Jeff Soto, even some Conor Harrington remnants


So, a few months on here we are at Cept’s second solo show of 2009 and third in less than 12 months, marking the opening of new gallery The Writers' Bench, housed within the Sartorial Art gallery space in Kings Cross and curated by TEK33, BC. Although the proverbial cat would come to grievous gyratory-inflicted harm in this tight basement space, Cept has managed to cram in loads of canvasses, a couple of wall murals, a floor painting and a split screen TV looped audio visual multi media experience.

The key painting to grasping the threads of inter-galactic supreme beings, mind control, superheroes, and deviants in the machine is a single oil painting of a mutant galactic being formed of the cosmos or perhaps forming the cosmos. Creator or created of? There is a knowing nod to the iconography of Ganesha in the way the gas mask tubing comes to resemble and elephant trunk.


90% Of You Is Me


Somewhat curiously this image stands out for being stylistically as well as physically quite a distance from the rest of the show.

This galactic omniprescence sends messages to the minds of the sentient beings inhabiting the universe, strong black and white perspective lines link this source to the messages, presented in the form of tightly grouped words and messages on canvasses, “Not Everyone Thinks Like You”, “Bad Meaning Good”, “Art but Casual” - throw-away, individually meaningless but all quite sinister looked at from the conspiracy theorist’s point of view.




Under the stairs leading down to the basement is an audio-visual installation, a split screen presents on one side an excerpt from George Lucas’ first film THX-1138, a state controlled production line worker receiving electronic re-calibration and indoctrination after attempting to subvert the central control, his eyes rolling up in their sockets, while on the right is a visual white noise where subliminal CEPT words appear from time to time. The terse American voice issuing instructions and commands provides the soundtrack for the installation and recalls the audio backing to the illusion room at the 2007 Cept v. Mike Ballard show in Dalston (reviewed here).


THX-1138 (not turned on - HAN - stick a pic in here mate)


The TV loops then throws the idea of indoctrinating the rebel back across the room to the Supervillain on the wall opposite, his eyeless face reflecting the rolled back eyes of THX-1138 as Supervillain is also subjected to mind control messages from the galaxy creator.


Supervillain


The forth wall shows a couple of the Explosion oils which haven’t been seen in London before (read the review of Galaxy Rays– the Bristol 2009 show here) and a bit of wild and funky larking around the letter C.




If the galaxy creator/controller is to blame for 90% of us, then Cept has found a strong and consistent technique for releasing for his own unique 10 per cent. Like his last 2 shows, “Cept – A Frozen Explosion” very strong on concept, coherently linked the various strands across the work and not least, the artwork itself retains the rich and glossy pop feel.

More photos of the show, including the individual canvasses can be seen here, and you now have permission to leave this page and experience Graffoto's take on Cept's Dalston show from last year and Cept's Galaxy Rays show in Bristol from Spring 2009.

CEPT - Galaxy Rays Show

The Long Arm Gallery
Bridewell St, Bristol,
20 Feb - 13 March 2009

all photos: Howaboutno and NoLionsInEngland



It seems like moments ago that Cept and Mike Ballard got up with a joint show in a Dalston, London workshed yet here we are 4 months later and half a world away in former police station in Bristol for Cept’s new solo show.


You’re nicked! – photo NoLionsInEngland

As in the London show, CEPT hangs gorgeous canvasses on the walls and indulges himself and us with a variety of mixed media installations. A vertical stack of TV screens inside a cage-door lift greets visitors timidly crossing the ex-cop shop threshold, flickering black and white film loops backed with crackling American voices issue barked ultimatums and set a jagged and staccato tone for the show.

photo: Howaboutno


Those familiar with previous Christmas group shows at the Bridewell St police station will need to know that the cells downstairs are not in use, though the rooms that are open retain a strong institutional spartanism. The main gallery room is shared between a collection of canvasses and a swirling wall painting. The wall painting echoes the style of the Dalston illusion room but is a minor fanfare for the half height cubby hole entrance to the installation room beyond.

photo: Howaboutno

Neither the sharp lines of the wall painting nor the strong colours of the canvasses in the main space can explain the dissonant industrial hum that fills the space, it permeates through from the direction of the next room but the half height door ensures that there is no preview of what lies inside, so the process of entering the room maximises the impact.

"Laplace Transforms" - photo: Howaboutno

Dalston’s illusion room was an empty and irregular shaped chamber twisted and distorted by Cept’s perspective juggling wall, ceiling and floor painting. This time, the space is filled by “Laplace Transforms” a bizarre sonic sculpture. Inside a glass fronted pyramid is a record player playing a piece of 7 inch vinyl literally to death – the needle has been replaced by a scalpel blade and a microphone picks up the scrapping of the record’s grooves, the signal passes through a voice changer and the amplified drone feeds back through the mic. In a cheeky nod to the artists’ graff origins the scene is illuminated by a spraycan lamp. It might assist interpretation to understand that Laplace transforms are mathematical operators that make differential equations even easier, used in among other things sound wave mechanics. Perhaps not.

"Laplace Transforms" detail – photo: Howaboutno

The pyramid shape of the sculpture references the All-Seeing Eye. Galaxy Rays from the painting above the record player erupt out of the all-seeing eye, cross the floor of the room in all directions, and talk across the room to a painted Transformer Sun King, the clever link being Ra as all seeing eye linked to a Sun King, Sun-Ra being one of the artist’s fav jazz musicians.

Sun King + Laplace Transforms– photo NoLionsInEngland

Whilst the eye takes in all the details and the mind spins, the ears start to pick up all kinds of slowly meandering harmonics in the audio. The gloom, the strong lines across the room and the textured relief in the floor all combine to knock senses off balance and make eyeballs pulsate, these effects are essential to the full immersive experience though you should bail before the diggery-doo aural illusion kicks in.

The main gallery contains a modest seven canvasses. The paintings are tense and dramatic and, with one notable exception, finishes are clean and glossy. The All Seeing Eye and Galaxy Ray motifs appear significant in several canvasses.

“Omega Supreme”, photo: Howaboutno

The Cept Super Villain’s spiral of despair continues, his face appears bleak and bitter, until he disappears in a series of body ripping explosions.

"The Cult Of The Explosion", photo: Howaboutno

The exception mentioned is this gorgeously grimy Super Villain portrait.

“Kyoto Crush” – photo NoLionsInEngland

A hunt through the adjacent admin office reveals a small number of painted album covers and a stack of prints and the installation room has a number of exercises in geometric patterns, and errrrr drips.

A flick through the pile of prints reveals a remarkable degree of individual variation thanks to the swirls of colour and bits of text added by the artist before the screenprint was applied, they look so varied as to be almost a numbered series of uniques.

“The Cult Of The Explosion” print. – photo NoLionsInEngland


A personal favourite among the paintings in the Surface Noise room is Transit Minds, the pyramid picks up on the show’s theme of the Galaxy Rays source whilst drips which defy logic to run both up and down make the red strip resemble a fat, pulsing noise readout on an oscilloscope display.

“Transit Minds” – photo NoLionsInEngland

We are getting accustomed to Cept’s shows having a coherence as a whole and an un-deniable beauty too, successfully differentiating him from most of the paint-drip-hang-sell urban artists. The bulk of the work connected with the show has been done after a short breather following the October show, Cept is un-doubtedly surfing a burst of creative power at the moment, let’s look forward to that energy being channelled back to the streets sometime soon.


Howaboutno’s photos are an institution. He should be in one. See more of his Cept Galaxy Ray photos here.

NoLionsInEngland's point and click pics from the show are here.

Cept v. Mike Ballard - One Artist's Group Show

30 Hertford Road
Dalston, London

22 Nov - 30 Nov 2008

Photos: NoLionsInEngland except where stated

A natural separation in graffiti culture requires art fags admiring street art to take their asymmetric haircuts and pink glassless glasses to Shoreditch, while the hard core graff guys get their secret society writer-shall-write-only-for-writer thing up in the provinces, like Hackney, Hounslow and Dalston. One person who metaphorically lives within both worlds is Cept. Actually Cept exists across far more than two worlds. There’s the Cept who has been ruling the streets for over 20 years tagging and writing and generally getting up with TRP crew.



Then there’s the Cept who takes spray can art to the streets



There’s also the Cept who transfers his street persona to canvasses and gallery walls, more of that soon. Finally there’s Mike Ballard, the St Martins graduate artist who inhabits Cept’s body and surfaces from time to time to produce dark and jumbled paintings. Or is it the other way round?


photo: HowAboutNo

To find all these Cepts means orienteering to a labyrinthine and rickety lockup workshop in a dimly lit and nondescript warren of utilitarian housing estate streets behind Kingsland Road. Bang loudly on the corrugated shutter with a number 30 on it!

The ground floor space looks like an artist’s store room, heavy oil paintings are mounted high on coarse brick walls, an illuminated cocktail light box is pushed into a corner, in small dead-end cubicles small screens show looping scratchy multimedia film clips while all around are many relics and wall daubings of former occupants. The roughness of the room mirrors the artist’s determined avoidance of pretentious frippery, a white cube this ain’t.


photo: HowAboutNo

Since impressionism, artists have been preoccupied with battling against the perceived notion of an accepted art, the grand art of landscapes and religon which is displayed to show good taste, worthy subjects and high technique. Cept sees the acceptance of graffiti and its entry into galleries alongside “traditional” art as a battle won, see the diagonal flow of the all conquering graffiti writers coming off the streets in the top right overwhelming the cherubs and fine art of the establishment towards the bottom left.


Throwing The House Out Of The Window

A particular theme is an illustratorly concentration on karma sutra imagery, present in a tryptich of digital prints as well as a series of paste-ups papering the stairway to the upper floor where Cept’s pop art comic aesthetic is displayed. Such images might be found in HowAboutNo's flickr. The perve.

Borrowing images from comics and most obviously from pop art’s high priest Lichtenstein, Cept tells a romantic tale involving the anti hero, a super villain, lets call him Cept for convenience and a pure pop 1950’s ideal of feminine beauty, a girl who admires Cept the super villain both as a concept and as physical specimen. Her love is possibly tragic and un-requited, she cossets a Cept graffiti tag to her cheeks as nowadays the love for graffiti has come in from the cold.


Remember When Graffiti Was Hated (photo: HowAboutNo

Her intrigue with graffiti doesn’t subjugate her need for a man who possesses old fashioned qualities of infallibility, dependability and heroism. She dotes on the super villain but recognises and indeed admires the flaws in his character, awakening within her a fascination for his desire for possession of public space.


How….Why? (photo: HowAboutNo)

Meanwhile Cept the Super Villain is seemingly going through a crisis, split by his comic hero superpowers and the conflicting demands of the old fashioned modern romantic. So he still leaps unscathed from unexplained explosions,


If It Kills Me (photo: HowAboutNo)

he coldly wields control over others’ destinies at the press of a button,


Mr Freeze (photo: HowAboutNo)

and un-swervingly faithful to his inner criminal, he gets his mark up on society’s walls


Letterman

Privately however, angst nags at him, he senses the futility in endlessly repeating his super villain antics and where we find the super villain away from the women and the heroic deeds, we find canvasses depicting pain, despair and an inner tension.


Tough Love (photo: HowAboutNo)


He Who Was Nothing – Is Nothing Once More (photo: HowAboutNo)

Cept showcases many more themes and styles apart from the comic hero imagery. He blends his skillz with the letter into his pop art imagery to greatest effect in this sharp almost art nouveau styled goddess, tresses of hair cascade down forming twisting into Cept’s letters.


Stripes

Cept frequently likes to play with concealed images, where possibly random illustrations only reveal the true subject through some chance and close scrutiny.


photo: HowAboutNo

Descending down a second set of great fire of London era wooden stairs, which look like they ought to lead to a den of gin-sozzled, brawling women and opium wrecks, we stoop under a barrier blocking the top half of a doorway and emerge into the highlight of the show. A truly astonishing stark and punchy two-tone walls, floor and ceiling painted room of visual illusion and eyeball defeating trickery..


Cept Room (photo: HowAboutNo)

Your eyes are overwhelmed by the intensity of the contrasting lines, swirls, shapes and objects. Cept creates perspective, plays with it again for fun and creates an illusion of corridors, holes, seascapes blending into room interiors and a selection of characteristic Cept comic book imagery. The floor has wave ripples lapping up to strongly patterned venetian tiled floor, whilst in other parts a series of painted steps disappear down into a painted manhole sinking into the earth’s core.



Two roof columns create fountains of paint erupting from the floor, surging outwards across the ceiling before breaking against the walls. The doting beauty gazes fondly at Cept’s tag, yet nearby the super villain lies out of sight, drained, jaded and semi-comatose in the shallow waters lapping up over his name.



A series of painted steps across the floor leads to a trompe l’oeil image of a cufflinked hand at the end of a corridor clutching the letter C.



Using a deconstructed graff writing form in which the structure of the letters has been totally discarded to leave a residue of wild style elements, the painted structure breaks up into almost abstract swirls, dots and moiré fringes only to reform into regular geometric patterns.


photo: HowAboutNo

It is un-avoidable that cynics will compare this room with D*Face’s dis-orientation room at the BRP Apopcalypse Now show last month but whilst that created a Keith Haring tribute using D*Dog wings and eyes, this Cept installation uses non repeating Cept imagery with not a single line or curve repeated anywhere. All of this was created single-handedly by Cept – no interned paint chuckers here – and took three weeks having been conceived before the D*Face show, though Cept confesses to a sinking heart upon entering the D*Face show and realising the extent of convergence with his work.


photo: HowAboutNo

A curiosity worth mentioning is that from a previous use, apparently the walls of the installation room have a Mode 2 mural directly on the brick, Cept has clad the wall with boards to leave the Mode 2 beneath intact. Respect.

It is worth whizzing up to Dalston just to be overwhelmed by one of the most intense visual experiences this year and one of the most satisfyingly staged shows (we do like our spaces rank and grubby). Bang loudly on that shutter door, but do it fast as the space is only open to the public until Sunday 30th, excluding Wednesday and Friday. Bugger it, check with Stella Dor before travelling!

Taking pictures in such challenging light without safety harness and hard hat contravenes all photographic health and safety regs, so hats off to HowAboutNo – check his pics here