Jesuischarlie

All photos NoLionsInEngland except Jef Aerosol where stated

On Weds 7th January, two masked men claiming to belong to Al Qiada armed with Kalashnikov rifles burst into the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris and embarked on a killing orgy that saw 12 killed in the that building including editor Stephane Charbonnier and cartoonists Jean Cabut, Georges Wolinski, Philippe Honore and Bernard Verlhac (BBC). The attack was carried out in “revenge” for satirical cartoons which the murderers considered offensive to their religion.

Street artists have been quick to express various forms of outrage at the specifics of the incident as well as the more general assault on freedom of speech. Using the collective association of the hashtag #Jesuischarlie, artists are assuming the identity Charlie to emphasize that an assault on one person’s freedom of speech is an assault on freedom of speech of all. This is going back to the heart of street art, taking control of the message and the medium, using this freedom to re-assert the fundamental right of freedom of speech.

In Lille, French stencilist Jef Aerosol was quick to produce tributes to the editor and three of the cartoonist cartoonists (It appears Philippe Honore is omitted), the images were stencilled on to paper then pasted to a wall. Jef Aerosol sees this atrocity as making victims of all of us, we are all Charlie.


Art: Jef Aerosol; photo courtesy Jef Aerosol



Art in the studio: Jef Aerosol; photo courtesy Jef Aerosol


In London, Pure Evil, a frequent user of protest slogans, modified an existing collection of Pure Evil Bunny tags with the message “Crayons are mightier than bullets #JeSuisCharlie”


Pure Evil #jesuischarllie


“Charlie” has painted a huge chrome and black boomer on a wall in Shoreditch with a Lichtenstein-esque hand claiming “Freedom of Speech” back. Although “unsigned2, the piece is not anonymous, it is by Charlie.  Charlie was likely assisted by a member of The Rolling People crew whose name may also begin with “C”! The way this piece was stopping passers-by in their tracks was incredible, reminiscent of the sort of the response to a new piece by Banksy.


#jesuischarlie



'jesuischarlie


Commercial spraypaint artists Graffiti Life put up their rapid response to the atrocity by painting this anti gun plea to disarm.


Graffiti Life #jesuischarlie


Many other artists have produced tributes and protests in their studios and on the streets, just google “street art #jesuischarlie”.

Apart from the attack on freedom of speech there is a very shocking human tragedy and our thoughts and evidently those of artists across the world are with all those who lost their lives at the hands of those fanatical murders in the past few days.

Graffoto Round Up of the Year - Part 1

Welcome pop pickers! A post I have meant to do for the last few years on Graffoto has been a look back at the year, be it a good or a bad one (the year, not the post). The problem in previous years was that I just always ended up leaving it too late in the holiday, my bingo wings thus being held down by my own weight in mince pies and turkey leftovers and sapped of the energy to bother. So whilst the intention this year was to start this post pre Christmas in the hope it kicks me up the arse to finish the rest closer to the end of the year, here I am a couple of days away from New Year's.... So it's more than likely that this will be a post that carries over into 2012. I'll split the year into 4 parts so as not to make the post so long. A picture heavy and word "lite" effort it's about my third post of the year and certainly the biggest on Graffoto. My favourite pictures and work that has gone up throughout the year, starting right at the top of January. . . All pictures are by HowAboutNo except where stated. Cept & Sweet Toof Nychos & Vibes Photo supplied by Mr S. Toof

Philth (indeed!) Kid Acne's Artfags (Spectre also on the decaying shop front sign) Plastic Bones Dscreet & Kid Acne AMAZING to see Zezao work up in London in his unmistakeable style Milo Tchais also getting up more than I remember in previous years. Roa In fact this whole spot got a lot of action in 2011, Mr Sperme popped up and knocked out this one. Shame there weren't many others. Ranking highly as my fave piece of the year...and it's a sticker :( Sadly Stormie Mills didn't paint any London walls that I found in 2011. Slipping in a little bit of South Coast action . . .I found a nice little spot closer to home in Hastings. Unfortunately I have only managed to go there once with a camera in hand. Must change that in 2012. Michael De Feo had a show in London and left a few flowers. A few artists hit the Grand Union Canal at Broadway Market one weekend in March, am not sure there was any event other than perhaps a meet at a local hostelry. . . Xenz Teddy Baden Dotmasters Just oodles of generic damage was often my highlight of the year...more in later posts but this was a big big fave. . .

Gold Peg did a few activist/occupy related pieces through the year (more later) This was the first and boldest, the ad company blocking the message out days later.

Tizer went to Leake Street and did this piece in amazing quick time. I think the squiddlywinkswould call this one SICK!

Gold Peg hit some of the most eye catching and clever spots throughout the year as far as I am concerned, proving as always that half, if not more of the work is all in the placement. My fave other placed spot this year was a piece by Revok, which featured on his blog Revok was later arrested in April 2011 for failing to pay damages to the victims of his previous vandalism crimes So that's it for part 1 of this round up which covered January to March (at least in the order I found them, as mentioned some of the pieces are years old) Part 2 to follow soon covering, you guessed it......April to June.

Cept, Sweet Toof - Backyard Colouring

all photos: NoLionsInEngland


Graffoto went out hunting Swoons yesterday lunchtime, Boris Bikes for transport, cameras for the kill, separating and meeting again to cover more of the East London concrete jungle. Diddley squat, nada, nothing new, just the three recent pieces already located.

However, at the last rendezvous HowAboutNo excitedly reported that a known Burning Candy wall had been updated and the pelmet over a nearby raised shutter showed evidence of a new CEPT. Howaboutno being the less thick element of Graffoto came up with the genius suggestion that NoLions might find both the shutter down AND no parked cars blocking the garage wall if he swung past on his bike first thing in the morning.


Old - Before Colouring


And so it came to pass, there were no cars and shutters were down.


Cept, Sweet Toof


The CEPT lady is absolutely stunning, and borrows from the Black and white illusions CEPT has created in the past and a face portrait seen previously on CEPT prints (www.spradio.com – “Fly Wonder”).

CEPT has even painted the lamppost and the weird booby trapped water butt thing, though I found the optimum viewing point a little low giving a poor overall perspective. Doh.




The characters on the right are all by Sweet Toof.


Sweet Toof


The shutter nearby continues a long Cept saga of ambiguous loves won and loves lost.


CEPT


Then exploring a nearby rarely travelled lane we spotted the tips of an instantly recognisable CEPT painting and a pair of Sweet Toof teef opposite. A peep through a tiny hole confirmed a hidden secret graff art treasure trove.

Returning at lunchtime, the challenge was to find out which property the yard belonged to and could we get in. The people behind the new CEPT shutter said they could see it but it wasn’t theirs, they directed us around the corner. We pressed voice entry phone buzzers, CCTV cameras swivelled but no one answered (chiselled features, statuesque physiques and a tendency to be found at crime scenes leads to Graffoto often being accused of being five-oh). On a hunch we skirted round the whole block and came across a previously un-known art gallery. On the pretext of admiring the art, we tried the back door and it gave out onto the holy grail.


Sweet Toof


Hopefully this link might allow you see see this image LARGE(ER) (pls email if it doesn't work because I prob would need to tweak "rights")

Arch 402 is brand new, only opened last night. The gallerists know nothing about street art or graffiti and had actually been asked if they were going to “deal” with the growing amounts around the Cramer St garage. They enquired at the garage who the artists were, and let the garage mechanics know they liked the stuff on the walls and wanted more of it. Well and truly dealt with then.


CEPT


Those garage mechanics have previously featured in Graffoto reports for their resistance against the council who issued a written demand to remove the graffiti on the walls. So, a few days later, presumably about the time Sweet Toof and Cept went back to the garage wall, the gallery found it was now the proud host of one of the most stunning Sweet Toof/Cept collabs ever.

The interesting question arises – with 8 characters on the truck and one horse, which of the 9 strong Burning Candy crew is the mule and which one is the driver?


Name That Crew Member


If you travel the new East London line you are assailed by throws and pieces by Burning Candy types in the few hundred yards just south of Hoxton station, Mighty Mo and Gold Peg have running riot across the roof tops eye level with the trains whilst these two spectacular sites are immediately opposite eachother either side of the track.


Any number of street art gallerists would give their right one to have a private mural of this calibre on their walls. They’re parting question to us: “are they any good?”!!!


Sweet Toof


There you have it, Graffoto shares another lunch break with the World and Sweet Toof and Cept get a mention as well. Big Celebrations.

(ps - the bit about often being asked/accused of being cops is true – thing is, when someone wanders up to someone taking photos on skanky back lanes and says “are you a cop?” what happens next if the answer really is “yes”? The other one, really flattering...”are you a photographer?”]

CEPT - Cosmic Interceptor

London Aug 2010


Graffoto had the pleasure of a morning with Cept as he freestyled a London shutter writing CEPT with an awesome intergalactic perspective buggering fill. Look too closely at the end result and you'll feel like you are about to fall into deep space.


Check the movie, in particular see some impressive backwards tagging at the end. Smoke a banana while you watch it.


Cosmic Interceptor from NoLionsInEngland on Vimeo.



Check here some of the awesome CEPT work Graffoto has covered in the past and as anything Cept touches may involve warping time and space, depending when you click this link we might throw in some future work too.

Hackney Wicked

Hackney Wick
30 July - 1 Aug 2010



Hackney Wick is bohemian, decaying, swampy and trendy though a lot of its post industrial bleakness is being surrendered to the concrete sports temples rising out of the mud and mire. Some of the resilient local artist community, 670 or so the promotional bumpf proclaims like some kind of statistical triumph, have had their doors levered open for the annual Hackney Wicked art festival now in its third year.


One of the coolest bits of work was an outdoor-internal installation called Tompson’s Tunnel, featuring miniature concrete steps leading up to a tunnel burrowing into the building with tiny Slinkachu-esque naked figures striding the landscape. The figures looked like they may have been wrapped in foil then lost their skin to first degree burns in some grotesque bbq related accident. The illusion of depth in the tunnel was enhanced by a mirror fitted at the end. Bugger to photograph mind.


Tompson's Tunnel


Quite a bit of live painting had taken place the day before in and around that White Post Lane car park including pieces Snoe, Cept, Seks, DScreet, Busk and Xenz.


Snoe, Cept, Seks, DScreet, Run (&Busk?)


Also in that same car park, intertwined down the structure of the back staircase is one of those robot wooden arms similar to the ones seen at Prescription Art in Brighton last year.




Normally you wouldn’t have polite access to these sweatshop buildings, various handwritten notices pleading for the return of missing items or threatening dire retribution if perpetrators of theft are caught indicate why. The best part of these buildings being open is the opportunity afforded for access to roof spaces and elevated windows, yielding panoramic views and close up shots of rooftop graffiti gems.


Sweet Toof



Sweet Toof


Arriving early like around mid-day, when stalls selling home-made carrot cake out-number carrot cake eaters, had the dual peril of artists still being tucked up in bed and if they were there, you were likely to be the only rubber necker keeping the artist company. You hope as you mooch un-certainly into the heart of the studio that your face doesn’t betray any particular look of horror.

On a hunch that he might have finally surfaced by 2.30pm, a return to the Peanut Factory found Joseph Loughborough aka illjoseph, bright eyed and demon breathed after a bit of a session the previous night.


Joseph Loughborough


Joe has been an artist I have admired for several years and the work on his studio walls was just stunning. Some of them are on his flickr account and without being critical of Joe's photography, flicks don't have a fraction of the impact of seeing these fo' real. Joe was sitting there producing one of his latest series of frenzied, fragmented and smudged charcoal portraits. For me this brief visit was the highlight and made the Eastwards schlep worthwhile (and the bit about demon breath probably isn't true).


Joseph Loughborough


In, around and beyond Hackney Wicked photographs 'ere

Mike Ballard - Shadows Of Tomorrow

Mike Ballard has done two previous illusion room shows. Amid the intense imagery fusing fine art collage with wild style forms and the synapse searing contrasts of the black and white colour scheme, Graffoto has never really done justice to those experiences. His latest illusion project is located in a private upstairs room above the Macbeth Pub, Hoxton St, London. This time Graffoto asked Mike Ballard to talk us through his latest wall, ceiling and floor illusion installation, then decided to throw away its own rulebook (though no one could find it so we think it got thrown away long ago) and let the artist speak direct to you in his own words.

Words: Mike Ballard with intro, endy bit and swear filter by Nolionsinengland
Photos: nolionsinengland except Mike Ballard where noted



“The title is The Shadows of Tomorrow. As in today is the shadow of tomorrow, and just sort of now...Present and stuff. Taken from the Madvillain tune 'shadows of tomorrow.


Photo: Mike Ballard


The character with the rays coming out of his eyes, that’s Vision, but in negative.



The first ceiling focal point is a man exploding, just opening to the universe,he looks a little bit like Jesus but its actually a silhouette of Quasar from the comic era. I thought I’d put him on the ceiling because its [like] opening up to the sky.




There are power figures like the wolf, the superhero, and the face looking backwards is a really graphic version of a character from Carravagio. Then it goes psychedelic with the doors leading out to the universe, mortality, double skulls. This looks like a turban but its a chest, I mirrored it there, on top of the cloak coming down then it starts going into a bit of wild style.




The other ceiling focal point is based on synchronised swimmers, I did this stop animation of this clock ticking round – I thought it would be a good centre piece,. The first focus is more of an explosion but this is more of a 60s trippy looking and round here, more false perspective type thing.




Down the other passage [along front of building] we get mystical again with this horse, a power figure and these dismembered bodies, is part of a sketch by Rubens, part of it is figurative, then the female superhero’s arm is going up and another superhero with a knife where the horse’s second leg would be and then it just flows of into style.




The fissure, the crack is the cosmos all just opening up, the clouds, the energies, the dust from the hooves from the horse, then a bit more planetary solar system stuff, and then..i just thought the girl looked right painted opposite. At first people didn’t see the girl, until I joined it up with the ceiling. Since I did the rest, the girl and the animals have become a bit more visible.




I like the dismembered limbs, just like the bits but I always like painting girls. Like the sorceress from the University of Arts All Of Everything work.




This is not so much an exhibition, i was commissioned by the pub to install all this painting, i am working on a lot more video and collage stuff for a show later on in the year which is more the direction i am on at the moment.

I just like to muck about with the perspective and the scale of things like the size of this girl compared to the horse, just throwing it in, it’s just a weird jumble of things but it has this energy, I’m really into the horses and the clouds from the hooves, energy, dynamic , battle things.



I’d say it took a week and a half solidly, the floor will get fucked up, that’s why we varnished it.

Next one after this, I might try different colours, red and white, blue and white.


Photo: Mike Ballard


The first Ballard room was installed at the Cept v. Mike Ballard in Dalston, the room was an irregular shape entered by going upstairs and down stairs and under half height barriers, think something like a children’s bouncy ball den but marginally more sinister. The second was The All Of Everything, a celebration of the life and demise of the University of The Arts, London which was the last show in the space before it was knocked down to make way for the new Cross London line.

Unlike the those two Ballard rooms, this one is likely to last. Check out upstairs at the Macbeth Public House, Hoxton Street, London. Ongoing!