Showing posts with label Jef Aerosol. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jef Aerosol. Show all posts

Sunday 7 June 2020

Diggin In The Archives Pt 10

When I first began to explore street art one my favourite artists was and indeed still is French stencillist Jef Aerosol. This Aerosol masterpiece was on Hanbury street and marked more or less a the time that this wall was just beginning to be used for permissioned murals.

Jef Aerosol 2010
Jef Aerosol 2010


Shoreditch street art was dominated by stencilism in the 00s and why not, Banksy was the stencil artist kicking down the doors of public disinterest and general hostility. K-Guy was and again still is a great personal favourite. This is his take on the dual significance of the national flag, a symbol of pride yet also racism.

K-Guy 2008
K-Guy 2008


The next photo shows K-Guy’s artwork in context. In 2007 Shepard Fairey hit that spot with a long lasting paste-up (a spot he returned to in 2012). Sotheby’s and Bonhams started their urban art auctions in early 2008, others then hitched to that bandwagon. This was probably the first occurrence I came across of an arts related organisation destroying a piece of street art in pursuit of advertising. This shit still goes on and basically if you see street art being damaged in pursuit of the commercial interests of galleries, auctions and online sellers, then it’s a clear sign the fuckers do not get the culture, steer clear.

K-guy 2008 featuring Shepard Fairey – defaced, dissed and abused
K-guy 2008 featuring Shepard Fairey – defaced, dissed and abused


Special Offer: Free Art! The stencil on cardboard below was a piece of free art by the prolific, varied and much missed street artist Mr Farenheit. Hopefully it went to a good home. This doorway in fact the whole building, now demolished, was always intensely distressed and beautifully decayed; muscular rust on the iron door had very little sympathy for any paper pasted onto its surface. “Special Offer” is a detail from an ACE paste up; the thick black bars emerging over Twiggy’s left shoulder are a Paul Insect relic; D7606 also did great paste up montages on this door and it’s a rare photograph where you can’t see one of his pieces at this spot.

Mr Farenheit, 2013
Mr Farenheit, 2013


The pair of birds in the next photo by artist and graffiti writer Dr Zadok are done in the swirling style which characterizes both his graff letters and his art. Alleyn Gardens habitués will note the virgin brickwork on the then relatively new North London Line.

Dr Zadok 2013
Dr Zadok 2013


The image below shows Dr Zadok’s hand finished bookcover in aid of Joe Epstein aka LDNgraffiti’s fundraiser for Great Ormond St Hospital. More details and information about how you can to support the fund raiser and maybe win one of these fantastic prizes in the #LDNGOSHLottery is HERE. Keep an eye out on LDNGraffiti’s Instagram for further announcements of more prizes.

LDN GOSH Charity Book with Dr Zadok Cover art
LDN GOSH Charity Book with Dr Zadok Cover art


Swoon again, simply because she rocks. Close to Broadway Market, 2011.

Swoon, 2011
Swoon, 2011


Borondo was an extraordinary painter who lived in London for a number of years in the early part of the 00s. His impressionist murals channelled the effect of strong colours but he first appeared doing single layer portraits created by splashing emulsion on the outside surface of glass windows then etching imagery into the paint with a fork. Two artworks survive, the “11 Apostles” on the Bull in a China Shop on Shoreditch High Street is easy to find. This pair of figures from 2013 play with the window frames; the scraped paint has settled like frost on the window ledge.

Borondo, Brick Lane 2013
Borondo, Brick Lane 2013


And now, something consigned to the archive in just the past fortnight !Things turned a brighter shade of orange across a locked down (ish) Picadilly Circus as the iconic illuminations displayed a charity digital artwork by Stik. Stik must be alongside Shep Fairey and Banksy in the ranks of street artists who most consistently use their art for deserving causes. This installation was in support of Young Westminster Foundation.

Stik Picadilly Circus June 2020
Stik Picadilly Circus June 2020


Stik is also one of the 9 street artists who have joined Joe Epstein to raise funds for Great Ormond St Hospital. Each artist has created a special version of the book by hand painting the cover, so that’s 9 unique versions of the book.

See HERE for a blogpost with more images, details and link to how to support the fund raiser and maybe win one of these fantastic prizes in the #LDNGOSHLottery and keep an eye out as well for further announcements of more prizes.

LDN GOSH Charity Book with Stik Cover art
LDN GOSH Charity Book with Stik Cover art


We didn’t clap for carers in the UK this week, the mood switched more to pressurising on the government to fund the carers properly, and reward them not to mention try a little bit of planning for a change as a second wave is held likely. Seems like a good moment to shelve Diggin In The Archives, though it has been a happy accident of exploring my own archives and memories and so don’t rule out DITA’s resurrection sometime.

Check out the previous Diggin’ In The Archives weekly compendiums starting with week 1 and then hopefully navigate the index to find the rest: DITA 1

All photos: Dave Stuart

Saturday 10 January 2015

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.

10929015_10152932847252225_4787075268080939536_n art and photo by Jef Aerosol
Art: Jef Aerosol; photo courtesy Jef Aerosol


10891896_10153023373311310_4252148813345942426_n art and photo by 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
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.

Je Suis Charlie
#jesuischarlie


Freedom of Speech
'jesuischarlie


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

Graffiti Life
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.

Saturday 9 February 2008

Jef Aerosol Spray It Loud

Islington Arts Factory 8 Feb 2008


There are many reasons why people move out of central London…less stress, better schools, nature, the environment and definitely more space! Jef Aerosol’s new Show at the Islington Art Centre, not too far from Newcastle and roughly level with Stavangar, certainly has more space, more space for hanging, more quirky corners for hiding smaller canvasses and more space where crowds should be. Compared to a dense central London opening, this felt quite lightly populated though how many people were hidden away in the nooks crannies and side rooms at this converted church can’t be told.

Aerosol paints icons. Ghandi said an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Blind Angle present substantial collection of portraiture on canvas, silkscreen prints and installation, all with the stencil as the chosen tool.




Colours are predominantly red and black so no break with Aerosol convention there, though the Blurting The Truth canvasses with red arrows spurting out through the artist’s fingers come in green, red, orange and purple with coloured rain splashing from on high.



Many images are familiar from the streets of London and France, but there are some new images. The 9 canvas colourway repetition of the Eros (Piccadily Circus) statue places the Christian Angel well over to the left to fire a cheeky trademark Aerosol arrow across the canvas.



Running through Aerosol’s work is a series of contrasts. The main wall installation highlights the gulf between the haves and the have-nots, the wealthy fame sluts and the invisible underdog. Deified personalities lord it over the downtrodden; Johnny Rotten, Nureyev, Sid Vicious and Twiggy sit aloof over an old beggar woman and her offspring, a farmer and his cow, and a dispassionate negro boy. The icons take centre stage, whilst the hungry, the aged and the dis-enfranchised lurk behind pillars and on walls down the sides of stairs and in corridors.


Rock and pop gods are here in abundance with representatives of the lifetime fully realised genius of say Neil Young juxtaposed with images of talent briefly flowered but taken early such as Jim Morrison, Sid Barrett and Ian Curtis. The rock portraits suffer simultaneously from familiarity through permeation into our conciousness through constant exposure and familiarity as Aerosol subjects. Knowing the subjects too well exposes the limitations of applying stencilism to portraiture, as the faces appear crudely contoured and curiously shaded. Is that a shadow above Iggy Pop’s lip or a hole where a nose should be? It is also hard to ignore that the rock star as canvas subject matter is the province of sweat shop artistry churned out ultra cheap for the student bedsit market, the parallel creating a gross under-estimation of Aerosol’s talent.

Aerosol’s captures a dynamic motion more successfully than any other practising stencilist. His flautist leaps with unrestrained exuberance and compare the original with the quality of Aerosol’s stencil as Nureyev throws himself into his ballet routine.

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Twiggy brings a breath of Carnaby street glamour though she looks more like a destitute orphan with an strangely oversize right arm than a symbolic waif-beauty.

Two prints were available, the intense richly red black and white self portrait with Mickey Mouse ears titled “Wake Up”, this manic staring Aerosol must have been woken with a cattle probe. The second print is the 100 x 100 sitting kid, an stencil of immense detail and pathos.


This is a charming show, the space to circulate is welcome, the irregular shape makes a pleasant change to the routine box cube gallery. Congratulations to Blind Angle for a very well handle print sale, with owners identities collated against the print number and a typed CoA handed over with the print, wish all galleries were so fastidious.

Tuesday 24 July 2007

Jef Rocks My Aer (o) Sol

Have known the name for a while, but never properly checked out Jef until his recent bout of paste ups. Amazingly simple and simply amazing . . . .(pass me the sick bag after that large dose of cheese please stewardess)