Sweet Toof And Paul Insect, London, 2011

Lots of fun recently quietly observing a furtive pair of artists working silently and swiftly on one of London’s less accessible rooftops.


Sweet Toof and Paul Insect, London Rooftop, 2011 from NoLionsInEngland on Vimeo.



It took 4 nights and about 50 litres of paint for Sweet Toof and Paul Insect to blend signature imagery in this visible-from-space collaborative masterpiece. In essence, the painting is a double headed face munching away at the rooftop hut. Best viewed from 1,000 feet, the symmetry ensures the effect is the same whether viewed from the east over the Olympic Stadium or the west.

From the photography point of view this mission had a few tricky aspects. Obviously you can’t go throwing huge illuminative arcs of light around so you work with the natural light. The first night, after about 20 minutes the low cloud base boiled away and the urban-orange sky turned black plunging the rooftop into darkness. At the end of the clip you can see the opposite happen. Exposure times varied dramatically between 10 and 30 seconds.

There are two gas boiler outlets on the upper level, the output from those condenser boilers is bloody wet. Using a patented knotted rope to get up there to set up a camera position, the wind would veer and back unpredictably giving the camera a misty drenching.

I flew BA over the Olympic Stadium the other day but couldn’t find any landmarks other than the Olympic Stadium, there should be a prize for the first photo from a scheduled airliner!

UPDATE:
At last, Aug 2012, an aerial shot


BACKDATE
Dark Horse, Sweet Toof's first New York solo show opens at Factory Fresh on 29th of April 2011

Paul Insect has just collaborated with Sickboy on an installation at the onethirty3 space in Newcastle

Artists: Sweet Toof, Paul Insect

Photography, video: NoLionsInEngland

Music: Booze - Insanity Drive

Is Street Art Dead?

all photos: NoLionsInEngland


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

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

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


Paul Insect


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


Mode 2



Mode 2


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

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


Fauxreel


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


Aryz


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


Tizer


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


Mantis


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


Fauxreel


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

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


Sickboy, Word To Mother (I think)


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


Vhils (sculpted render)


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

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


Grafter


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


Space Invader


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

Paul Insect - Poison show

London, 12 - 21 Sep 2008


Sleazy hookers, cartoon pimps, retro Ford Capri motors and un-usual whispered business offers are all part and parcel of the Kings Cross experience, though regulars may find Paul Insect’s Poison show at Caledonian Road scrapes the knife a little too close to the brain and retina for comfort.

Mandatory street references have been provided by Insect in London Town since the Spring of this year with the scattering far and wide of Baby’s heads, from small stickers to big paste ups.


Farringdon Road, London, March 08


A plethora of baby heads with their cutaway skulls ask Steve Pinker-ish questions about thought processes, subconscious, innate mental programming and generally set a theme for the major works in the rest of the temporary space. In addition to a set of five babies with circuit boards, inner eyes and general abstract psychedelia, babies have been pasted all over the wall and part of the ceiling to create a crushing and vaguely sinister foetal soup.


Bunny Heads – photo: Wallkandy

A set of glossy colourful cartoon-ishly disfigured religious icons are described as acrylic on found religious iconography but the underlying icons look un-lived, un-marked and a bit fresh mounted on smooth sharp gold paper. If these came from the reject skip at a Coptic church’s rehang then it was a truly remarkable find.


Icon


The second room with its semi relief columns may remind Pictures On Walls of mid budget porn and we thank them for the enlightenment, but it really is the room where this show comes into its own. 18 unique paintings on canvas and wood touch on themes including drugs, sex, imagination, mental processes and psychological destabilisation. Oh yes, and skulls.


Collective Action 1


There are huge amounts of anatomy going on with portraits including misplaced organs and luridly coloured tracts and passages like a warped medic’s encyclopaedia.


Language Is Not Transparent


The brain comes for close examination in several pieces but rather than attributing zones to various memory types, senses or control function, Insect uses colours and wild hair to illustrate the brains lightening electric response to various stimuli.


Killer Clown


The pictures also seem to guide us towards a sense of the type of stimuli, and it looks like the key influences are those two human staples, sex and drugs. Pictures of girls kissing will have probably been the subject of a lot of the audience’s research on the internet, its hard to fail with that kind of subject matter though here we see not so much the act as the wild response triggered by this passion in the girl’s minds.


Eternal Kiss


There is also a sense that whilst the kiss may be lasting or eternal, perhaps the kiss is even fatal as close scrutiny and analysis suggests the kiss could well be a Transylvanian bite on the jugular – which will often provoke a degree of excitability in the kissee’s head.


Lasting Kiss


Some of the pieces are done on canvas but quite a few are on wood such as this supercharged crackling killer clown. Greed is possibly the trigger that has got his synapses discharging wildly into the void. Nice touch with the dribbles too.


Killer Clown 2


Back to the use of colour and eruption to embody a thought, Dreaming of Colours is included here for no reason other than it is initially my favourite piece. Is anyone else thinking “Shakespeare’s Sister”?


Thinking Of Colours


The central feature of this second room is a heavy glass table mounted on a bunny girl skeleton on all fours. This submissive sex symbol has met her end gazing at herself in the mirror.


Skeleton Table –Looking good


Her objectification and subjugation is captured in the detail of the pose right down to the stiletto boned feet.


Skeleton Table – These Heels Are Killing Me


On a practical level, the skeleton must, hopefully, be fabricated with some rigidity, the cool trick is that the eye sees a heavy table top on a skeleton but the mind needs assuring that the bones aren’t going to collapse in a percussive pile under the load.


Skeleton Table – photo Wallkandy


Through to the Hirst bait in the final room, a macabre bunny mausoleum which is absolutely mesmeric. A dozen playgirl of the month sculptural bunny skulls ghoulishly confront eachother with their death’s triumph grins and garish bunny ears, like a Hugo Heffner hosted goth fandango.


Playgirl Of The Month – Annual Review (photo: Wallkandy)

Subtle details like the canines in one skull and gold tooth in another provide more than mere differentiation, there’s actually personality. No actual personalities were harmed in the creation of these artefacts, the ingredients are described as bronze, stainless steel, cocobola (googlygook: exotic hardwood from South America), enamel paint, 24 carat gold.


Playgirl Reveals All


We may all be jaded by street art clichés and skulls are at the top of the list of offenders but it’s a relief to say that Paul Insect has taken the device and the image and successfully avoided the skulls-and-metal trite symbolism, using them in a totally refreshing and different way. Obviously this isn’t art for hanging on the staircase or over the radiator in the utility room and prices reflect that, though Damien might possibly negotiate a buy-11-get-1-free deal.

Folk who hanker after the pre-historic era of 40 quid Insect prints on the internet may be sated by the number of relative small edition prints for sale.

Insect is an artist who without doubt is playing in the Champions league rather than the Premiership, the pieces in the second and third rooms have a contemporary art sensibility that is appealing to a style ethic way beyond the basic I-like-graff-writer-stuff-in-my-lounge. The quality of the work and the presentation and lighting is a notch higher than usually accomplished in the street art field. Preceding multi-colourway sub-Warhol Insect work on James Lavelle’s album cover, and those rainbow coloured cows skulls didn’t really move him on much but there is a sense that this ought to be as pivotal as say Banksy’s Crude Oils show in broadening awareness of his work.

Choosing the pictures for this summary was a bit tricky, it might be worth having a look at a broader selection here