Daytripping – Cardiff Street Art and Graffiti

Any excuse to blow the London vapours from the lungs will do so my travels recently took me to Cardiff thanks to a cheap rail ticket promotion. Cardiff is the capital of Wales and, as a specimen of street art informs me, the 6th most “at risk” city in the world from rising water levels.

Cardiff At Risk - artist unknown


I have previous with Cardiff, having been born there, schooled there and fled from there. It was a shithole until I left, now look at it! In the mid 00s when I joined Flickr with its global community of artists, writers and photographers I realised early on that Cardiff has some seriously good spraycan artists, so an art visit was well overdue. This is not a guide to Cardiff’s street art and graffiti scene, I am certain there is more and there are different artists and other locations; think of it as me sharing a snapshot of some of the stuff I happened to find and enjoy on one particular day.

My Dog Sighs & others


I headed into the area south of the train station, dark streets where we used to drink and play pool in the old Bristol Hotel, drawn in that direction not by an awareness of any art locations, just simple curiosity at a new exit from the train station which I don’t think existed when I was a kid. N3KOcardiff trans rights stickers


South of the station there was barely a single building I recognised but one thing they never change are the railway bridges so it was nice to find to rough and raw pieces on those familiar surfaces.

Past, Jams


Rmer1, as in “Armour”, stood out in my online remote appreciation of Cardiff’s street art scene, my 150% certainty was that if I did find any Rmer artwork it would be one of his photorealistic portrait pieces. I was dead pleased when one of the first tags I found was Rmer1.

Hoxe1 Rmer1


That tag was found on Womanby Street, a drag that screams “diehard 18 year old drinkers from the valleys” and most of the art seemed bar related. There was some good stuff and when you have talent like Dr Zadok combining with Karm and Rmer the result such as this portrait of 2015 Welsh Music Prize 2015 winner Gwenno Saunders is inevitably impressive.

Zadok, Karm, Rmer1


After a delicious humus and felafal sourdough in the indoor market a hired bike took me west the short distance to Sevenoaks Park in Grangetown where I found this enormous RIP tribute to deceased graffiti writer NERVE. The fragmented blockbuster letter outlines served as a frame within which writers paid their respects in a coordinated colour scheme.

Nerve RIP wall


I couldn’t believe my luck in coming across this crisp, clean, colour coordinated graff seemingly painted quite recently given its pristine freshness. It was quite a surprise when a bit of research revealed it dates back to June 2021, there is absolutely zero chance, almost, of anything lasting that long unscathed up here in London.

Nerve RIP wall


Nerve RIP wall


One writer who's style caught my eye in that Nerve tribute and a couple of other spots was Elvs. ELVS


TIP: When exploring art in a new town, never take the same road twice. A different route back to the centre led to the chance find of a long extent of graffed up hoardings on the embankment of the River Taff leading to an entrance to the Rugby stadium. Rugby fans have to have something to piss against I suppose.

Millenium Stadium Taff Embankment


Newer


AMOK


Cesto


Sepr


Apart from strange spiky posts covered in furious tags, the pieces on the boards were virtually unblemished with little to no dogging or lining out. Close inspection of one piece did show evidence of some local beef, lining out had been repaired and the same taking out style deployed against the same writer was observed in several spots across the city.

A longer ride took me through Cardiff’s impressive civic centre towards the Roath area where spectacular murals and cobbled alleyway pieces can be found.

Lowther Keys Dan Green


Helen Bur, Colour Doomed collab


City Road ish


Familiar artists abound though the art piece that excited me most was a My Dog Sighs painting in support of Ukraine in which the photorealistic eyeball reflection expresses the explosive horror or a Russian missile attack. My Dog Sigh’s painting went viral on social media in the early weeks of the current conflict.

My Dog Sighs support for Ukraine



My Dog Sighs


With spring light holding up well a random loop up the side of Roath Park then back west hemmed in by the Western Avenue revealed individual isolated art works are to be found by the vigilant eye.

Alex Pawson


This mural by SPK dating from 2015, survives on a wall which has all the hallmarks of a building extension jerry built on top of an existing garden wall, Boris was a pariah among the righteous even before becoming PM (but you knew that).

SPK Anti fox hunt Boris Johnson


It’s the legs of the badger down the badger sett painted where once would have been a garden gate is a use of wall topography that amuses and impresses.

Boris Johnson fox hunt supporter - SPK


They say one of the first signs of gentrification is street art moving in; I remember this cut-through to the train station opening some 35 or so years ago, seems Cardiff’s street art lags the gentrification :-))

Helen Bur / Wasp Elder Collab


This trip to Cardiff was part art, part graffiti and part nostalgia. Despite no prior research into locations a random exploration of Cardiff yielded a satisfying quantity of art and for that randomness was actually all the more interesting. We shall return.

All photos: Dave Stuart

Meeting Of Styles UK 2014

all photos NoLionsInEngland except HowAboutNo where stated

Meeting Of Styles is an international celebration of the art of the spraycan, graffiti and music. Since 2002 Meeting Of Styles spraycan art jams have taken place in 16 countries. Last weekend it was the turn of Shoreditch to host the Meeting Of Styles UK 2014 event. Billed as featuring nearly 60 artists, though some on the list didn’t make it and some who painted weren’t on the pre event MOS list, our own entirely unofficial crude estimate is that about 350m of walls were decorated.

I will be amazed if Shoreditch sees another wall smashed in this style this year, right to left top: Gent48, Vibes RT, Odisy; bottom: Soker, Ders, Twesh riffing on a man vs beast theme


View LARGE


We went to our first Meeting Of Styles event in 2008 when it was held on the roof and walls of what is now Village Underground on Holywell lane and Great Eastern St. That was back in the day when you never saw street art or graffiti being created live in the daytime so on that occasion it was incredibly exciting to mingle with artists and watch this incredible graffiti being created, all in the ambience of super cool party with great music and great drink.


2008, End Of The Line offices, Village Underground



2008, Village Underground


This weekend there were artists out in force everywhere you walked, all quite happy to chat and be photographed - on the whole. Mainly. Well, some perhaps, if you asked politely.


Lovepusher



Zadok


ID Crew were out represented by Stika, Tizer, Lovepusher and Wisher, joined by friends Aeon Fly and bridged over by the legend 3DOM from Bristol


Stika, Tizer, Lovepusher, Wisher, 3Dom, Aeon
View LARGE


CHU wrestled with the most challenging multi-faceted surface of the weekend and created a greatest hits medley of his tongue in cheek work. This sparked controversy when a commercial spraypaint outfit painted over half of his work the day after, not good but in way, just an accelerated form of the normal life cycle of street art.


CHU


Alongside CHU, Inkfetish’s character cradles masterful bubblegum coloured 3D lettering.


Inkfetish


I was surprised to see the old Curtain Theatre mural painted over but it had accumulated a lot of un-authorised additional art over the years and End Of The Line brought their A game to the negotiation of spots and the results of Sepr, Dank and Inkie’s weekend are particularly impressive.


Dank



Sepr, Inkie


Die Dixons came from Germany, their cheeky use of a traffic cone was one of the more inventive approaches to overcoming the physical limits of a wall.


Die Dixons


London based Norwegian Zina had to contend with a strong breeze blowing the spray across her wall to paint this martial arts inspired piece


Zina


This wall by Squirl, SPZero 76, Captain Kris and Si Mitchell of the Lost Souls crew is probably the strongest piece I have seen yet from this unit.


Squirl, SPZero 76, Captain Kris and Si Mitchell, photo HowAboutNo


Elph and Hicks worked an underwater landscape in the company of Candi and AR. Getting to paint a wall at Meeting Of Styles on only your second time painting on the streets (AR) kind of waters down the idea that we are seeing the legends and the best of the best.


Hicks



Elph


Meeting of Styles is the full package with art, food and a party groove. The Beatbox Collective teamed up with a friend to lay down aa awesome beatbox and sax combination on the Sunday evening to a totally chilled Pedley St wasteland crowd.


Beatbox Collective & cool sax playing friend


Approaches to painting ranged from block letter and wildstyle graffiti to abstract, cartoon to old masters, characters to animals, photorealistic to surreal. A bit of everything for everyone and undoubtedly a massive refresh of the Shoreditch landscape, surely the biggest MOS in the UK yet. More photos of the MOS walls HERE