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


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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
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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

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.

Shades Of Things To Come

feat ARYZ, BISER, BOM.K, DOES, NYCHOS, PROBS, RABODIGA, TIZER

Maverik Showroom
Redchurch St, London
25th - 29th (Sunday!) November 2009

All photos: NoLionsInEngland


When Probs23, laden with experience of putting on shows at The Dragon Bar (RIP) and a little black book filled with phone numbers of some the World’s best graff writers, not to mention the arranger of several London Meetings Of styles jams says he’s working with London graff heads favourite adopted son Tizer to put on a show, well you sit up and pay attention.


Probs – Shoreditch, London



Tizer – West London


The line-up is phenomenal and all apart from Bom.K (if memory serves) featured in this year’s London Meeting of styles.


Askym Bonsai Nash Biser Nychos Wany Aryz Does, MOS 2009, London


On the upper ground floor each of the artists has taken on an 8 by 4 panel , the standout being the violent distress of Biser’s abstract pterodactyl painted over cardboard, ink, paper and almost anything he could get to stick to the surface.


Biser – 8 by 4 panel



Biser – 8 by 4 panel detail


A set of four very deep chipboard boxes have been painted by Nychos, Does, Aryz and Biser , each producing something distinctive for their individual style yet each has used the managed to work the underlying chopped wood as if it was an un-prepped surface behind their graffiti.


Nychos, Does, Aryz and Biser


Tizer is a legend for letterforms, fills and characters so it is not a surprise that his work moves easily into the gallery. Among the canvasses, panels and sketches it is cool to find framed sketches featuring instantly recognisable Tizer characters annotated with the music that set the mood.


Tizer


Probs has been working with swirling vortices and warped intergalactic space effects in a number of wall pieces over the past year and these themes appear in several sketches and prints displayed in the show. The most stunning pair of canvasses take things in a very abstract direction and whilst the title Big Spaceora suggests more inter-planetary cosmic goodness but they could just as easily be read as sub microscopic intra-cellular life form skin fragments.


Probs – Big Spaceora


Rabodiga has one new piece in the show but seems to struggle making the canvas compositions appeal as much as her street face portraits.


Rabodiga – Queen Of Hearts


One of my pet hates is when writers do a large floor to ceiling piece on the gallery wall over a set of canvasses which each contains a small part of the piece, usually resulting is a set of meaningless accidental abstracts. Biser avoids this mess by writing his burner across a trio of canvasses, a gorgeous eruption of paint probes across a dirty drippy background, the wild lettering haemorrhages a slime of immiscible colour runs


Biser – Triptych Splats


Four favourite pieces:
Jaw dropping show-stopper is this very large canvas from Bom.K featuring snarling mutants rule a post apocalyptic (well, ok, slightly damaged) urban landscape, enormous amounts of detail in the composition and precision in the painting, many curious observers scrutinised the surface very closely seeking clues about Bom.K’s painting technique, several speculated the method is based on spray applied though airbrush.


Bom.K – Large Scale


Aryz has two spectacular canvasses, London (below) is a stunning colour shifting copper toned essay on booze and tea in an isolated self important world, which pretty much sums London up. Also check out his “Melting Portrait” on the flickr link below, another phenomenal canvas.


Aryz – London


Nychos contributes one of the large 8 by 4 panels, a deep chipboard box, sketches, a screen print and several canvasses ranging from the small (about 12 inches from memory) and ridiculously cheap canvasses featuring a rabbit character reminiscent of Studio Ghibli’s Totoro to this beautiful box headed roller wielding squid on acid paper.


Nychos – Box Head Squiddy


Like Biser, Does brings his letters off the streets and into the gallery, the meticulous detail of the lettering and the awesome fill patterns pop off the black backgrounds on a collection of five landscape canvasses.


Does


Graffoto tends not to write about group shows but this one is epic and has so many impressive pieces, two visits really weren’t enough. The art is extremely good yet a large amount of it retains something of the energy and roughness of street work. Probs and Tizer have put a load of effort into curating this show, gathering a strong collection of work and displaying the art to best effect, the attention to detail has paid off( though perhaps the piza-esque tower of print tubes in the basement is a distraction!). The show closes this Sunday, 29 Nov so there isn’t that much time left to whizz along and take in the goodness.

The Ti(des)zer...They Are A Changing? ?

A fairly prominent wall in Shoreditch, almost a whole building 'taken out'. . . HA and ID crews in attendance....




Buffed by the trigger happy council boys like everything else? Who knows!

But by christ if this is the shape of the future state of Shoreditch, I like it!