Showing posts with label Toasters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Toasters. Show all posts

Sunday 12 April 2020

Diggin In The Archives 2

Another seven days of posting photos of street art dredged from the archives. In lockdown you have plenty of time with your thoughts and the wandering mind generates random recollections. Those which stand out lead to a photo being thrust into the limelight. So there was some kind of logical process behind the selection of images from week 3 in lockdown, even if the process is irrefutable evidence of lockdown fever.

In 2009 Jeff Soto painted some awesome street art in Shoreditch. Graffoto reviewed his StolenSpace show Inland Empire starting per Graffoto's wont with a look at some street art. At time of the review 4 pieces of Jeff Soto street art in Shoreditch had been found, this beauty was the 5th, his “Thanks London”. Ultimately there were 6.

Jeff Soto 2009
Jeff Soto, 2009


On the Posher fringes of the Notting Hill - Paddington border this was an unexpected mewsy location full of character. Paul Insect's spider was the size of a small child and provoked the awe of this big child.

Paul Insect, 2009
Paul Insect, Paddington, 2009


Vhils was pretty much the star of Cans Festival in 2008, he returned in 2009 and created some awesome art. This pair of portraits in Camden were amazing, the technique is basically removing the hoarding surface, like chiselling or drilling perhaps but quite how the patterned effect on the other portrait was achieved best remains an artistic mystery.

Vhils 2009
Vhils, Camden, 2009


Vhils 2009
Vhils, Camden, 2009


If interiors designers could replicate the distressed wood effect of 124 Hackney Road it would be in every wooden staircase in Islington - oh wait! Many many lovely pieces of art appeared on this faƧade at the beginning of the last decade, it is actually sad to see it looking so sterile these days. This collaboration between Ella et Pitr and Macay complimented that surface beautifully.

Ella et Pir and macay collab, 2010
Ella et Pitr & Macay, Shoreditch, 2010


For many years my mental equilibrium was both preserved and yet shattered by daily breaks from the grindstone for walks with photography companion and art show/drinking/blog buddy Sam Martin aka Howaboutno. Anything could happen and rarely did. One lunchbreak we spotted a pair of traffic wardens about a hundred yards distant, something made us suspect they weren't run of the mill meter maids. Turned out it was Tinsel Edwards and Twinkle Troughton ticketing parked cars with spoof parking ticket/artworks. I still have mine. Bonkers but fun, these days its just charity chuggers and product samples.

Read about the ire they provoked on the streets on Graffoto.co.uk

Tinsel Edwards & Twinkle Troughton, Oct 2009
Tinsel Edwards and Twinkle Troughton, Oct 2009


Tinsel Edwards & Twinkle Troughton, Oct 2009
Parking Ticket


Tinsel Edwards & Twinkle Troughton, Oct 2009
“Best of Times, Worst of Times”, ed 500


Is it an armada of invading toaster erupting from a portal or toasters being sucked into a black abyss? It was 2009. The genius of something so banal! You could not help but smile every time you saw Toasters sporting the colours of Wolverhampton Wanderers home kit pop up, except when it was in the away end cos that generally signalled home defeat for QPR.

Toasters, 2009
Toasters, Kingsland Road, 2009


Phlegm, one of my fav artists, has been doing a very entertaining series of daily sketches of life in lockdown in his own unique style. Yesterday's was a characteristically Heath Robinson bike.

Phlegm (permission to use in instagram message)
Phlegm, “Bike maintenance”, 2020


Here is a couple of photos which “interrogates the boundary” between hipster bikes and street art. "AMAZING" is by Eine from 2009. The dude on the elevated bike which looks like the prototype for Phlegm's drawing must surely have had an interesting time doing emergency stops (2008). In the background is a fragment of Eine’s 2008 EXCITING.

I could have responded to the theme with photos of street art where my bike accidentally encroached on the shot, got loads of thosešŸ˜‚

AMAZING Unicyclist, art by Eine
AMAZING unicyclist, Hackney Road, 2009


Exciting cyclist, art by Eine
EXCITING two storey bike, Old St, 2008


Art credits and links are by each photo. All photos: Dave Stuart

Friday 15 June 2012

Banger Art



13 Jun 2012 - 1 night only
then Lovebox Festival, Victoria Park, London
15 Jun - 17 Jun 2012



all photos NoLionsInEngland, except HowAboutNo where stated

OK, so who’s idea was it to mash up memories of an embassy car park (Banksy, Swiss Embassy, London) with the spirit of a secret NY subway station (Workhorse et al, Underbelly)? Step forward Nelly Duff with their one night only art on scrapyard fodder jalopies in an abandoned basement car park under an intimidating Hackney block.

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St Peters Estate underground car park


Street art gets the setting it deserves in this underground swamp, it is filthy, reeks of piss in corners, had to be swept of needles and shit and figuratively is a million miles from the sanitised, optimised cubicles most art in the city is seen in. The walls are festooned with graffiti evidencing a propensity towards racism (NF), football tribalism and even burned out occult weirdness.

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St Peters Estate Car Park: "they'll kill you...before we lay" apparently

This show is as much about the vibe as the art. Over this space is a concrete playground surrounded by high rise council flats.  Intended originally for the cars of local residents, the space became the problem haunt of junkies and vandals with a noted propensity for torching vehicles. Contributing nothing to easing the social issues in the area, the council sealed off the car park many years ago, residents who have lived in the blocks for over 10 years said they had never seen it open. Brutal walls and stark lighting lend a grimy austerity which fuels the sense of in-hospitable danger. Calcifying stalactites leach out of the concrete and drip something that probably isn’t spring water on cars and punters.  So it's a perfect place for some street art.

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Aida


Ten artists jumped at the chance to pimp clapped out cars, though Jorge Rodrigues-Gerada confided he would have liked his to have been burned out and rusty as well, who’d have thought that’d have been too much to wish for round here. Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada is far better known in America where his forte is the top-to-bottom building end gable photorealistic portraiture done in charcoal. The rougher the surface the better he says, this car represents quite a different scale to his usual street works. The medium is charcoal on white paint in the style of revenge attack on teacher’s car. I love the detail of the photographer reflected in the eyeball.

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Jorge Rodrigeuz-Gerada


Dr D never misses a political target and this week has seen a former Prime Minster of the UK demonstrate the extent to which politicians have been at the whim of an excessively dominant media baron. Politicians and the press are stable targets for Dr D so he/she/they (whatevah) must be wetting themselves with the revelations in London this week about the media and government taking dirty weekends away to finger eachother, while the media mogul stuffs hoards of cash in tax shelter hide-a-aways made from feeding us a diet of scandal, lite porn and celebs. The scary thing is the headlines pasted in the car are from real lfe.

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Dr D - Tits and Farce


Eine’s Beemer has been decorated in a crystalline diamond pattern which originated from the new direction used for the background of his recent Lowrie Museum mural, The application slick and mechanical, the colour pops off the car though photos from the Lowry suggest that the pattern works better in lighter colours as background to huge circus font letters rather than the small stencil tags on automobile bodywork.

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Eine - Diamond Beemer


Dan Hillier’s car was stuck in the darkest corner furthest from the bar, probably not being seen by many in its paste-up’d glory, which is a shame as the scary surrealistic fauna as humanity and dali-esque bodies are fascinating.

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Dan Hillier


Toasters have thrown almost the full stencil repertoire at their racy looking machine, flames and flying stones in the form of buff toasters, abstract toaster parts and dayglo toasters spew out from the tyres of their car, there is no shyness about bold colours here. See how many toaster parts you can spot!

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Toasters


The average man on East London council estate if pressed to identify the piece of graffiti he notices most often would almost certainly recollect “them teef wiv the pink gums”. Not content with just a car to batter, Sweet toof has boldly gone “all car park” producing a myriad of lenticular faces across several successive pillars, not to mention teef, teef and more teef everywhere.

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Sweet Toof


Sweet Toof seems capable of transforming any paintable surface into a sickly sweet menace of teef, check the wing mirrors, the Merc badge and out of shot even a fire hose reel has been subjected to the slack jawed toof decay thing. Sweet Toof’s pimp mobile looks like it is venting pink vapours into the gloom of the roof as it positively glows with marshmallowness, has pink ever managed to look so malevolent?

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Sweet Toof


Part 1 of this reflection on Banger Art closes with a selection of photos from ace snapper HowAboutNo. Part 2 will be with you in the next couple of days, you may anticipate more stunning photos and highlights from the St Peters Estate bunker.

UPDATE - Part 2 featuring Pablo Delgado, Aida, Will Barras, Matt Small and others here (opens in new window)

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Matt Small, Aida, Sweet Toof


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Pablo Delgado, Sweet Toof


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Dan Hillier


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Jorge Rodriquez-Gerada

More delicious HowAboutNo photos in a flickr set here