Showing posts with label Twinkle Troughton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Twinkle Troughton. 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

Tuesday 3 November 2009

Tinsel Edwards, Twinkle Troughton, Meter Maids!

Irate motorists in Shoreditch and Hoxton took a hammering last Thursday as a blizzard of parking tickets were issued in a blitz on cars in the area. The usual sealed sellophane wrappers warned that it was illegal for any one other than the driver of the vehicle to remove the ticket.




While on a lunch break constitutional Graffoto caught un-expectedly up with a pair of wardens leading the onslaught on parking in the area. From behind there was something familiar and saucy about the cascading black hair, the seamed stockings and the red stilettos and catching up our suspicions were confirmed.




It was Twinkle Troughton and Tinsel Edwards dressed to kill as meter maids – pulses raced I can tell ya, if only real traffic wardens looked like this.




The very realistic cellophane wrappers turned out to contain not a ticket but a limited edition signed piece of mini art titled “It Was The Best Of Times, It Was The Worst Of Times”, featuring a closed UK high street institution, Woolworths.




Loss of jobs, industries and insecurity are a wide-spread reality for millions caught in the recession fall-out yet one senses a ray of hope in Twinkle adn Tinsel's sentiments, a possibility that within the recession people do find the inner reserves to rebuild, recover and grow. Out of the negative coming a positive.

Imagine the shifting emotions of a driver thinking they’d picked up a parking fine only to find they’d actually been gifted a piece of free street art. Again, out of a negative coming a positive.




So there you have it, Twinkle and Tinsel make an event of giving out free art, cheer up at least two wandering wage slaves (Graffoto doesn’t run on fresh air you know) and throw around complex ideas about emotional polarities into the bargain.