DScreet - Words Up

Pure Evil Gallery, Basement

London

13 - 24 Dec 08

photos: NoLionsInEngland except HowAboutNo where stated

Acid-eyed flourescent owls have been roosting around London, night and day, for the last six years or so. Like their more conventional rural cousins, these DScreet painted urban owls can be harder to spot in the daytime, specially when shutters go up.

Photo: HowAboutNo

A lucky tangential glance might catch them on vans alongside Burning Candy and ATG types

When a guy is getting up on walls with the likes of Burning Candy, Kid Acne, and SEKS then you know that a serious talent is afoot.

DScreet can mix it up a bit wildstyle with the letters on the street, as seen here

A rubble filled basement (that’s the crowd – the floor has quite a few loose bricks too) houses DScreet’s first ever gallery show and dayglo owls roost among DScreet’s other letterform art.

A curious feature of the owls is that they always present their left side, so one wonders what they are hiding on their right. They have the most intense 1000 yard stares and sabre-toothed hair-does and, whether they are the cute little baby ones or the big burly adult bastards, they are always armed with “shake-hands-at-your-peril” talons.

Four caged owls hang from beams in the basement space, their dayglo fur actually subdued in comparison to their radioactive eyes which dare you to engage in a retina burnout staring match.



In case the colours are too muted for anyone, DScreet has done one owl in twinkling blue and pink neon light, though for added effect the colour of the eyes manage to cycle through yellow when warming up.

One pair of owls is done as an embroidery piece which the label proudly proclaims to be made of 67,000 beads. That this fact is known is the scariest thing about this one, though the eyes on these owls are gorgeous. Excuse the pic, the rough aesthetic in the Pure Evil dungeon never lends itself to subtle lighting.

About half of the works on show are word pieces rendered in a blocky style with a jarring crash of colour reliefs. The irregularity of the 3D effects on the words ignores the generally accepted rules of the form.

Like So Many Strange Gods


The effect of the letter shapes and most particularly the colour combinations challenges the observer to ponder if there is some truly kinked inner pallette in DScreet’s mind. There are amusing details not to be missed, check the hara kiri letter O at the end of this piece.

That the irregular shading and inconsistent 3D effects are DScreet’s intentional distortion of the form may be supposed from the words themselves and the titles, most notably this Men Crazed With Shadows.

Men Crazed With Shadows

More twit-twoo from the show can be seen here.

Sickboy - Stay Free Show

The Tramshed

Rivington St, London

3 - 10 Dec

All photos NoLionsInEngland except where stated

If Street Art needed a hero, an anonymous posterchild, then Manc rat Sickboy would be your man-with-a-can. For large scale wall lushness all over the world, this artist’s portfolio ranks with the very best and most loved.

Firstly there are the Sickboy temples, those lurid yellowey-orange squashy bubbly mosque looking radio sets, radiating colour all over the place.

Sickboy Temple, 2007

Sickboy Temple 2008

Then there are the block letters, whose colours and composition are always verging on the ramshackle yet Sickboy always delivers a positive message in rough perfection.

Sickboy, feat Word To Mother


In addition to running with the AAGH (Ave A Go Heroes) Crew which may include Sickboy, Otick, Ponk, Phet (TBC!) Sickboy has painted with some of the best, including Burning Candy, Lister and Word To Mother, obliging his comrades to raise their game.

Brick Lane with Burning Candy

Dragon Bar Roof (RIP) with Anthony Lister

It is hard not to love the work Sickboy leaves on walls so it’s no wonder the private viewing of Sickboy’s first solo London show was rammed but let’s recall a few basic characteristics which ensure total respect: all of the graffiti was created in situ, (mostly) without permission and look stunningly gorgeous.

Sickboy love has taken over a spruced up tram shed on the fringe of London’s East End, showcasing Sickboy’s original art, prints and installations. The single cavernous room is lined with paintings on three sides, suspended by wire from the rafters because listed building sensitivities means they can’t make holes in the walls. The core of the space is occupied by a garish red and yellow oversized playhouse, looking like a cross between Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory and a Hansel and Gretel Ikea shed. The frontspace surrounding this Stay Free chalet is landscaped with small potted shrubs which close inspection reveals to be Sickboy prints.




A set of large paintings on paper pressed against coloured Perspex box frames dominate the left side of the shed. Thematically, the common denominator is a glimpse into the mind of Sickboy, illustrating its internal mechanisms as it ponders the quandaries of an urban existence. On/vol controls on the classic Sickboy Temples convey the idea of some kind radio device and many of the Sickboy paintings deal with the dilemma of information overload, with small boxes transmitting rays into Sickboy’s mind, mutated TV sets and buttons on everything.

False Hopes And Dreams

TV and Bones


Sickboy’s figurative paintings are reminiscent of the comic strip universe of the Numskulls but just the body with its passageways and linking mechanisms, not the actual Numskulls themselves.

4our Ribs And A Tuning Fork (Detail)


On the opening night, the Stay Free hut echoes the sweet factory in Charlie and The Chocolate factory, within its dark and mysterious heart three balaclaved girls in red one piece jump suit uniforms prepare Sickboy sweets which churn out to the punters on a Sickboy motif converyor belt. The girls seemed happy enough, willing to pout for the cameras and pass out sweets in exchange for swigs of beer, reflecting perhaps the condition of the oompah loompahs who are in essence slaves.

Sickly Sweet Factory – photo: HowAboutNo

A caged inflated heart maintains a dialogue with the hut from an elevated position, the heart is bursting out of its cage but like the slaves it remains tethered to its domain.

Stay Free


Inside the hut, apart from the sweet factory there is a treasure trove of past Sickboy prints and a few small edition and original pieces, believed to be new for this outing.

Technology may be (or maybe isn’t!) the windmill Sickboy mainly tilts his lance at, but one of the favourite London street pieces this year shows Sickboy railing against the acid popping auto-destructive tendencies of the yoof of today.

Woodseer St, London, 2008


That piece contains many details which echo in the new work in this show, the skeleton, the ribs and the internal links between the organs of consumption and the organs of personality, perhaps the clearest link is in the ecstasy symbolism of the smiley eyes in a trio of lurid red and yellow painted and possibly part stencilled spray on coloured Perspex Save The Youth boxes by the back door into the wendy-house.

Save The Youth


The “quilted” word squares (well, they might remind you of those mega quilts made from lots of small pieces sewn together) come to prominence in a set of four spray acrylic and ink canvas productions. The search for words is rewarded with characteristic upbeat Sickboy mantras “Love Saves The Day, Be Thankful For What You’ve Got”, “Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow”, “Stay Free and Just Be Yourself, This World Is Yours” and “I Can’t Move Mountains, I Never Said I Could, But I Can Make You Happy”

Just Be Yourself

Free Your Mind

Although many of the messages have the positive power of quasi religious commandments (or have they come from inside Christmas crackers?) many of Sickboy’s figures are mentally wilting under the onslaught of excessive communication overload. However, this doesn’t seem to be where the boy gets the prefix sick from, the work on show just merits the perversely flipped meaning of the work “Sick”, as in “sick work dude!”.

Protect The City

Plenty more pics of gorgeous, sick work from the show here.

Mutoid Mechanical Monsters In Action

Back to Mutate Britain show - again - one of those rare shows that sustains repeated visits. All the key sculptural elements familiar from earlier visits (and blog blurgghhhs!) remain in place. Jibbering Arts have an awesome selection of work by street artists from outside London and Auction Sabateur has curated a room, but the main point in writing is to share a couple of camera clips of Larry the mechanoid half Mad Max, half wallace and gommit beast in action, in close up.

This first clip is a slightly wider shot, excuse Lyle the driver while he gets off to lure the hapless camera holder in close then gives him the full fire breathing phenomenon! (turning the vol down for the first 5 seconds - highly recommended; and excuse the first few seconds of camera wobble, it kind of settles down. Kind of.)

Feb 2019: the 2010 html video insert appears to have stopped working, please click HERE to obtain this clip as hosted on flick (forgive the size of this clip, it was on a 2004 camera!)

This second clip shows Lyle rocking those knobs and levers whilst LRRY-1, to give the beast its proper name, seems to decide to do its own thing:

Feb 2019: the 2010 html video insert appears to have stopped working, please click HERE to obtain this clip as hosted on flick (forgive the size of this clip, it was on a 2004 camera!)



Sadly a bunch of pics from two visits seem to have gone missing in the big C drive jpg munching folder, so it seems like another trip back there will be required, happy days!

In case you have missed it, there was an earlier blurggh here from a week or so back looking at sculptural Joe Rush stuff (is my memory correct, was he wearing a pink teddyboy suit last Thursday?).

There are also some photos here.

Stef: French Artist Gets Churchillian On Us

England based French artist Stef (also friend of this blog and LINK DELETED) sends a very Anglo-Saxon message to folk in Shoreditch, London.




On close inspection, the installation appears to be a glazed twice-fired stoneware hand.

The background is the junction of Willow St and Great Eastern Road where a very large group of people queued to buy street art prints at Banksy printers Pictures On Walls. Stef's message addresses a street response to the rapacious appetite of investors seeking street art for investment value rather than the pure love of the streets. Sadly, some value hunter has already made off with the hand, whoever the low-life is will have a piece which eloquently expresses the feelings of real fans of street art towards the thief.




There is irony in the Frenchman's use of this symbol, as flicking the vee originated as an insult aimed by Henry V's longbow archers against the French, after the latter's charming leaning towards amputating the forefinger and middle finger of captured bowmen to prevent them firing bows. And of course, without Churchill inspiring the Brits, German would be language of choice in Paris ;-)

Mutate Britain

Every Fri, Sat, Sun from 21 Nov 08

Behind The Shutters Gallery
Cordy House
Curtain Road, London

Photos NoLionsInEngland except Wallkandy where noted


Mutate Britain is a mechanised art fuck up bursting the seams of the Behind The Shutters Gallery at Cordy House in Shoreditch, London for (we think) 5 weekends, starting about 2 weekends ago. There are scrap metal sculptural beasties, graffiti art on walls, music, a print house, an interactive graffiti wall, painted MIG jet fighter panels, art on canvasses, droid pole dancers, al in all just about the most stimulating experience of the year.

Inside the very dark and sinister first room, the End Of The Line crew and their mates have gone wild on the walls and as I don’t have the real deal camera gear, I have nicked a few pics of their impressive mural. The room also holds – though caged might be the better word - many big sculptural things but we’ll return to those later.


Photo: Wallkandy

Photo: Wallkandy


The undoubted heart and highlight of the event is provided by Mutoid Waste Company, the punk anarchic sculptural tribe that achieved notoriety in the 80s for its non conformist ethos, squat parties and rather loud music return to the country after decamping ages ago. Now they return, creating absolute mayhem in Shoreditch with mechanised Armageddon crawlers something like a cross between Mad Max, Wallace and Grommit and The Lone Ranger. An awesome collection of sculptures made from collected and welded engine parts, cutlery and anything else that would go dong if you hit it hard enough.

Joe Rush (Miss Bugs behind - ooooeerrrrr)

Joe Rush (Brett Ewins, Mode2 behind - cough)


Cordy House provides a rabbit’s warren of floors, stairs, corridors and installations to be navigated, the stairwells have been graffed up to assist the dis-oriented remain that way.

Milo Tchais

Remi Rough


Mutoid Waste were famous for, among other things, their set of pet MIG jet fighter. Days prior to this show they gave various MIG body panels out to some of the country’s finest street artists and comic illustrators and just to be perverse and because there’s enough street art in this blog already, here are a couple of the comic bloke panels.

Rufus Dayglo – Tank-Girl

Brett Ewins


Plenty of canvases and printy type art in the house, as well as more Mutoid Waste assemblages, this one being a fully decked out tacky porn club with pole dancers and DJ. Robotic of course.

Giles Walker – Pole Dancers

A couple of favourites among the superb arty stuff were:

InkFetish – It’s Weird Out There

Billy Childish


Mutoid Waste has been mentioned a few times already but here’s the real reason to try to put into a blog something that really has to be experienced to be believed. Larry the articulated nightmare on propane.


Larry by Mutoid Waste Company, Photo: Wallkandy



Larry's Head, Photo: Wallkandy

This whole post is just an excuse to show this video of Larry being taken for a fire-breathing lunchtime stroll through the streets of London.

More of NoLions entirely low level lighting photos are here; for a amazing set which captures the extravagant and at times savage beauty of this show, see Wallkandy’s pic

Mutate Britain is open for the next couple of Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays. It’s well worth a spin even if just to watch the hypnotic bump and grind of the pole dancer’s pelvic thrusts.

Herakut - Dirty Laundry

27th NOV - 7th DEC 2008
22 Wellington Street, London,

As the year draws to a close (how do artists tell when its holidays?), German boy and girl duo Herakut have staged a show of new commissioned art works through Campbarbossa, gallery with no fixed abode. The show is a sumptuous ensemble of the recent fruits of their labour and as nothing is for sale, it’s a pressure-free tribute and worship-fest.

The setting consists of a small white walled space at street level, walls maxed out with the familiar flesh tones of characteristic Herakut canvasses, while the basement becomes a sort of Dickensian upstairs-downstairs kind of maid’s parlour taking the theme of the show’s title, which itself is a title of one of the canvasses. On show are paintings by Herakut, sketches by Hera and installation elements.

Herakut: Dirty Laundry. photo: Wallkandy


Herakut is the blended word identity of the two artists Hera and Akut, and the first lesson in the increasing difficult game of spotting the artist the Herakut template is to notice the photorealistic finish imparted by Akut to eyes, lips, and the more honey skinned flesh. Hera is behind the more dramatic and flowing figurative touches and the pasty monochromatic skin not to mention the surreal blending of humans and animals as well as the slightly bizarre written statements.

At last year’s well received London show “Permission To Paint”, a piece which continues to resonate was called God Loves Ugly, this confidence boosting statement reflects Hera’s ugly ducking syndrome and is key to understanding the sentiment behind a number of the works in the Dirty Laundry show.


God Loves Ugly

A Herakut figure can be incredibly elfin, pert and slender, or with heavy thighs, broad hips and generous midriff. The details may be drawn as if they are ugly, but God isn’t the only one who loves them. Curious to note some seriously over-size feet in a couple of the pictures.

Zoning

Many of the canvasses continue last years theme of blending human and animal characteristics, through flipping the dynamic Herakut refer to the pet lover’s habit of bestowing human characteristics upon their animals behaviour, Hera and Akut are both keen pet lovers. The pug has been seen in many Herakut pieces over the last 12 months but there is only one in this show and that followed a suggestion from the buyer who commissioned the piece.

Rapacious wolves, rat faces and bunny masks are common through the many of the pieces, and it is a signature characteristic of Herakut that there is an element of melancholy in the sad eyed juvenile faces protruding under the masks. A sexual metaphor is evident in many of the Herakut paintings, none more so than in those pieces featuring a wolf about to dine upon a poor hapless naked victim. Hera highlights the malevolent influence of sex as a root cause of abuse.

She Thought She Was Too Cute

Figures tend to be done with either a rich honey-skinned tone or a deathly, pastey pale, reflecting the hand applied the paint. Most eyecatching are the gorgeous renditions of soft and smooth flesh, usually culminating in a pair of young, firm breasts. That’ll do fine thank you.


For You I’ll Do The Wierdest Shit

Hera and Akut combine photorealism and monochrome figurative elements in a bewitching medley of images. Their unlikely merger of styles now increasingly blend seamlessly, a testimony they say to the growing way they trust each other to develop a piece. Sisters, shown below, has one eye done by Akut and one eye by Hera.

Without Their Arms They Were Sisters


One motif that repeats is several forms is a sad girl bearing a monkey on her back but this monkey has passed away (it is a dead monkey, it has ceased to be). As a linguistic gambit the “monkey on the back” usually refers to a burden to be shifted by making it someone else’s problem. Herakut’s title suggests that perhaps the concept relates to existence and mortality. As usual of course, this could be complete rubbish, it’s just a guess.

Maybe We Are Dead Already


The sketches tucked under the stairs are produced by Hera working on her own, signed under her hand only. Having been trained in the basic tools of art it is no surprise that Hera is capable of these vignettes, finely drawn with incredible economy of line. This illustrates a characteristic of Heras’s art in which her characters have twig like legs and no grounding, capturing a ballerina’s sense of almost weightless floating. Saves addressing the issue of feet which would be handy, guessing here, if your feet weren’t your favourite part of your body.

Real Recognise Real

It is perhaps more of a surprise to find that many of the sketches translate so faithfully onto the larger canvasses, where in contrast to the featherlight pencil lines Hera’s painting style becomes bold, loose and extravagant in execution. Compare this sketch with “She Thought She Was Too Cute” above, it seems the demeanour of the girl has changed dramatically from a challenging and defiant “do you worst” to a meek and submissive surrender to what we suppose to be her fate.

She Thought She Was Too Cute

The downstairs installation element of the show is deliberately under-staged with no great drama or over-bearing artiness. The ambience is something of a “below stairs” servants quarters with a very cosy, clubby relaxation space and an old fashioned almost Dickensian clay tiled “no mod cons” laundry room. The washed drips look like collateral damage from laundry battles past, and form a gorgeous extension of the drips in the paintings.

Hood Rats


While “Mom” does her laundry (it is hard to reconcile the Americanism with such an English set-up), Dad seeks respite from the clinical whiteness of the upstairs area to sink into a deep leather chair next to the fire in a homely though slightly distressed chill out zone.

All the work at this show is effectively pre-sold, and is displayed as a collection, each picture being en route to its final lucky owner. With no direct return on the expense of staging this show, Campbarbossa deserves big props for putting on this show.

Whether your preference is for the richness, drips and intrigue of the canvasses or the sparse cleanliness of the sketches it is a pure joy to be able to see the set of works collected together and showcasing one of the strongest talents emerging from the street art scene today. However, if anyone at the show whispers in your ear “that one is mine”, don’t spare their feelings, apply your cricket bat to maximum effect.

Nine Eleven


A full set of pictures can be seen here though as usual, the low light in some areas challenges the camera (nothing to do with the photographer of course).


In the build up to this show Herakut were generous in their granting time for some conversation, hopefully sometime soon, who knows when - who knows where, there will be a chance to report the fruits of those interviews, you will be the first to know.