Pride Street Art In Shoreditch

 

Last weekend marked London’s main 2022 Pride celebration and a lot of new street art appeared in Shoreditch in celebration of and support for the LGBTQ community.

On the Shoreditch Street Art Tour on Sunday I was asked by one guest why the London Pride was in July rather than June as they were used to. Post tour digging revealed that “Pride in London”, the official title at present, is timed for the closest Saturday to the anniversary of the Stonewall riots in NYC which followed police raids on the Stonewall gay bar on 28th June.


Beirdo


The pride rainbow flag features in a lot of the Pride art pieces in its 6 colour traditional colour form, as opposed to the usual 7 colour representation of a rainbow. The first rainbow flag was designed by the artist Gilbert Blake in 1978 at the request of Harvey Milk (see the film Milk, excellent). It had 8 colours, the traditional 7 colours of the rainbow plus hot pink above the red. Each of the 8 colours was assigned a specific meaning. In 1979, aiming to increase flag production, the pink strip was dropped as hot pink material was not readily available. The turquoise stripe was also dropped so that the flag could be split and displayed in symmetrical paired halves each having three stripes. Thus the common Pride 6 colour rainbow evolved.

Subdude used an 8 stripe Pride flag to highlight statutory homophobia on the African continent.


Subdude


Street artist Beirdo prefers 6 colours, or perhaps was just out of hot pink and turquoise A4

.
Beirdo - Pride London 2022


Apparan sends her greetings and wishes you Happy Pride, with 7 rainbow stripes.


Apparan - Pride London 2022


Drash La Krass has a list. No homophobia, no biphobia, no transphobia, no sexism!


Drash La Krass - Pride London 2022


Ghead_Tra is a new name this year to the Shoreditch street art scene and his art hates hatred and Conservatives. The God Loves Gays tricolour specifically aims at the vile spewing Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas USA.

Ghead_art - Pride London 2022


If this next text based piece isn’t Ghead then Ghead ought to get together with the Unknown Artist as the message seamlessly blends that two big issues Ghead.


Unknown artist - Pride London 2022


Sidenote: on another matter the same so-called place of worship also holds extreme views on abortion and Ghead_tra parodies another specimen of Westboro extremism in opposition to that message.


"Abortion is my bloody choice", Ghead_tra, July 2022


Ahead of this week’s Tory party implosion Social Sniper homed in on an issue which highlighted the breakdown of trust by members of the LGBTQ community in politicians. This may need to be read slowly. Conversion therapy is a process aimed at “curing” or changing expressions of gender behaviour, identity or expression. To describe it as controversial would be to miss the most unacceptable aspects of the practice by a million miles. Boris Johnson decided not to proceed with legislation to ban the practice which provoked howls of horror, at which point he flipped and decided there would be a ban except it wouldn’t apply to trans conversion therapy.


Social Sniper - Pride London 2022


For the curious, the background to Social Sniper’s art is another form of colour spectrum specifically representing the trans community and their supporters. Trans Pride is taking place this weekend, the weekend after Pride weekend.

Wandering down a parallel track again, one senior tory we didn’t know about before appeared on TV regretting that he had had to support the flip flops on conversion therapy policy. When politicians publicly admit to supporting policies they fundamentally disagree with, how can voters expect to elect a representative possessing even the tiniest fragment of integrity.


Mike Freer MP, close to Boris, Equalities Ministser (resigned)


I am hugely indebted to my Shoreditch Street Art Tours co-guide Subdude for his insights and information regarding the content and installation of the art discussed.


All photos: Dave Stuart except where stated

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

Extraordinary Portrait Painter Dale Grimshaw’s Street Art

 

Double portrait, 2016


Street artist Dale Grimshaw featured in a brilliant BBC programme on TV last night so here is a little profile of Dale’s street art pedigree and a huge recommendation that you to catch up with Dale’s moment of TV glory.


Dale Grimshaw work in progress, 2019


In the early years, from about 2009 Dale Grimshaw put paste up street art featuring elaborate dynamic portraits. Motion was a key characteristic, bodies plummeted from the skies, subjects kicked out at us, heads twisted with dizzying speed.


The Fool, Dale Grimshaw, 2009



Self portrait and raven, 2009



Falling Kicking; 2010


Dale’s involvement in the scene extended to running the Signal Gallery in Shoreditch with his partner. They staged exciting shows by street art luminaries such as Jef Aerosol and C215 and urban art stars including Matt Small and Jaybo, all of whom are predominantly portraiture specialists. Of course there were also several great Grimshaw shows.


C215 Shoeshiners exhibition, Signal gallery, 2009


Although Dale did paint murals on permission walls right from the off, his distinctive aboriginal portraits emerged in spraypainted mural form about 10 years ago.


Who's taking who for a ride, 2009



2 Worlds, 2013



Man and Eagle, 2015



Hanbury St, 2017


Portrait paintings have been an indulgence for rulers, kings, religious icons and rich art patrons with the moolah necessary to immortalise their image through portrait commissions. Extraordinary Portraits, presented on the BBC by British rapper Tinie Tempah redresses the balance pairing unsung heroes with artists for a portrait sitting to honour real people and real lives. For this edition Tinie matches up Dale Grimshaw with Patrick Hutchinson who made the front pages world wide in 2020 for his selfless rescue of an isolated white BLM “counter protestor” under attack.


White man rescued by Partick Hutchinson, London, 2020


After Dale and Patrick’s initial meeting the programme pursues Dale’s commitment to reveal something deeper than the superficially obvious, they meet Patrick’s family, visit his place of work and then of course there is the grand reveal. Fascinating sequences unveil Dale’s photography session, his varied and very detailed painting process and his studio environment. It’s not just about Dale of course, Patrick is an equally heart-warming character and it is quickly apparent that his credentials as a role model for humanity and harmony go way deeper than that one photographed incident.


Dale Grimshaw and Tinie Tempah, Extraordinary Portraits, 2022


What has Dale painted? Will the family like it? To find out track down Extraordinary Portraits Series 1 Episode 3 (link HERE), available on BBC iPlayer until April 2023.

Links:

Dale Grimshaw: instagram

Patrick Hutchinson: instagram

Photos: Dave Stuart except where noted 

Street Art Solidarity With Ukraine

Three days ago Russia invaded Ukraine.  Street artists in Shoreditch have united with the rest of the world in putting out street art with messages of solidarity with Ukraine and revulsion at war breaking out on the European continent.

This afternoon (Sunday 27th February, 2022) these pro Ukraine messages were seen in Shoreditch, shown dovetailed with photographs from protests outside Downing Street in Whitehall, London yesterday.


Peace and Love, our thoughts are with Ukraine



Shelter the sky over Ukraine/Block Putin war



Putin Danger To Life, by Pegasus



Ukrainian flag flying over Downing Street, London



Solidarity with Ukraine and Putin poison warning



Solidarity with Ukraine in Whitehall


Street artists not known except Pegasus where stated

Street art photos by Dave Stuart

Whhitehall protest photos by anonymous contributor with thanks