Thursday 7 June 2018

Meeting Of Styles UK 2018

Meeting Of Styles
Nomadic Community Gardens, Shoreditch
26 - 28th May 2018


At the end of May there is a Bank Holiday in the UK though really no one knows why or cares what for. This provides a marvellous opportunity for a huge array of spraypainting talent to gather in Shoreditch for a frenzy of graffiti and art at the Meeting Of Styles Festival.

tn_IMG_7810
Xenz, Lours, Nerius and Welin exhausting themselves in the creative process


Meeting Of Styles is an international series of festivals which takes place in multiple locations around the world each year, this year 11 events are scheduled spread across the far east, South Africa and 6 cities in Europe. Since 2014 the London edition of MoS has found a home in the extraordinary Nomadic Community Gardens in Shoreditch.   Its heart is a graffiti festival so let’s start with a peek at some of the letterbased highlights.

Xenz embraced the opportunity to chip in a lower key wall after the intensity of his key role in the main wall last year; crumbling ruins overwhelmed by jungle vegetation and scarred by some apocalyptical flood trauma was a smash and guess what, the letters are buried in there!

tn_DSC_0685 copy
Xenz (letters clue further down)


Minto’s colour perspective lines flow under his plastic letters, rise up the wall and soar off into the gridlines of the fence, a wonderful connection between art and location.

tn_DSC_0673-001
Minto


Neist has an absolute frenzy scorching through his letters, breathtaking as always, go on – do it, you can find the letters in there.

tn_DSC_0717 copy

N E I S T innit


The Krah was seen just inside the Nomadic community Gardens entrance creating one of his swirling characters on a board but on the wall outside he left evidence of his origins in the early Athens graff scene, check out the flowing patterns and soft variations in hue across the fills inside these letters, skills that fans of his illustrative work might not be aware of.

tn_DSC_0776 copy
The Krah 101ers


SkyHigh produced an awesome piece of writing with the letters written as if collaged from about a dozen different pieces.

tn_IMG_8001-001
Skyhigh


The main wall has gone progressively less graff in recent years, this year 8 artists have created a crazy computer screen on which the use of technology in the creative process is laid bare.

tn_IMG_8184 copy
Right to Left, top first: Voyder, Fanakapan, Aches, Kaes, Jeba, Core246, Samer, Irony


Carleen De Sozer pulled off a stunning wall in collaboration with Candie Bandita, what puzzles me is how did she know that I would photograph it with two biters next to me?

tn_IMG_7959-001
"Live Life like its Golden" - Carleen de Sozer & Candie


ThisOne got one of the highest reaches of the weekend and produced a stunning wall that stood up well to the challenge of being alongside Nomad Clan, his wall art has developed immensely since the small gothic candles we were lauding just over 3 years ago

tn_DSC_0742 copy
This One


The only other time I have seen a Nomad Clan wall was an absolute banger they produced at Upfest in Bristol last year though this year trumps that experience as this time I saw the finished wall without scaffolding (three cheers for cherry pickers!).

tn_DSC_0740 copy
Nomad Clan


Poor 4-armed Captain Kris seems to have been disturbed in his kitchen by a pair of multi eyed squid from Dahkoh and The Real Dill, this fun piece cleverly uses the layers of walls around the steps to the bridge over the railway. Work in progress shot further down.

tn_DSC_0787
The Real Dill, Dahkoh and Captain kris


 Dan Kitchener replaced his full on colour Kinkao Pedley Street wall with a monochrome piece.

tn_IMG_7957-001
Dan Kitchener


With large jams such as MoS it is fascinating how the little things that scream “not on the organiser’s who-paints-where list” catch the eye. Si2’s characters on dumpsters raised a smile in several spots in the area, actually looking more spontaneous and less like an exercise in painting virtuosity than when seen on the mock train set up at last year’s Upfest in Bristol.

tn_DSC_0745-002
"oh you've got blue eyes oh you've got brown eyes" - apologies to New Order and Si2


tn_IMG_8095
"Eyes RIGHT!!" say Si2 and Roo


The UK Meeting Of Styles is organised by End Of The Line and a huge amount of credit goes to Jim Vision, Mattie, Tamara and the many volunteers also involved in keeping the show on the road. End Of The Line have steered the festival through a variety of locations and forms until it has become became the sun drenched (mainly!) spraypaint, food and music party fest it is today.

tn_IMG_7826-001
Only two winners in a staring contest with Woskerski


In 2008 London’s Meeting of Styles was held on the roof of Village Underground, it felt like small “insider” event with painting and music taking place on the static tube trains now serving as offices above Village Underground with the well known Village Underground Holywell Lane wall as the centrepiece feature wall.

tn_DSC00236
Meeting Of Styles 2008 including Jim Vision, Xenz, Replete, Snug, Sares, Sune, Twesh, Bonsai, Alfa, Busk et al


tn_DSC00444
Meeting Of Styles 2008


In 2009 the scale expanded dramatically; from a party base in a disused car park and industrial space on Paul St, now gone, to Sclater St, Bacon St and Bethnal Green Road which provided hundreds of metres of walls and a stage and sound system was set up in the Bacon St car park. So little of the structures painted back then remains.

tn_DSC02081
MoS 2009 HQ


tn_INSA
INSA, 10foot, Jamo et al, Bethnal Green Rd/ Sclater St junction, MoS 2009


The festival moved up to Islington and I will confess to not attending either of those two years, then following a hiatus of a few years a pivotal move back to Shoreditch occurred. A pinched derelict piece of land trapped between two diverging sets of rail tracks had undergone a strange swap arrangement between two neighbouring land owners and while old owner Network rail fortified, patrolled and defended the barren unused plot – even us photographers were regularly hassled by police and security on the paths bordering the plot, the new owners welcomed community use.

tn_DSC_6809
pre Nomadic Community Gardens 2012


The land was rough and irregular with remnants of old foundations peeking through the crust, weeds sprouted between the cracks and is was prone to flooding.  People loitering in the area were the kind of folk who didn't welcome close scrutiny, if you squeezed under the fence you certainly didn't waste time hanging around in there.

tn_DSC_4391
HowAboutno photographing Sickboy & WordToMother - any one of 1000s of our lunch break photography wanders. Jul 2010


tn_P1010405
Sickboy, Orsek et al 2010


tn_DSC_8148
Type, pre Nomadic Community Gardens 2011


tn_P1100195 copy
Type, kewl, Klepto, Sickboy, Nemo et al 2012



tn_DSC_4674
After Network Rail's 2012 pre Olympics London wide brownwash, Hekla et al, Dec 2012


Development of the plot was not imminent so the Nomadic Community Gardens organised by Jimmy won permission to make use of the land for positive community purposes for a few years. The first thing Nomadic Community Gardens did was provide local families with small vegetable growing plots by placing raised soil beds on the ground, these have proved a big success and are still in use.

Over the years a variety of structures have been built using upcycled and re-purposed materials and these have provided a base for a variety of community activities and artistic endeavours. There is also now a lovely café on site, a great place to sit in the sun and have a quiet contemplative bite to eat.

tn_DSC_0624-001
Nomadic Community Gardens 2015


What has been achieved at Nomadic Community Gardens is quite astonishing and it actually contributes directly to the success of the Meeting Of Styles festival. The converse is also true, the festival raises awareness of the Nomadic Community Garden space, not to mention a substantial amount of funds through voluntary donation.

tn_DSC_0792 copy
Nomadic Community Gardens 2018


All this builds an environment where Meeting Of Styles can slot in without causing tension, painting takes place in and around a very chilled party atmosphere which in the daytime, importantly, is very family friendly. The Nomadic Community Garden location now feels incredibly organic, nothing like a “commercial” festival.

tn_IMG_8207
A normal day at Nomadic Community Gardens Jun 2018


The early Nomadic Community Gardens editions of Meeting of Styles were actually rather sprawling affairs with walls being painted on far flung satellite sites, notably the Wheler Street Bridge, hoardings on Redchurch St and even the close to Old Street Roundabout. On this occasion all the walls were at or surrounding the Nomadic Community Gardens or on the Pedley St path that leads from Brick Lane to the gardens. This means it is easier to enjoy all the walls, no “the brilliant wall by that amazing painter I’ve waited all my life to see was a mile away and I missed it”; and it works for the artists too, that sense of a party happening elsewhere that they are not part of has gone.

tn_IMG_7829

In past years there have been incidents with British Transport Police regarding the Meeting Of Styles festival, this year Network Rail turned up and participated in the painting and got a public thank you from Jim Vision, you couldn’t have imagined that 3 or 4 years ago.

tn_IMG_8094

Bridge by National Rail; style by National Rail Fam


Another very noticeable shift that has occurred in the past few years is the street art element has increased significantly. Meeting of Styles is an international organisation that has been going for many many years (some MoS sources say 1997, some say early 2000s) and it is letter based graffiti forms that dominate. Looking back to 2008 and 2009, every named artist had a graffiti pedigree, today many of the contributing artists do not have a graffiti background at all. Some will argue this makes the walls more accessible, we say it all comes together and works wonderfully well.

Tom Blackford aka Infetish & Ewan Ewan
Tom Blackford and Ewan whispering terrible things in someones ear


There was something in the air at the 2018 Meetings of Styles festival, and we are not just referring to the smell of spraypaint mingling with barbecue and assorted herbal fragrances, it was the combination of the great art, the vibe, the food, the music, the chilling with friends, the beautiful weather. This squint at Meeting of Styles is a rather selective viewing, there are many other moments captured and artworks seen that deserve to be featured but there isn't room or time. Also, there is the whole other music dimension of meeting of Styles but graffoto is home sipping its cocoa as that gets into full swing. Meeting of Styles 2018 will go down as a great success and all of it depends so much on the brilliance of the many parties the combine in the organisation of the event but most notably, End of The Line. All of it, other than perhaps the sunshine though if that had not turned up someone would probably have painted it.

tn_IMG_7863 copy
Onefaver cracks on to the right while Captain Kris provides The Real Deal with a supporting hand; also features art of Dahkoh


tn_DSC_0665-001
ThisOne at the top of his game


tn_xenz letters
X-E-N-Z


tn_IMG_8191-001
When yer rabbit's got a gold toof, that's Hard!


tn_DSC_4893
Daytimes - safer for public, and police! 2011

LINKS:

Meeting Of Styles UK

Nomadic Community Gardens: Website     Instagram

End OF The Line 

All Photos: Dave Stuart aka NoLionsInEngland

Monday 28 May 2018

Louis Masai - "Missing"

"Missing"
The Crypt Gallery
St Pancras Church
London

24th - 27th May 2018


“and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” Genesis 1:28 – and thus begineth the issue which vexeth the street artist Louis Masai.

tn_WP_20140516_15_09_06_Panorama-001
#Save The bees, Masai, Shoreditch, 2014


Louis Masai's environmental campaigns have been waged on walls in London and far afield since about 2010. With stark clarity and beautiful art, Masai raises awareness of the impact mankind has had on all manner of threatened species.

tn_DSC_1035-001#This Is Now, 2014, 7 out of 10 sparrows disappeared from London 1994 - 2001



Masai has now brought his poignant and thought provoking work indoors for a solo exhibition “Missing”.

tn_IMG_7629 copy


Exhibitions by street artists need to strike a balance between the excitement and everyman appeal of the art on the streets and the commercial and intellectual imperatives of an art world machine that operates on money. For novelty, Masai has found a great location for an exhibition, the crypt under St Pancras Church. Brick lined tunnels, dust and cobwebs, graveyard detritus and curious vaulted spaces provide an intriguing backdrop quite different to the typical contemporary white cube art space, this is certainly not your typical retail art box.

tn_IMG_7699 copy


In various subterranean cross passages, “Missing” posters for endangered species have been pinned to tree trunks in mimicry of neighbourhood “anyone seen my goldfish?” poster appeals, hence the “Missing” of the show title.

tn_IMG_7665
Missing


missing: Walrus
Missing: Walrus


The first and probably most impressive sequence of work to greet the visitor are a series of acrylic and bitumen paintings on reclaimed wood in which endangered animals are rendered in a colourful patchwork which is being repaired by a bee bearing a needle and thread. The bee as an agent of repair is a motif that recurs in many guises in this exhibition.

tn_IMG_7548

"Last Two Hundred And Fifty"; Species Arabvian Leopard
"Last Two Hundred And Fifty"; Species Arabian Leopard


A clue to understanding Masai’s perspective comes perhaps from a moment in a film produced by Masai on his travels in which a commentator laments the failure of the orthodox red flag waving approach to environmental awareness: “everything is going to die; we are all doomed; stop stop STOP!!” The solution is to replace this with messages of positivity, to motivate people into action in the belief that their actions can have an effect. It IS possible to have a positive effect through change, it is not too late, the harm can be repaired if we heed the necessary lessons. Hence the bees, whose plight – death due to pesticides - has now for years been used as the benchmark for the forthcoming environmental apocalypse are now seen as potentially the agents of repair and restoration.

tn_IMG_7544 copy
"Ossie Fossils"; Species: Tasmanian Devil


Masai's use of colourful patchwork paintings of endangered species springs from the idea that once the creatures are gone all that will be left will be the toys.

Pangolin, Louis Masai
Pangolin


Pangolin, Louis Masai


Pangolin, Louis Masai (detail)
Pangolin (detail)


In a series of small catacomb spaces Masai has combined sculpture, wood and dead matter to create quite stunning tableau of environmental harm and endangered species crisis. One of Louis’ oft repeated messages from his Save The Bees campaign, “when we DIE we are taking You with us” looms over an absolute charnel house of real dead bees, about 24,000 apparently. By day 2 these were emitting a quite detectable odour. Oh the hum-anity.

tn_IMG_7640 copy
When We DIE We Are Taking YOU With Us


tn_IMG_7647
"Can you imagine what 37 million dead bees looks like"


tn_IMG_7645


Consistent with the theme of positivity, change and salvation all visitors to the show receive a small pack of recycled cards and sachets of bee friendly seeds, each of the cards has on the face a detail of an animal painted by Louis and on the reverse, a description of the issue and a “call to action”. The call to action is incentivised by an offer of a free print to the first 23 people to join and donate to one of the environmental organisations on each of the cards.

tn_IMG_7870 copy

On the opening night a large proportion of the wall was taken up by a large collection of prints, all with quilted penguins, some with bees and some with cartoon character penguins, notice the bees are all hand finished variations.

tn_IMG_7584 copy

tn_IMG_7594 copy

tn_hand variant bees


A rather curious decision was made to remove the prints from the walls by lunchtime on day 2, which stripped the vault of a noticeable proportion of the art on display. Having seen the space the night before, things looked noticeably thinner the following day.  Noot Noot! as Pingu might say.

Pingu by Louis Masai


Madasgar penguins by Louis Massai

It is exciting to see an artist noted for painting walls seize the opportunity to expand into installations and sculpture and indeed some involved the sound (as well as the smell) of the hive.

tn_IMG_7656


tn_IMG_7687 copy
Shell hell

tn_IMG_7690 copy


tn_IMG_7600
"No Strings Attached"; Honey Bee (electro plated copper)


Missing misses nothing, Louis Masai has created a solo show which pulls out all the stops: a great location, activist art, multi media, amazing production values and a fundamental that is sometimes forgotten – really good art or, as Bob Dylan put, “Behind every beautiful thing, there’s some kind of pain”.

tn_IMG_7649 copy
"No Strings Attached"; Species Honey Bee, mosaic


tn_IMG_7654
"No Strings Attached"; Species Honey Bee, mosaic (detail)


tn_IMG_7655


tn_IMG_7659 copy

tn_IMG_7674 copy
"100 A Day Keeps The Poachers Away" African Elephant (100 elephants a day shot)
 
All photos: Dave Stuart