street art – Page 3 – Where is Phil now?

The (limited) street art of Ladbroke Grove.

Wednesday 19 June 2013 – Ladbroke Grove, London.

For a while now I have been wanting to check to see if there was any street art left near the Westway at the ends of both Portobello Rd and Ladbroke Grove. Yesterday I was meeting a friend for lunch in Shephards Bush so I took the opportunity to catch the tube to Westbourne Grove and have a look around, before walking to She Bu. Naturally I chose the hottest day of the year so far. At 26 degrees and with high humidity I really should have worn shorts as it was a sticky walk.

There are a couple of pieces at the end of Portobello Rd that I have seen before, mainly this piece by Banksy.

and this piece by Paul don Smith.

This piece by CODE FC, looks quite old as well.

I walked up Portobello Rd as I was looking for the Graffik Gallery which has a collection of very expensive work for sale, but was in between exhibitions. On the outside of their building was another one of the “Thomas the tank’ stencils I saw for the first time in Blackall St last Friday, I now know they are by iCON.

The area under the arches of the Westway was barriered off with hoardings and behind them I spotted a couple of Stiks as well as some other work but I could not get a clear look at them so I followed the Westway down to Ladbroke Grove in the hunt for some rumoured painting there. I did find two walls in the same block that had been painted. iCON seems to be quite prolific here.

As well as a piece by Elmo Hood

And a few other bits and pieces

I walked around a bit more but did not find anything else, though I was pretty happy to find any at all, the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is not really a street art / graffiti place !

Blackall St – ‘Art thieves operating in this area’

Friday 14 June 2013 – Shoreditch, London.

I frequently walk up to Camden on Friday afternoons and today I decided to go via Shoreditch and visit Blackall St, an alley off of Great Eastern St.

Blackall St, is a narrow single lane road surrounded on both sides by the back of office blocks, it is also the home to a wide range of graffiti and street art. I imagine it is worth a visit every couple of months to see what is new. It is a cool little street and I had an enjoyable twenty minutes perusing the large number of small pieces, too many to really take it all in.

I did not recognise many of the artists, so will start with the few I do know.

RUN

I have not seen any Bortusk characters since my first street art walk along Regents Canal back in December – and the ones I saw then have all gone from the canal walls.

MOTFU

MOTFU and Alice Pasquini’s lovers

D7606 stickers

And loads of other things, I really like the Thomas the tanks and the sheep.

The woman on the bottom of the door is by C215

Long live Southbank!

Monday 17 June 2013 – London

Even when I wasn’t living nearby I walked Southbank fairly often, nowadays it is my main walking route when ever I go across the Thames and into London City or the West End. One of the places I always stop to look at is the skate park in the under croft of the SouthBank Centre. The skate park has been here for over forty years and has often been described as the heart of skateboarding in London.

I am no skater, but I like the are as it is a small anarchic section of the otherwise clean and tidy tourist dominated Southbank, plus of course I like the fact that the graffiti changes all the time and that skaters of all ages and races use the park at the weekends – though it was very quiet on a weekday morning…

The owners of the Southbank Centre recently announced plans to redevelop the area into a retail park as part of a larger upgrade to the centre. The skaters would be moved on to a new purpose built area further up the river. The last thing the Southbank needs is less fun and more coffee shops….

I dispair when “progress” means destroying a cultural icon for the sake of more retail outlets.

More here http://www.longlivesouthbank.com/

Swan with hands – the completed RUN painting

On Friday afternoon I went back to the Village Underground wall in Shoreditch to have a look at the newly completed piece that I spent some time watching street artist RUN paint on Wednesday.

I did not take the Canon with the wide-angle lens, so could not quite fit it all in – it is a big wall!

I love the painting though – and it will be gone in a month…

I love it when I find some Phlegm!

Sunday 02 June 2013

It was another gorgeous English summer day so after breakfast we decided to walk along the Southbank, cross the Thames and visit Temple. Temple is an old part of London on the north bank of the Thames, and is one of the legal centres for the city. It is always busy during the day so I was keen to visit at the weekend and have a look around.

At the weekend, especially in summer, the Southbank is very busy, the council provide a lot of activities during the summer period – entertainers, art and a small beach full of sand to relax and play on. So, pretty much a time to avoid it really! But mornings are never too hectic and even at 10:00 there were not a lot of people around as we walked down from London Bridge. Blackfriars Bridge.

While I was running on Thursday I had spotted a new work by Belgian artist ROA on the wall of the Southbank Centre. I was really pleased to see this as the building is notoriously ugly and is screaming for something to be painted on it, and this year seems to be the year ! This year they are celebrating “Neighbourhood” on the Southbank so there are gardens set up and a bit of art has made an appearance, the first thing we saw was this mural which looks very new.

Just around the corner was this more alive installation of wheelbarrows filled with vegetable and herbs, very cool.

I found the ROA piece high up on a wall.

And WAHOO – just below it was a new piece by my favourite artist Phlegm! Very unexpected and very exciting too.

Round the corner we found a pop-up cafe and museum with a Beano theme. I used to love the Beano comic when I was child and had to have a photo as Denis the Menace.

We crossed over the Thames and found ourselves outside Somerset House, which had an exhibition on by the late New York fashion photographer Erwin Blumenfeld. The exhibition space in the East Wing of Somerset House is really good and a great place to see photography. Blumenfeld shot a lot of images for Vogue, Harpers, etc in the 40s and 50s and was quite innovative in his day.

To our dismay we found that the gardens and area around Temple is closed at the weekend, which was a real shame as it was the main objective for the day. We sort of wandered aimlessly for a while, up past St Clements church – the official church of the RAF.

We decided to walk right through the city to the East End and have lunch in Spitalfields, we passed Fleet St along the way. Fleet St was the traditional home of UK newspapers for centuries before technology and computerisation caught up with it and the old printing presses were shut down and new printing sites were set up further east in Wapping. It was a hugely contentious time, with a number of violent demonstrations.

We had a nice lunch in a Vietnamese place in Spitalfields and then carried on wandering around for a little bit longer, my feet were starting to ache after a couple of three or four hour days of walking in flat soled shoes. This guy was beatboxing in Brick Lane and was phenomenal, not usually my cup of tea, but there are exceptions to most rules and he was definitely one of those.

I was trying to not look for street art, but when you are up in the east end, it just kind of jumps out at you ! I really liked this new work by Chinese artist Dal-East.

And this older piece by Broken Fingaz that I have not seen before, both in Pedley St, just off Brick Lane.

We concluded our walk by strolling back to Liverpool St where El got a train back to Walthamstow and I got a bus back to London Bridge. It was a really good weekend, finished with home-made pizza while watching a pretty dreadful England draw with Brazil in a football friendly. I still love the view from my balcony 🙂

Two weeks in London. Catching up!

Friday 31 May 2013 – London

I should confess to being really slack lately and having little motivation to write blog posts since I have been back in London, so I have now left myself with two weeks worth to catch up on. Fortunately I have not actually done a heck of a lot worth recording, though I have been managing to use up all my time. My other excuse is I have been experiencing a bit of neck and shoulder pain typing on my small travel laptop so I was waiting to get my full size laptop back from my daughter, which I did last weekend.

My flights from Sydney to London via Kuala Lumpur on Malaysian were as expected – long, tiring and rather boring ! I flew on one of the new A380s fro the first time from Sydney to KL, they are huge, they feel so much larger than a B747 – though it has been a while since I have been on one of them I will admit. Malaysian are great to fly with and if it wasn’t the fact it took almost twenty eight hours to get from one side of the planet to the other it would have all been almost enjoyable.

El took the day off work and met me at the airport, it was (of course!) lovely to see her again and I am really looking forward to spending some time together hanging out.

As I am English it is my birthright to talk and complain about the weather, so I may as well get that all out of the way now. Apart from a couple of nice sunny and vaguely warm days it has been pretty miserable since I have been here. It was reported on the news last night that it was the coldest spring since 1962 – good timing on my behalf I guess. It has been damn cold though and I am very glad I had appropriate clothing when I arrived this time around. Today was the best day of the year so far, hope it is a sign of things to come!

So, what have I done ?

I have moved back into the room I was staying in in London Bridge – which is fabulous, it is nice to know the area I am living in, but there is also a lot to explore around here as well. I have been applying for jobs left right and centre, but not having any luck so far – this was expected though and I am not too worried about it all yet, I will leave that for the end of next month ! Though next week I aim to change my strategy a bit and see if that makes any difference, it is a tough market.

I have been managing to get out and about most days, though it has been cold it has been reasonably dry so walks most days have been achievable. I even got out for a run yesterday, which was good. My first ever run along the Thames, it was almost enjoyable – I always struggle with the first run after few weeks off so it was never going to be great fun!

I have taken my camera out on most of my walks, so here are a few things I have done, starting with a visit to Canary Wharf to visit my mate John for lunch.

I have, of course, seen El a few times and after meeting her for lunch one day in Camden I decided to do one of my favourite walks and strolled the tow path alongside Regents Canal to Angel, picking up a bit of street art along the way.

I am going to say the anti-climb paint puts me off far less than the massive spikes on top of the gate!

The next day I walked along the Southbank, watching the rain coming down over the city on the north side of the Thames, fortunately it remained on the northern side until I crossed and then it swung south so I managed to stay dry on my way to the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square.

I love the gallery, (along with loads of other people !) and it was quite crowded, I was trying to enjoy a moment with Seurat’s Bathers at Anieres which I love, but it was proving too difficult – and I did get told off for taking the picture…..

Though no one saw me grab this one of this artist painting an interpretation of one of the works.

Last weekend was a long weekend in the UK and on the Saturday El and I visited Broadway Market near London Fields in Hackney where there was a couple of good bits of new street art. I really like the bird by Boe + Irony.

After lunch we took a walk along a bit more of Regents Canal and walked to and round Victoria Park for a while. Outside of the exhibition last weekend I have not seen so many Christiaan Nagel mushrooms in one spot.

After Victoria Park we walked back up the canal, past Broadway Market and on to Shoreditch. I have never seen a canal boat going through one of the many locks before so it was quite interesting to watch for a while.

We visited the Geffrye Museum of the Home. I loved the building which is a series of 18th century alms houses. The museum itself was only vaguely interesting, furnishings not really being my thing 🙂 But there was an interesting photo exhibition there which we enjoyed.

On the way back to the station I found this piece by Israeli artist Tant, part of the Broken Fingaz Crew. There used to be two Tant pieces on the front of a closed pub on Shoreditch High St, but the pub has been completely renovated since I was last there and the paintings have gone – one of things I liked about street art.

Back in Shoreditch on Sunday I met up with my daughter Mel and her BF, Rich who were up from Bristol for the weekend. They stayed at a friend’s place on the Saturday night and he joined us too. It was a nice sunny afternoon and Shoreditch was packed so we ended up buying a couple of beers and sitting in Hoxton Square park with loads of others and enjoyed the sun and a good catch up. We wandered down to Brick Lane for a curry and it was heaving with people and loads of buskers to keep the crowds entertained. I really liked this guy playing drums in a van…

Dinner was good and while we were there Mel’s friend got a text from a family member and we got invited to a rather posh infused gin tasting at the Hoxton Hotel, it would have been rude to have refused ! They were very nice too.

Mel and Rich stayed at my place on the Sunday night and after breakfast on the Monday we ventured into west London. Mel and Rich went for a picnic in Hyde Park with a friend and I met up with El for lunch in a cafe before we strolled up to the park , finally catching up with Mel at the Science Museum which was our goal for the afternoon.

After the museum El went home and I spent a short time over a beer with Mel and Rich before they caught the bus back to Bristol. It was lovely to see them both and I look forward to seeing them again.

On the Tuesday I visited my uncle over in Dartford and picked up a pile of clothes and things that I had stored there, after a reasonably fine weekend the weather returned to normal!

I did a mega walk the next day and wandered up past Elephant and Castle to Peckham and then back down to London Bridge, it took over three hours and I was knackered at the end of it. It was nice to get out for a really long walk, plus explore a potential running route, but not the most scenic part of SE1 ! I did like this old abandoned housing estate in E and C, I would love to have explored it but I am guessing it would have been seriously hazardous to my health. But there was some quite good graffiti and street art around, including an old Malarky ‘fox’ head.

That was pretty much it for the week !

I did get this email and got excited for about 10 seconds before guessing, correctly, it was a scam 😦

As a result your application, I would like to invite you to attend an interview.

You will have an interview with the department manager, Edie Wilson. The interview will last about 30 min.

Please bring three reference (If available), as well as a copy of your ID, e.g. Passport, Driving License to the interview.

Please contact me on 07064848733, in order to arrange an interview

We look forward to seeing you

Best regards

Charles Brown

Street Art – Baroque the streets exhibition in London.

Wednesday May 22 2013 – London.

Yep, I am back in London – again and I will do a more general blog post when I have something worth writing about and the photos to prove I have done it.

What I did do last Saturday was attend “Baroque the streets” a street art festival in Dulwich organised by the very worthy Street Art London. The concept behind the exhibition was for a bunch of well-known international street artists to create pieces based on the historical art works housed in the Dulwich Picture Gallery.

El and I had a late start to the day and headed down to Dulwich in the late morning, via a very nice full English breakfast in Islington on the way. It was another cool day in London and I am hanging out for some warmth to kick this rather delayed spring in to life – maybe I have gotten to used to warm days again ? We took the overland train to Denmark Hill and had a nice walk down to East Dulwich where the street art started. We were not aware that there was a street art walk until we had arrived at the exhibition and found a map – but we did see a good section of the work on the way. Starting with these pieces by Remi Rough and System.

Conor Harrington from Ireland

One of my all time favourites, Stik.

Dscreet from Australia.

One of London based South African, Christiaan Nagel’s famous mushrooms.

The bulk of the work was done in a house at 265 Lordship Lane, the house is soon to be demolished and the owners gave permission for the massive artworks to be completed inside and outside the house. It was very cool, but also quite crowded. It was one of the days when I wished I had my big old Canon camera and its wide-angle lens so I could really capture the art on display, but sadly I had not picked it up from my uncle’s house yet.

Israel’s Broken Fingaz crew on the fence outside.

There were a couple of gems in the garden, including these two pieces by My dog sighs, the first one being my favourite in the house.

There were loads of small pieces by Mexico’s Pablo Delgado all over the place, inside and out.

The garage was painted by Malarky.

And the side of the house by Italy’s RUN.

Cityzen Kane had produced a whole series of very cool sculptures, some on a wall under a mushroom.

There was a fabulous piece by Belgium’s ROA above the back door, like the Phlegm pieces I loved the level of detail in the painting.

Dscreet had a piece outside as well as an entire room inside the house.

France’s Thierry Noir was painting in his room.

The Rolling People had a very cool room, but it was really busy in there so I did not get a chance to capture the whole thing.

Christiaan Nagel room, all created with foam.

Some of the many small Pablo Delgado works scattered all over the house.

As well as these phones. I do not know who did these but I really liked them – if you know please let me know too!

Dscreet had obvioulsy visited the bathroom.

The kitchen had some really cool faces by My dog sighs, I have not knowingly seen his stuff before, but I am definitely going to look for some more.

I bought a poster of the event created by RUN, one day I will actually have a wall to hang it on ! We also grabbed a map of the art on the street as I wanted to find the Phlegm piece before we left.

On the street outside the house we found well known chewing gum painter Ben Wilson at work on the street. Ben has been painting chewing gum that has been left on the side walk for many years.

Just round the corner we found the Phlegm on the side of a house. Wonderful as always!

We both really enjoyed the walk and the art, a fantastic idea and I marvel at the talents of these artists. Thanks Street Art London and Dulwich Picture Gallery for putting on this event.

Street Art – Sydney

Some of the street art I spotted on a quick trip to Sydney, Australia.

Most of the art was found in and around the main street of Newtown, though the first three are from Manly.

I am not entirely sure of the order that WordPress uploads photos, the bulk were inserted into the post in one go, and the order seems entirely random to me, I guess there is some science to it !

This mural is the most well known and has been here since 1991. I really like the next image as well, which was painted on the next wall, they go so nicely together and I really like the message.

I really liked how this door had been hung upside down 🙂

There were a whole series of large monochrome photos on some walls as part of an old exhibition, though most had been badly torn – I kinda liked the effect though.

Yes I was here, I was never her though!

All Fresco – K’ Rd Street Art festival

Sunday 05 May 2013 – Auckland

I had been casually looking around for street art in Auckland and hand not really had a lot of success so I resorted to good old Google to see what I could find. I was so glad I did as there was a street art festival on and around Karangahape Rd from 3-5 May, which was now…

I arranged to meet a friend and photographer Katharina in a cafe so we could walk around together, look at the work and take some pictures. As it was a Sunday I managed to get a park on Cross St, right near one of the walls being painted. It rained – heavily, almost as soon as I got out of my car !

Mica Still – painting in the rain.

I ran up through the rain to St Kevins Arcade for lunch with Kats until the rain had stopped and then we went for a walk. First stop was down the stairwell at the back of the arcade. There is a fair amount of painting here, some is old and some is new, and most of it is great ! I cannot tell you who the artists are though there is a Gasp! and I think a Component or two. If anyone stumbles upon this post and can help out that would be great.

Out of the side door of the arcade we found a couple of pieces on the there, again I am not sure who they are by, but the tiger is beautiful – and very well hidden. Th K’ Rd Masive have been painting here, but I could not get a decent shot of the wall as a truck was parked there.

While we were looking at this lovely shadow play we met some people who gave us a map of all the All Fresco paintings which was just great – well done to the organisers for doing a map – as well as organising the festival!

We took a walk down one side of K’ Rd and back up the other, most of the work was in side streets. Starting with Haha in Pitt St. All done by stencil.

Gasp ! had a piece on Bereford Sq.

Next was Wert 159 still working in Samoa House Lane, you can see where the rain had been washing some of the colour down the wall 😦

And TrustMe

Walking to the next site we passed this alley which had quite a bit of interesting stuff to look at, including another Trustme. There was not enough space to fit it all in, but it says “We drink to forget our nights to remember”, I liked that.

On Hereford St there was this amazing piece, the scales were a cityscape, but did not translate well under my camera.

There was also this piece hidden behind a wall.

There was a large wall with a cherry picker on it on the corner of Gundry St but the artist must have given up in the rain as there was no one home and not much paint on the wall. I felt sorry for the artists, it was not a good weekend to be painting on the streets.

Edinburgh St and West Terrace had Jonny 4Higher pieces

And we found this on a wall down the back of Edinburgh, I do like all these sort of hidden things.

And then back to where I started on Cross St and thankfully the rain had stopped so Mica Still could finish her work before jumping on a plane back to Wellington.

Mica was sharing a wall with Xoe Hall and Erin Forsyth who were doing a joint piece that was just fabulous. I loved the skull moths.

Xoe Hall.

Erin Forsyth

And finally I found this up an alley – love it !

It was a great day out, thanks Kats for keeping me company and a massive thanks to all those involved in setting it up, to those fabulous property owners who allowed out city to be a bit brighter and happier and to the artists who contributed their work !

Auckland Street Art – Part 1

Street art is sort of hard to find in Auckland, I looked in some of the obvious places first and visited a couple of spots where there used to be some – all to no avail. My mum told me about some at the Corbans Estate Art Centre near where she lives in Henderson and then I used Google to find some more. It would be great to see more in the inner city.

There was a street art festival on in Auckland’s K’ Rd last weekend and I managed to get along to that as well and will show those images in another blog.

It is good to see there is a scene here and even though it is small there is some great talent.

Corbans Centre, stupidly I did not record the artists names!

I really like the Maori influence in some of the work, keeping it uniquely New Zealand.

Though I recognised this artists style – Wert 159

Ponsonby

There is massive hole where a failed tower was supposed to be built in Ponsonby, the hoardings have been painted and there was some really good pieces. I didn’t get to see it all as it hammered down with rain while I was there.

Jonny 4higher – I think!

Wert 159

Component.

I spotted this wall on the way!

It was great to see some art and not just the usual tagging that plagues the streets of Auckland.