d7606 – Photos By Phil

Never tell anyone your ideas – except me, and people you trust.

Street art Thursdays 5th June 2014.

On the first Thursday of any month there is often a wealth of gallery openings to visit and this month was no exception. There were more exhibition openings than there was time to visit them all – and with the massive increase in popularity, queuing to get in seems to be the norm these days as well.

There were a couple of things that Darryl and I wanted to see before the openings kick off after 6:00 so we started off at the Brick Lane end of out usual walk and found Fanakapan busy at work in the car-park. I haven’t seen the finished work yet, but it looks quite cool – celebrating National Gingerbread Day – yes it is a thing !! Nice bloke Fanakapan, always happy for a chat.

There was also a new piece by Ricky Dep on the ever changing carpark walls.

And it looks like one of my favourite paste up artists D7606 has been back in town with a new series.

The main reason for the trip to this end of town was to see the two new pieces from Faith47, I really like her work and I these two were really good. Both have a bit more ‘pop’ in photographs than in real life – a talent !

The next thing on my list was the new Otto Schade piece on Old St, named “paper, rock, scissors”. As with the last piece, back to his best work, and part of his ongoing series of social commentary. Brilliant work, excuse my crap photo !

As we were still quite ahead of schedule we walked over to the Whitecross St for a small gallery opening, but there was nothing that really caught my fancy there so we headed back for one of the big show openings of the night. The Graffiti Street show was only on for two days as part of the launch of a new online gallery.

There was quite a queue when we got there and there was much faffing about trying to get in as we didn’t have tickets. We did eventually make it through the doors, though the real action was out the back in Blackall St. One of the exhibitors – My Dog Sighs was painting out the back with long term collaborator Los Dave.

My Dog Sighs was another really nice bloke, and did this for one of the people watching the painting. I have never gone down the path of buying a book and asking artists if they wouldn’t mind doing something – a lot will happily sketch or paint something if you ask nicely. Another thing I like about this small community.

There were a couple of Spanish guys also painting, going under the name, Pichiavo. Very cool piece.

Also in Blackall St was another D7606.

Inside the gallery there was some great work from My Dog Sighs.

Bisser – loved his stuff – if only I had some spare cash !!

Nils Westergard

La Staa

amongst others.

We headed over to Rockwell House for a paint-jam/party being hosted by the lovely folk there, We have been to the roof here before for functions and it is such a great spot for a party and paint jam, I suspect this will become very popular over summer.

There was a load happening there with live painting from a number of artists. Roo

Joe Fur doing this wicked pen sketch.

Captain Kris and…..

And some more people I dont know…

We stayed for a couple of beers and a good look around before heading off back to the train station and home.

We passed this on the way, from I think Ara Old.

We missed a bunch of other galleries, but got to see some really good work, meet some great people and generally had a good time.

Street art

Quickie Street Art update

It has been a heck of a long time since I posted and even a longer time since I have been out and about looking at street art, or much else for that matter. With the continuing lack of joy in finding an IT job a few weeks ago I decided to turn my hand at the great Kiwi holiday job and have started working in a pub in Walthamstow. I have found it quite tough – long hours of standing up with no breaks, left me quite broken for the first couple of weeks and I am only just adjusting to it – and the later nights now.

Last week I did take an hour or so out of my resting time and went for a quick walk around Brick Lane – in between some miserable and mostly unsuccessful Christmas shopping attempts at Spitalfields Market.

I was surprised to see that a lot of the pieces I last saw were still there and there was not a whole of new stuff that appealed, or was accessible by camera.

Still, it was a nice to be out and about for a brief walk and I look forward to going back there again.

I started with the little car park, which is one of my favourite spots. A corner by Odeith which has been added to with the ‘liquorice alsorts’ style of Horror Crew (I think !)

A paste up by STRA

I then took a walk up Brick Lane and nipped down a few of the usual side streets looking for any new works, On my last visit I photographed a few pieces by Alex Face, though this cool piece was not there then.

This, from Muebon is really cool too.

There were a couple of cool paste ups, one by one of my favourites D7606, with the 50th anniversary of Dr Who on at the moment, it is cool to see some street celebration of the series.

Loved this by Mr Fahrenheit! (thanks for naming the artist BrickMum )

A cool little Parlee drawing was on the other side of the road.

I had read that the Village Underground wall was about to be update by Dscreet so I popped along to see if anything had started and found both Dscreet and Run at work on a new mural.

Dscreet’;s owls are all over London and it is always good to see new ones popping up – especially wall sized.

Run working on one of his new characters.

I look forward to going back to see the completed piece soon – an incentive to get back out on the street!

Street art

Stockwell and a quick Leake St reprise

Thursday 03 October 2013 – Stockwell and Waterloo.

My fellow street art aficionado, Darryl had heard of a spot in the south London suburb of Stockwell that seemed worth checking out for its street art, so we decided to pay a visit. Luckily he had some good directions as to where to go or we would never had found the place. It is graffiti wall surrounding a ball court on the edge of some council estates.

There was pretty good stuff there, mainly graf rather than what I would term street art, though Parlee is quite active here and there were a couple of pieces with his strange little characters.

There were a couple of guys finishing off a painting while we were there, I didn’t get their names.

There were also quite a few pieces by Piano, not someone I have seen before but I kinda liked them from a design perspective – I think they would look good up large on the side of a massive building.

Nearby there were of course a couple of the obligatory D7606 paste ups, I love how they are just everywhere….

After leaving the wall we walked on down towards Brixton and found the Duke of Edinburgh pub, sadly the painting had all been completed in the garden bar so we were obliged to buy a beer 🙂 Louis Masai had painted a couple of walls here including this large and stunning rhino, the detail up close is just amazing.

There were a couple of other pieces right up by the back door of the pub which were a bit trickier to photograph.

As we headed back towards the tube station we passed the Stockwell skate bowl and there was an old Malarky on the concrete. I do like seeing them around the place as they are slowly disappearing from the city.

We caught a tube up to Waterloo and took a walk along the Leake Street tunnel to see what was new – which was pretty much everything !

A couple of new Captain Kris characters

Plus a Dr Zadok.

And Sky High

I really like this as well, but do not know the artist/s.

It was a good afternoon out and I walked home from Leake St and was pretty much knackered by the time I got there !

Street art

R3d Market and another visit to Brick Lane

Last Wednesday I met up with photographer friend Steve and showed him around some of the main street art sights in the broader Shoreditch area. Our first stop was R3d market at the end Rivington St.

I have been here a couple of times but was keen to see a huge new piece by Fintan McGee that was complete the previous weekend. Sadly, half the painting had been completed on some wooden boards that were being taken down as we arrived. The bulk of the work was still visible and it looks fabulous.

I was also really pleased to see that for a change a truck or large van was not parked in front of the wonderful old Roa piece – but there was a small van 😦 One day I will be able to admire the whole thing…

From the market we walked down Rivington St and down to the Brick Lane area, where I found a new Alex Senna.

As I had the big camera with a wide angle lens I got a better shot of the big and colourful MadC wall in Chance St.

For a change I decided to photograph the broader buildings and show some of the street art in the context.

I like this Tian paste-up, he has been busy in the area lately and there are quite a few paste-ups of famous people around.

I was amused to see a guy walking a dog and carrying a large panda bear cuddly toy into this building, I was a bit slow in getting the camera out so missed him walking past, but it was a bit strange 🙂