Another wasteland in East London

Still lots to be done tho...

I found the Graffiti Graveyard off Broadway and then found this on the way to the Olympic Stadium. It is a little more rough round the edges and could do with a few more pieces so if you are an artist then drop me a line and I’ll break my rule about revealing the location.

East wall

Can you spot our friend Sweet Toof in the above shot?

I like the fact that when we are inundated by sodding tourists, all getting lost and wondering into the rougher parts of Hackney to get robbed by our friendly youts, they will at least be able to see some pretty decent art along the way.

As they say… Welcome to Hackney

Olympic Standard Sweet Toof

Sweet croc

It has been ages since I saw our old friend Sweet Toof. He is pretty damn prolific as we have already figured out and Sweet has been beating a path to that white elephant in the Eastend room otherwise known as the Olympic Stadium.

Tunnel Toof

If you take a mosey down from Victoria Park towards the stadium there are a few examples of his work plus a couple which have been started and not finished. The route to the Olympics is a pretty rich place to graf right now, so many open spaces and it will be the perfect place to showcase his wares to a huge amount of people throughout the summer.

Hazardous Toof

Sweet tag

On thing that did strike me though is while they are making some of it look nice for all those tourists… some of it looks rather dilapidated, and I don’t mean shabby chic either

Love Stik

Another addition to the catalogue of Stik images across East London, this one is Dalston, as always find it yourseves you lazy so and sos

Stik Couple

This one is cute, although Stik on the left seems to be looking for a better offer…?

333 – Mother bar gets a lick….

Too busy with paid work so this is not even a proper post really is it?

Little bit spray fun....

I’ll get on me bike and search out something more interesting for you tomorrow… promise

Urban Art Sale at Bonhams – Sounds like a rips off

le Moss - Banksy

It is on the 29th in London at Bonham’s and if you have a spare £000’s then maybe you would like to invest in an overpriced piece by the world’s fave stencil artist Banksy. Some of these pieces are quite famous and desired, I quite like the Kate Moss one, because I love le Moss, really love le Moss.

The other one I like features an iconic model as well, it is by Jef Aerosol and features Twiggy, it is called ‘Is London Still Swinging?’

Jef Aerosol

If I had that much money I reckon I would just buy a wall in London and then make it available for artists to use, maybe on a 3 month rotation and then have a constantly updated piece that everyone can see. The all you would need to do is get a decent camera and take a shot of each finished piece and then you have a nice coffee table book or even blow up the prints for at home.

Just a thought, if not and you want the original and nave this cash in a box under your bed waiting for that rainy day you could buy a Banksy, something by Blek le Rat or maybe a D*Face orig.

D*Face

Other reason to write this post was if you put Banksy in a post then it ramps up your visitor numbers and I thought I’d see how many new followers I could get…… muuuuhhhhaaaa

Warhol…. rarely seen? I’m in

I'm the greatest....

Mr Warhol… your 15 minutes of fame it would appear will go on for a long damn time yet, Warhol esq prints can be seen everywhere and in street art his influence is undeniable.

In Dulwich in the not too distant future you will be able to see some rarely exhibited pieces by the white haired one and I so one will be making the journey down to take a look, even if it is bloody miles away. Might make a day of it, apparently there is a right nice park there.

Anyway the collection called Andy Warhol: The Portfolios will feature Endangered Species, Flowers, Muhammad Ali and Myths. These were some of his last works before he hopped off to the other side so worth a look I think

Dulwich Picture Gallery

Olek – got to say I am pretty torn

Now this is a twat bike... forget the baskets and fixies

I have seen your brightly coloured knit wear pieces across the Eastend and initially I thought it was a rather amusing thing, you see us East Londoners are ribbed for our quaint ways such as riding Dickensian bikes, dressing like dandys and endulging in rather out dated pursuits such as lawn bowls and knitting. So to see Street Art in the form of knitting did make me chuckle.

Then after seeing a few more pieces and deciding it was actually a bit of an eyesore that might have, in the times of the Klaxons been suitable for aural consumption when we thought new rave was rather amusing.

Now you are getting these rather fetching banning orders and threats of fines.

Knit Art is banned

Here is my quandary, artists should not be fined for their art, I would never agree with that, but at the same time I just plain don’t get this flouro sensory dust up, so this might result in them being removed.

Spotted on Londonist

The world’s biggest egg hunt – Great Faberge campaign

Clean eggs

In London for the last month or so there have been 200 painted Faberge eggs dotted around, all huge and painted by a wide variety of people from Zandra Rhodes to my fave by Benjamin Shine who made a London Postbox homage.

I was going to go on a mission to find them all to show you them, but then I realised that I can wait until April to see the whole lot in one place, Covent Garden. For anyone visiting London from the 3rd April you have a chance to see the entire collection until the 9th.

Check out the full range, some are amazing and some are poop, but that was bound to happen. If anyone wants to buy me the Benjamin Shine one then I am open to certain favours…. maybe

I still think it might have been an interesting idea to bring in some more unknown street artists or even a couple of the bigger hitters such as Ben Eine or even me with my finger paints…

Banksy book – If ya’l interested?

Banksy book

Banksy divides opinion but one thing you have to admit is that he is the most well known of our street arting chums. He clearly has made a fortune as everyone from Brangelina to your nan has a print from our undercover Bristolian. Another book is out now from Paul Gough called the Bristol Legacy, I wonder if Banksy gets a cut…

I like some of the stuff he has done but sometimes it does feel like he is using political statements for the sake of it, it feels a little diluted. I get he wants to say something but he can try and retain a little bit of perspective and sense of humour.

Also to be honest the whole Robbo vs Banksy thing started of as mildly interesting if a little disrespectful and now it just seems like a stunt that has gone badly wrong.

Things I’ve seen…

It is the final day of my little break from work and therefore the amount of galleries and mooching I can achieve will be much less. From here on in guys I am working for a living again, with that in mind I thought I’d sign off with a few images I took today.

Just off Mare St.

Corp...

Love this, mix of freehand, stencil and even print outs I think. I have not got a head for heights so not going to climb in order to find out

Along the canal

Urban redevelopment - face the facts

You can tell the Olympics is just around the corner, even the empty flats in the Eastend have been given a lil make-over, we wouldn’t want our touristy friends to see un-used boarded up eyesores. Bravo Hackney council

Just propped up in the Eastend

It's only a door dear

I’ve said it before, Street Art does not need to be beautiful in the classic sense, I’d take a nice and simple piece of humour over some of the staid stuff you can see… this is very cute