Cartrain homage to Gilbert & George and a little Damien Hirst baiting

Cartrain – An artist SF really likes, few reasons for the respect, firstly the style is cool, love the collage based stuff, taking everyday items, cultural reference points and making them into playful pieces. The pieces are 3D as well using other items to stand of the canvas, wall or paper.

G&G – Legends

This piece features a collage including a Blue Peter badge and a stamp with the iconic Queens of the Eastend. #Like

The other reason I like him is his amusing feud with Damien Hirst, Hirst is not known for his sense of humour. He comes across as a bit of a dour-nut, someone who takes himself supremely seriously and who has pretty much performed an anal gynecology with his head…. The feud started when Cartrain used imagery of Hirst’s over-priced skull a few years back for an exhibition he had created, it happened to share the same name, For The Love of God.

Cartrain was only 17 and maybe trying to steal some notoriety by doing so really got on Hirst’s wick. He retaliated and sued…. a 17 year old. He won ownership of the art work and since then there has been some bad blood.

Cartrain pulled a funny by pinching some pencils from a Hirst exhibition then creating a wanted style piece with a note to Hirst which read…

‘FOR THE SAFE RETURN OF DAMIEN HIRST’S PENCILS I WOULD LIKE MY ARTWORKS BACKS THAT DACS AND HIRST BACK IN NOVEMBER. IT’S NOT A LARGE DEMAND…. HIRST HAS UNTIL THE END OF THIS MONTH TO RESOLVE THIS OR ON THE 31 JULY THE PENCILS WILL BE SHARPENED. HE HAS BEEN WARNED’

Cartrain for a giggle….

SF feels having a little sense of humour about this could have ended in Hirst not looking like a bully and even an amusing colab. A chance for Hirst to help a young pretender.

In the end the young pretender created his own riposte and hung it

Things I’ve seen….

Couple of quick additions from around the Hackney Road area.

Found round the corner from a Sweet Toof piece, by regular collaborator Paul Insect. Nice cool and simple piece of a super hero-esq mouse character. Vivid colours, sharp lines and a creepy cyclops style eye.

Eye eye

No idea who this is by but love the mixture of two styles, classic B+W and the firey word work. Any suggestions for who this then hit me up

Off Hackney Road

Cope2… well really it is about Kate Moss

Hot mess

NYC based graf artist has a new website, I do not think it is fully finished but looks alright. Could do with showing some more of the older back catalogue. I’ve picked it out because it is a great example of an established graf artist making himself a commercial product.

It shows that graf artists from any generation are a business and as such they need to sell themselves. Cope2 has his statement on his site, eulogising about what he does, influence, techniques and his journey. There is his CV which is actually where he has exhibited and then there is the history naming all the brands he has worked with.

Street art is so accessible and open for everyone to engage with, I think this is a great thing, from the years of making no money from it at all to today where it is hung in the biggest galleries across the globe. In my marketing career I have used street art for brands from fizzy drinks, to cars, to beers to sport equipment and it always draws a crowd. The key to using something cool and underground is how to make it relevant and interesting to the casual fan and the hardcore street art community. And to make sure you are adding to a scene rather than ripping it off.

Cope2

True Life with la Moss

Obviously I picked this out for the obligatory Kate Moss piece… love la Moss.

nOlympics Thank you very much

I have said before that not everyone in London and especially the Eastend is over the moon about this thing called the Olympics. Some are dead against it. I was one who was nonplussed but after some campaigning by my good friend I started to feel the excitement. I am even going to the games… I am a guest of a rather large brand…. but I fear the tickets are for women’s beach volleyball… nothing could be more inappropriate for my goodself.

Another reason for liking the idea of the Olympics is the rise of streetart based on the biggest event to hit these shores in anyone’s living memory. Here is another cute and curt piece.

Toxic Olympics

Things I’ve seen….

Random things SF has seen over the weekend just gone….

London Pride just went…

This was outside a sex shop off Great Eastern Street

Wall of paint…

Off Brick Lane

A real eyefull

Think that is a Roa piece….

 

Christina St – Arts ‘n’ Sods

East London is awash, that is no breaking news but I was wondering which road is the best, in NYC you have 5Points, Berlin has many areas but Kreuzberg is pretty shit hot, East London has numerous places such as Redchurch Street but for me it has to be Christina St. The whole area is wall to wall paint, some a little out there, some looks like it might have been commissioned but some is just plane ridic.

Broken Fingaz

No idea…. have you?

eyeeyeeye

What’s all this Malarky

Fishy Lips – SweetToof

Sweet as always

Weekly installment of Mr Toof. Like this one because when you first look at it it is simply a funny caricature, very much in the style we have become accustomed to but look again, it is actually a couple of fish peeping out over the signature lips with a wee baseball hat on top. I double like this.

Between Ben Eine and Sweet Toof, who has the most shutters in the Eastend…?

B-Town – Not just bummers and pebbly beaches

This weekend gone SF took a wee trip to Brighton to celebrate the 30th year on this planet of ours for a good chum of mine. It was largely about drinks and acting foolishly and then nearly getting put up for the night by Her Majesty’s finest…. I snapped a couple of shots while I was out Brighton has some cool streetart but I did not see too much…

Here is what I got.

Evil dwarves

I don’t like smurfs though…. colours are pretty fecking vivid though and it is amusing plus the mix of line work and the fluffy clouds is pretty cool

This is a weird chess thing…. but again great colours, does feature Run DMC which can only be pretty damn good, also has the Alexander McQueen-esq skull motif

It’s like that

Love a nice stencil… plus the sticker above amuses me as it features some of the biggest liars and cheats of our time

Making a political stencil

Apologies for the lazy effort, SF was too drunk to manage much more

Things I’ve seen…. Barcelona pt.II

So a few more Barca shots

Where do you think I was….

Can you tell where it is yet….?

This guy has a few pieces around London, but Barcelona is Pez’s home city, it is literally everywhere. Nice and simple imagery, first thing I saw when I got to the city.

Pez dispenser

Looks like a dummy…. I guess

Dummy?

New Frens

Barca Fren

Canal knowledge

If StandardFact should say one thing, it is that you need to get yourself down on to the canals of East and North London, literally the best and most imaginative scribblings that you are likely to find.

This is my fave piece I have seen. Brass, I know little about him / her / them but will endeavour to find out more. Unless anyone can fill me a little bit.

What to say…?

Every wall tells another story, if tourists get lost on their way to the Olympics they might actually find themselves learning some truths about the Eastend, vibrant does not cover it. These two characters above would make brilliant kid’s cartoon characters… sans the swastika, unless it was the original Hindu version or the Buddhism version or the Jainism version.

Then there is this wee chap…

Like an angry westie

And finally the money shot, everyone likes the money shot

Money money money