Some new pieces up in Shoreditch area

On our way to Brick Lane last night I noticed a few works-in-progress that I felt were worthy of a bit of publicity. These pieces are all from the area near Dray Walk. Unsure of the artists at this stage, so will have to come back to that when I know, but at this stage I'll name them alphanumerically. Will be back over Hackney & Shoreditch way on Saturday, so will try to see how they've progressed then.

A. Scratched out of pinboard (click to enlarge)
Detail showing the scratching & digging (L), Thr whole 10ft image (C),
The position - bottom left on the building gives you an idea of scale (R)

This piece was about 10ft square, and was a portrait that was scratched or scraped out of a piece of plasterboard or pinboard type material. A unique medium if you ask me - I've not seen such a large piece done in this technique before.

27/08/09: Have been online since, and pretty sure it's a piece by Vhils (Alexandre Farto) from Portugal. More here: http://alexandrefarto.com/

B. Sculptural piece made of painted plaster? (click to enlarge)

Piece B is sculptural, and I'm guessing it's made of plaster and then painted in hi-gloss enamel paint. The piece is about 12ft up the wall and is about a foot tall. Really nice cultural piece, and kind of reminds me of what some Aussie artists are doing at the moment with street sculpture, as opposed to painting (see previous article on Mal Function, although I featured his more monotone range, but his latest work is dynamically coloured like this piece).

C. Scraped billboard (click to enlarge)

This piece was created by scraping away the layers of posters to create a multi level project. Kind of Farley like, and only just hanging in there, but a lovely aesthetic none the less. Shame we were loosing the light and I didn't have the chance to get up colser for some detail shots. Oh well, next time...
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The treehouse in Bydgoszcz City, Poland

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9 guys, 350 cans, 7 days of work, pretty awesome outcome. This building is in Bydgoszcz City in north Poland, about 100km south of Gdansk where we visited last year on the Baltic sea. Don't know much more about the piece, but it's a staggering credit to the artists involved to take on such a monumental canvas. By my reckoning it's 11 stories tall. Respect.
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Green Sleeves - gorilla gardening in Toronto

Green sleeves - Photo: Michael Chrisman/Torontoist

Awesome article on innovative gorilla gardening project in Toronto. Read the entire article from the Torontoist here:

http://torontoist.com/2009/07/green_sleeves.php

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Mark Jenkins, Washington based street sculptor

Washington, 2008

Washington, 2008

Washington, 2005

London, 2008

Washington, 2006

Philadephia, 2005

Assateague Island, MD, 2005

Mark Jenkins (b. 1970 in Fairfax, Virginia ) is an American artist most widely known for the street installations he creates using packing tape. His work has been featured in various newspapers and magazines including Time Out: New York, The Washington Post, The Independent, the book Hidden Track: How Visual Culture is Going Places, and on the street art blog Wooster Collective. He has shown indoors in galleries in the U.S., Europe and Brazil and is represented by Lazarides Gallery in London.

He maintains the Website http://www.tapesculpture.org and teaches his tape casting process in workshops in the cities he visits. It is well worth checking out this site if you wanna see how he's done it, and give it a crack yourself.

Mark Jenkins said the following about the illegal aspects of street art during an interview with art critic Brian Sherwin:

"There is opposition, and risk, but I think that just shows that street art is the sort of frontier where the leading edge really does have to chew through the ice. And it's good for people to remember public space is a battleground, with the government, advertisers and artists all mixing and mashing, and even now the strange cross-pollination taking place as street artists sometimes become brands, and brands camouflaging as street art creating complex hybrids or impersonators. I think it's understanding the strangeness of the playing field where you'll realize that painting street artists, writers, as the bad guys is a shallow view. As for the old bronzes, I really don't see them as part of what's going on in the dialogue unless addressed by a new intervention. "

See more of Marks work here:

http://www.xmarkjenkinsx.com
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Lovebox weekender 2009

Gary Numan on the main stage

Gary Numan on the main stage

the Groove Armada finale on main stage

Main stage saturday avo

The slide sunday avo. A lot less peeps during the day on sunday

The slide landing strip

Gaymers cider tree house

Noah & the Whale, Gaymers stage on sunday

Ladyhawke, main stage sunday

Ladyhawke, main stage sunday

Gaymers cider tree house

Gaymers stage sunday avo

Frankmusik, Gaymers stage sunday

Florence & the machine, main stage, saturday

Florence & the machine, main stage, saturday

Duran Duran, Main stage, saturday

Mr Le bon, Bond Le Bon, Duran Duran main stage saturday final act

Not sure if this was Bombay Bicycle Club or Datarock?

Crowd scene, saturday

Main stage for Florence & the machine, saturday avo

Bombay Bicycle Club, Gaymers stage, sunday

Well, that time of year again - time for Lovebox. Another goodie, my third in as many years, and this one was as good as they always are. Great line-up of new acts, up and coming acts, and acts of gargantuan nostalgic proportions.

Previous 'mature' line-ups have included Debby Harry & Blondie, B52s (the first ever international gig I went to back in the early 80s), The Human League, The Flaming Lips, Soul 2 Soul, Sly & the Family Stone etc. This years blasts from the past were the pioneer of electronic music Gary Numan and poptastic legend Duran Duran. Absolutely classic.

Weather was a real mixed bag this year, but the great bands, good friends and up for it crowd eclipsed all that. Stand out performance for me was re-living my 80s introduction to electronica at Gary Numan on the main stage, and dancing my tits off to Tom Maddicot's very dirty and bass-heavy dj set in the Relentless zone.

I haven't sorted out through the photos yet, and I know Yorick's got some great photos and vid, especially from the Groove Armada finale, but I'll sort all that out later. Here's some to get you in the mood in the mean time.

Special thanks to Russell Smith, Brixton Dave, Justin Ng, Huckle 26, Justin Brice, Luguber, Carsten Windhorst, idrewuk and Emily from flickr.com for help with this set of pics.
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Mal Function on the streets of Melbourne

mal function - Envy

mal function - TNT

mal function - He's just a poor boy from a poor family

mal function - Peak Hour

Another Melbourne artist I've been following is Mal Function, who's cast faces have been popping up on walls and lamp posts around Fitzroy and Brunswick hoods. They started off fairly monochromatic, but he's moving into a much brighter area now, and some of the more recent faces are sporting Asian dragon graphics, Celtic tattoos and Kiss style make-up.

Check his work here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/malfunction36/
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Larger than life resin sculptures from Will Coles

Untitled fiberglass toy soldier sculpture & artist (Will Coles)

Blacklodge!! put me on to Will Coles, a Sydney artist, a while back, and it's taken me a while to feature him here, but thought I'd start with this piece from last year. He works in resin and concrete, and is currently working on a range of crushed cans, tv remotes, mobile phones and other inanimate objects cast in resin/ a range of suitcases, tvs and crushed juice containers cast in concrete, and bearing single word messages like 'H8', 'Obsolesence', 'Lies', 'Evolve' etc - relative in some obscure way to the subject. These sculptural pieces are then placed around the city. I'm not sure whether they're stuck down or available for the perceptive viewer to take.

This piece is a larger than life version of an existing toy soldier. Enlarged from an already poor copy of a copy of the original, losing shape as well as relevance with time. People stopped playing with toy soldiers years ago in the West, he's now a monument for all those un-played with toy soldiers. Lest we forget.

Check his latest here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26827541@N06
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Redchurch doorway

(click on image to enlarge)

Noticed this paste up in a doorway in Redchurch. Was a full door sized piece. Not sure of the artist but I'll check it out next time I'm in the area. Has a nice vintage Victorian flicker image quality to it.
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Giant green bugs in Redchurch

Some new mural work in the Redchurch hood (bagel end of brick lane). Large pieces shown to scale here by a very drunk Drew...
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Restaurant piece down Dray Walk

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Detail (click on image to enlarge)

Not sure of the artist, but this caught our eye walking down Dray Walk off Brick Lane. Photos don't really do it justice, but it was a nice sketcky, earthy piece. We got in a bit of shit for just wandering in and photographing it, but you get that...
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Twat's out in Crouch End

(click on image to enlarge)

Was wondering home through Crouch End on wednesday evo when I spotted this new Twat about 15 ft up a wall in Park Mews. It was a large piece - about 10 ft across. Not sure how he got it up there without being seen by all the cctv in the area, but where thjere's a will there's a way...
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Well, my sis is getting a taste for being published

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Mermaid detail (click on image to enlarge)

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Here's some pics she took in April from near her house in Welly. She writes...

"I took these at a derelict site next to the old boys institute swimming pool in Mt Cook, before the site was razed to the ground to make way for a new supermarket - which still hasn't been built due to no resource consent yet - makes ya wonder about the order these things get done
in".

Thanks H, keep 'em coming (and if anyone else has pics they want chucked up, you know where to send em).
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