Street Artists

Christiaan Nagel

28 Feb ’13

Christiaan Nagel is a South African artist, been based in London since 2007. We, at Street Art London, last featured Nagel’s public artworks in this post here a couple of years after they began to appear in London. Now we take a slightly deeper dive into the artistic universe of this mysterious artist. At first glance, the sculptural works of Nagel contrast with the wider milieu of street and public art to be found in Shoreditch presented two dimensionally on walls and subsequently the artist’s influences subsequently appear to be more diverse and distinct from his artistic peers in Shoreditch.

More after the jump…

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Broken Fingaz Crew Hackney Road

Broken Fingaz, Israel’s best known graffiti crew, are currently in London and last week Street Art London hooked up Tant, one of the members, with a small wall (see below).  There will surely be new work from Broken Fingaz going up  in the next week or two so watch this space…  For now here is a little background on Broken Fingaz Crew and details of their current work in London.

Broken Fingaz were formed in 2001 and hail from Haifa in Northern Israel. They consist of four members who are Deso, Kip, Tant and Unga.  Originally Broken Fingaz crew started out in graffiti but have since moved into illustration, muralism, animation and a whole range of other disciplines.  After conquering Israel with their distinctive styles Broken Fingaz Crew have moved on to paint all over the world, London being no exception.

This is the second time that Broken Fingaz have visited London, they were here in May of this year off the back of some major exhibitions in prominent Israeli art institutions such as the Tel Aviv Museum and the Haifa Museum of Art.  During Broken Fingaz’s first visit they put down some great pieces around East London, notably a large mural on Hackney Road and a collaboration with INSA on Christina Street, Shoreditch.

More after the jump…

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Miniature paste-up scenes have been popping up all over East London.  Keep your eyes out, they are everywhere.   The artist behind all of this is Pablo Delgado.   Here are some of Street Art London’s favourites:

Pablo Delgado street art in London

More after the jump…

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The street artist known only as Slinkachu has been abandoning little people on the streets of London since 2006.  His first project, ‘Little People in the City’, saw minature men, women and children living their lives on the streets of London and was immortalised in the 2008 book entitled Little People in the City”. Since then, Slinkachu has done a number of other projects, notably ‘Whatever Happened to the Men of Tomorrow’ which documented the decline of a tiny, middleaged and balding super-hero on the streets of London and ‘Inner City Snail – a slow moving street art project’ which saw Slinkachu ‘customising’ a number of London snails which then presumably went about their business none the wiser.  So, next time you are out and about in London, look down, for you might be missing out on the drama undolding below.

Dear Son

Street art of Slinkachu: Little People in the City More after the jump…

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Christiaan Nagel‘s mushrooms may be found dotted all around the East End, high up on the top of buildings and walls. The mushrooms themselves are made from polyurethane and come in a variety of vivid colours. How many have you seen?  Check out more mushrooms after the jump…

More after the jump…

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Street Artist: Stik

6 Jan ’11

Stik

Stik has been creating Stik people around London for over ten years and anyone who has wandered around Shoreditch recently will have been greated by Stik’s supersize, bright street art adorning shop shutters and walls. Stik people initally began to appear in Hackney Wick and in recent years marched westward to Shoreditch and the rest of London.

Stik people, although androgenous and constructed from simple shapes, are nevertheless capable of conveying complex body language and emotion. These themes of human emotion and expression are infused in Stik’s brightly coloured street art. Stik, the street artist, himself was homeless for a period and ideas surrounding human vulnerability are also detectable in his art.

Stik

“Beauty is in movement. That’s what it’s about. Beauty is about the way that someone moves their body. You can tell by someone’s walk if they’re angry, whether they’re happy or if they’ve just eaten. You can tell a lot about someone just by the way they’re moving their back or their eyes. There doesn’t need to be a great deal of detail there. You can see it from across the road. You can see someone silhouetted against a white wall in the night and check whether they’re walking in an aggressive way or if they’re someone you know. That’s what I’m trying to capture in my work – that direct recognition” – Stik, in Little London Observationalist, 6 December 2009

Check out Street Art London’s Stik photos from all over London after the jump.

Stik

More after the jump…

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INVASION LONDON!!!  In 1998 an invasion began on the streets of Paris as waves of Invaders began appearing on the street. Invaders were soon to spread to the streets of over 40 other cities throughout the world. The street artist responsible for this street art is known only as Invader, born in 1969 and working in anonymity, nearly nothing else is known about him.

Invader

Most of these Invaders are literally that – homages to the classic Space Invaders arcade game of the 1980s. Each piece is made up of tiles which represent the blocky pixel graphics of the original arcade game. No two Invaders are the same and many are infused with other cultural references, such as a swipe at today’s CCTV society. Invader has also played with other iconic video games characters such as Super Mario.

The installed Invaders become counterculture surveillance drones, reminding people that government and monolithic corporations aren’t the only ones watching – Swindle Magazine, Issue 3, Shepard Faireyz

Invader

London has not been spared this Invasion and Invaders may be found throughout the street of London if one knows where to look. Since Invader’s street art is “suspended between visibility and anonymity” you must be attuned to the correct frequency to see Invaders on the streets. Once you are on this frequency however, you will encounter Invaders all over the streets of London

Invaders come in different sizes but are usually very small, often found lurking in low down corners or high up on walls above street signs. They are not all small however and much larger Invaders have been reported across London. Check out Street Art London’s photos of Invaders from around London after the jump!

More after the jump…

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Street Artist: C215

19 Nov ’10

C215, real name Christian Guémy, is an international street artist superstar who has painted all over the world including India, Israel, Poland, the USA, Senegal and Morocco, and of course, London. Originally from Paris, C215 has two masters in History and in Art and previously worked in import/export! When his daughter Nina was born he became a full time artist.

C215 Street Art

C215 creates bright, intricate stencil works that are both expressive and evocative. His work nearly always consists of close up portraits and his subjects are usually beggars, street kids, homeless people and refugees. C215 describes the motivation behind the choice of his subjects as being those people who are rejected by society and capitalism, the ‘forgotten’. The message behind his work is not directly political, instead C215 seeks to humanise his subjects and raise awareness about people’s plight by awakening passers by to the identities behind each individual. There is also a message behind the placement of his works, behind bars, on bins and on rusty old doors, so called ‘non-places’ where his portraits may be forgotten about. C215 also portrays children in his work, in oparticular his daugther Nina, and religious figures, as a Catholic.

Each stencil has it own story. Most of my stencils come from my own pictures, but some also come from friends, or photographers with whom I collaborate. The most important thing for me is the feeling inside, the expression of the eyes, and the story behind – C215, interview in UrbanArtcore.eu

C215 Street Art

C215 has two distinct stenciling styles. One is multilayered and extremely colourful. The other single layered with perhaps one or two colours. C215 is a prolific street artist and there are fine examples of hos work to be seen in London, particulalry along Blackhall Street in Shoreditch.

Check out this video to promote C215’s monograph of his work from a dozen photographers across Europe:

Street Artists London

Check out more street artists at Street Art London’s ‘Artists’ site here at streetartlondon.co.uk/artists.

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Street Artists LondonStreet Art London has a dedicated ‘Artists’ site.   Here we will be showcasing all of the latest street art from street artists currently active in Londontting walls in London right now.  Over on the Artists site we already have pages dedicated to Stik, Invader, Eine, Isaac Cordal and Otto Schade among others.

Street Art London Artists site

Check out what we had to say about Eine:

Eine is best known for the vibrant typographical letters that have popped up all over East London over the past half of the decade. These letters can appear on their own on shop shutters or can spell whole words across East London walls like “Scary”, “Exciting”, “Vandalism”, “Change” and “Calculate”. Eine’s street art is driven by a love of typography and he describes being influenced by how “letters change shape when combined with other ones”.

Eine hit the headlines in April 2010 when David Cameron presented a piece of his work to Barack Obama, the US president, as a gift from the UK. The piece was not a whole shop shutter unfortunately, but a canvas work entitled “Twenty-first Century City”.

Perhaps Eine’s most famous work adorns the shutters of the shops in Middlesex Street, Shoreditch, now universally known as the ‘Alphabet Street’. For this project, Eine pursuaded local shop owners to let him create a whole alphabet along their street.

Eine, street artist by Street Art London

The feedback has been 100% positive. Spraypainting a shop shutter turns an ugly, boring thing into something interesting and colourful. I think you’d have to be a pretty negative person to find fault in it” Ben Eine.

Press attention and commercial demand for his work has brought Eine firmly out of the underground, but it wasn’t always this way. Eine was brought up in South London and started out in the world of graffiti when he was just 14. He says “ I wanted to be part of that hooded tracksuit gang thing. I did it pretty hardcore for about 20 years and the last time I had a close escape from prison.’

From underground graffiti artist to shining star in the firmament of the London street art scene, Eine is eager to point out that street art is distinct from graffiti. Street art is different because “street artists want to add something to the environment. They consider the audience, whereas graffiti writers don’t care about anyone except themselves, they do it purely for the kick”.

This is a video of Eine at work on the well known wall in Holywell Lane as part of the Moniker International Art Fair 2010. The work took three days to paint and is significant because Eine had painted the very same wall illegally several years prior with the word “Vandalism”.

Check out more street artists at Street Art London’s ‘Artists’ site here at streetartlondon.co.uk/artists.

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Street Artist: Roa

21 Oct ’10

Street Art London, have, as part of our ‘Street Artists‘ site taken a close look at Roa’s recent work in London.

Roa, a hugely talented Belgian street artist from Ghent, is renowned for his giant black and white animal street art. Roa started off in the street art scene painting animals on abandoned buildings and warehouses in the isolated industrial areas of his hometown. Today, Roa’s animals may be found slumbering on the sides of semi derilict buildings and peering out from shop shutters in citiy streets all accross the world from New York to Berlin and Warsaw to Paris.

Graffiti is one of the most free art expressions of the world; you don’t do it for money nor for an institution, it’s free expression and it liberates yourself creatively from a lot of restrictions – ROA

Roa Street Artist Rat London

Roa has visited London on a number of occasions and left his mark. His animals inhabit a number of walls across Shoreditch and, in particular, around Brick Lane. Roa’s street art has a huge visual impact, being both visceral and feral, and he succeeds in juxtaposing nature and the urban environment.

The huge scale and highly intricate nature of Roa’s street art means that pieces take many hours to paint. Consequently, most of his pieces are done with permission which means that his works usually stick around on the street for a while (notwithstanding the efforts of local London Councils).

Street Artists London

Check out more street artists at Street Art London’s ‘Artists’ site here at streetartlondon.co.uk/artists.

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