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This summer, Carnaby Street has decorated the street inspired by artist Frida Kahlo, and this coincides with her exhibition at the Tate Modern - "Frida: The Making of an Icon". The South American artist of Mexican heritage painted vibrant artwork featuring floral designs and sensuality and sexuality of strong female forms. She has become an icon, especially in recent years, with her floral-inspired artwork. The entrance at Kingly Court has become a floral and neon centrepiece as a tribute to her work.

Along Carnaby Street, her portrait is hung with several different features of her face rendered in different styles making up the full portrait of her face, which can be seen on both sides and hanging above the street with other dsigns..

The Frida Kahlo installations on Carnaby Street will be up until the end of this month. 

Hampshire-based street artist Hendog has created a couple of murals in Salisbury. Both of them are a few years old, and one of them was completed right after I visited Salisbury a couple of years ago. The first one is located on Fisherton Street in Salisbury. The work, "Mandatory Imagination Service" shows a young boy holding a sword and riding on a children's horse toy.

The second one is on a frame shop and is called "Smile". It features a little girl holding a digital SLR camera.

Keep coming back to check out more street artist by Hendog.

I have fond memories of playing "Sonic the Hedgehog" games with my brothers - collecting the chaos emeralds and finding hidden areas and quirks in the game. I cannot believe that the game is 35 years old now, and that makes me feel old. This summer, street artists have teamed up with SEGA to paint a few murals of "Sonic the Hedgehog" around east London. The game and character is still popular today with a movie franchise and games.

Ebor Street is home to a couple of the super-fast Sonic murals, including the one above painted with Sonic and friends (and enemies) along the wooden hoarding. 

Great Eastern Street had the murals dedicated to the famous blue hedgehog.

A bigger mural on Ebor Street shows Sonic out-running a giant whale.

The Village Underground wall shows Sonic with the gold rings.

A little pocket of London at Pont Street (between Knightsbridge and Sloane Square) is known as Anya Hindmarch's "The Village", and it contains a cafe and a couple of art galleries and shops selling the artist's work. One is used as a pop-up gallery that celebrates artistic work with larger brands. This summer, the shop has become the popular "Ice Cream Project" with different flavours (Yorkshire pudding to toothpaste to oxo cubes to corn to butter) created from different products by Anya Hindmarch. The ice cream opened earlier this month, and I went to try it a few days ago. 

People can try up to three flavours before choosing a flavour to buy. The flavours can be purchased in a tub or a scoop in a cup. I tried the corn, toothpaste, and the caramel bar. I decided that the ginger nut one would probably be delicious too, so I purchased that. I liked the corn one a lot, though the toothpaste was nice but a bit strong.

All of the ice creams are produced in Devon. The flavours are: Tunnock's Caramel Wafers, Walker's Shortbread, Green Giant Sweetcorn, illy Coffee, Euthymol Original Toothpaste, Lurpak Salted Butter, Müller Strawberry Corner, Yazoo Chocolate Milk Drink, McVitie's Ginger Nuts, Capri-Sun Orange, Aunt Bessie's Glorious Golden Yorkshires, Kikkoman Soy Sauce, Jacob's Mini Cheddars, Oxo Stock Cubes, and Paxo Stuffing.

There was a queue when I visited on the afternoon on a weekend, but it wasn't too bad. I think I waited twenty minutes.

Th Ice Cream Project runs until the 18th of August, so definitely do go along and try some unique flavours.

Earlier this month, a new sculpture trail launched in London called "Pride in the Quarter". The sculpture trail features seventeen lion sculptures, inspired by the football team's three lion emblem for football and the World Cup games that are taking place at the moment. Th sculptures will be on display across various sites in London until the middle of August, and the sculptures are free to visit. I visited them yesterday.

The sculptures are located near Covent Garden and then Victoria mainly (London Heritage Quarter is the sponsor), and they are within walking distance, or visitors can take a tube to the main locations. The sculpture trail will raise money for charities.

This is a fun sculpture trail visiting different parts of London to explore, and the weather is nice to allow a few day trips.

At the end of May and to coincide with the schools being closed for a week, Battersea Power Station held some events and art installation pop-ups. One of these was Luminarium by Luxart. Luminarium is an inflatible series of "bubbles" or "domes" connected together that once entered inside, create glowing chambers and tunnels with bright colours and shapes meant to appear as an organic building. I went to check it out having previously seen photographs of the chambers when it was on a tour in other cities.

The attraction was mostly popular with children and families. No shoes are allowed inside to protect the material. I visited on a particularly hot day at the end of May, but there were air conditioners inside, so it felt cool.

There are different chambers inside where visitors can relax (or play) and soak up the different colours being emitted. This is a good example of immersive art, and the "sculpture" is made to look like interiors of cathedrals or other architecture features.

Luminarium was a fun experience, and I found it to be quite relaxing inside. Children will enjoy exploring and running around the different tunnels, but there were quiet areas that I was able to find to relax in. 

Each year, the restaurants and shops in the Chelsea area of London puts on floral displays to coincide with the annual Chelsea Flower Show. This event attracts thousands of visitors to this part of London for the week in order to see the free floral displays. This year's theme is "Out of This World" and features planets, astrology, mythology, spirituality, Earth, and space. In addition to the shopfronts and restaurants decorating, the area has also created a few displays in central locations. One of them features planet Earth and is a tribute to nature lover and speaker David Attenborough's 100th birthday this month.

One of the central creations was a UFO with aliens.

Mars and Venus, as the god and goddess of mythology

Rockets

The hotel at 11 Cadogan Gardens always does a lovely display.

Tarot cards, suns and moons, unicorns, mythical creatures....

One of the other big central sculptures was a giant inflatable moon and astronaut.

The planet Earth tribute to David Attenborough is located on King's Road.

Plantary ice creams

The Ivy restaurant had a wonderful display with planets, aliens, and astronauts.

Ziggy Stardust, David Bowie, also made the theme.

And mermaids, why not.

Carrots shaped like rockets and other fruit and vegetables in planet forms.

This pink rocket looks a little like something else a little naughty.

A dragon was one of the other central displays.

Pegasus was the also a central display.

The Zodiac with all of the symbols appeared in Sloane Square, but this was impossible to photograph.

Pink sumo wrestlers

A cow abduction

A dragon battle

Two colourful parrots

I loved the daisy flowers.

Medusa

Another dragon

For previous posts on this blog about the Chelsea in Bloom, see below.

<li><a href="http://almostafternoon.com/blog/2025/05/chelsea-in-bloom-2025.html">Chelsea in Bloom 2025</a>: Flowers in Fashion</li>
<li><a href="http://almostafternoon.com/blog/2016/05/chelsea-bloom-2016.html">Chelsea in Bloom 2016</a></li>
<li><a href="http://almostafternoon.com/blog/2022/05/chelsea-in-bloom-british-icons.html">Chelsea in Bloom 2022: British Icons</a></li>
<li><a href="http://almostafternoon.com/blog/2023/05/chelsea-in-bloom-2023-flowers-.html">Chelsea in Bloom 2023: Flowers in Film</a></li>
<li><a href="http://almostafternoon.com/blog/2024/05/chelsea-in-bloom-2024.html">Chelsea in Bloom 2024: Floral Feasts</a></li>

Conor Harrington is a street artist who creates large-scale murals with a nod to the classic style or painting but with figures and settings shown in conflict or poses that can tell a story. A couple of years ago when I went to Greenwich, I photographed a mural that the artist had created a few years earlier for London Mural Festival. The work shows a figure blinded and hidden behind a Union Jack flag. The title of the work is "The Blind Exit" and is about the Brexit Referendum in which the UK left the EU.

The Union Jack flag is completely covering the subject, who is dressed in old-style dress and has a European Union flag and empty globe in the background. 

More work by Conor Harrington on this blog can be seen here:

<p><a href="http://almostafternoon.com/blog/2026/01/conor-harrington-the-duel-of-b.html">Conor Harrington: The Duel of Bristol</a><a href="http://almostafternoon.com/blog/2022/03/conor-harrington-2022.html"><br />Conor Harrington's Second Mural Off Brick Lane</a><a href="http://almostafternoon.com/blog/2022/02/new-mural-by-conor-harrington-.html" rel="bookmark"><br />New Mural by Conor Harrington Off Brick Lane<br /></a><a href="http://almostafternoon.com/blog/2013/09/street-art-conor-harrington.html" rel="bookmark">Street Art: Conor Harrington</a><br /><a href="http://almostafternoon.com/blog/2013/06/baroque-the-streets-dulwich-st.html" rel="bookmark">Baroque the Streets: Dulwich Street Art<br /></a><a href="http://almostafternoon.com/blog/2014/02/dublin-street-art.html" rel="bookmark">Dublin Street Art<br /></a><a href="http://almostafternoon.com/blog/2014/07/street-art-on-whitecross-stree.html" rel="bookmark">Street Art on Whitecross Street<br /></a><a href="http://almostafternoon.com/blog/2014/09/new-street-art-by-conor-harrin.html" rel="bookmark">New Street Art by Conor Harrington<br /></a><a href="http://almostafternoon.com/blog/2014/10/belfast-street-art.html" rel="bookmark">Belfast Street Art<br /></a><a href="http://almostafternoon.com/blog/2014/03/recent-street-art-in-early-spr.html" rel="bookmark">Street Art Round-up in Early Spring 2014<br /></a><a href="http://almostafternoon.com/blog/2019/03/street-art-tour-of-walthamstow.html" rel="bookmark">Street Art Tour of Walthamstow</a></p>

A new sculpture by Banksy has appeared at Waterloo Place in central London, which is between the mall and Regent Street (Saint James' end). The sculpture is a political message, such as many of Banksy's works. It shows a marching figure holding a flag, but the flag has blown into the face of the marcher to blind them as they appear to step off of the plinth. I visited it today.

I captured another photograph of Banksy's signature.

Paul "Don" Smith, who is known for the "banker" or "tap man" stencil has also made a mark on the plinth.

At the moment, there isn't any calls to move the sculpture, so please go and visit it. 

Earlier this spring, Elephant Parade, part of Elephant Family, hosted a new elephant sculpture trail at Battersea Power Station to coincide with the Easter break. The train took place during from the end of March until the end of April, and I went to have a look last month. Elephant Family raises awareness of the elephant and ensuring that their habitats and wildlife is protected. The sculptures raise awareness and charity for these causes.

There were over twenty designs of elephants on display. This isn't the first time that they had a trail in London as there had been several in the past.

All of the elephants were easy to access around and inside the power station, although with the multiple levels in Battersea Power Station, it did take some time to locate the ones inside. It is a good day out to explore Battersea Power Station, and I also saw the Sunday market during my visit.