Mister Samo is a trans artist who lives in Portsmouth and who paints murals about gender identity and acceptance. Last spring, he painted a mural in Bristol with the words "You are loved" and one of his characters, which are often painted with mustard-yellow colour paint. The background is pink with a sunset or sky effect.
More street art by Mister Samo on this blog is pictured below:
Street artist Goin painted in last year's Bristol Upfest street art event. The work is located in Bedmister on the side of The Spotted Cow pub. The work is painted in monotone black and white colours, and It features a little school girl who looks a little bit troubled in pose, and she has a red boxing glove on. The work, "Stop Bullying", highlights the problems in bullying. This subject or cause is important to me as I was a major victim of bullying throughout my school years.
The street artist, who tags the work 901N, often uses humanitarian focus in his artwork. He has painted in Bristol previously. The artist is from France, and he creates his work using stencils.
Street Artist D*Face (DFace) was born in London and is one of the world's most prolific street artists. In 2024, the artist collaborated with art'hotel to create some artwork in spaces in and around the hotel. I happened to see the bronze sculpture whilst walking past one day. Named "D's Little Helper", the sculpture features a large paintbrush holding one of DFace's popular orb character or "helper", which is one of his trademarked characters for artistic inspiration.
The hotel is a recent launch in London. It was built on land that belonged to Red Gallery, and building work started in 2020 after some emotional "Last Days of Shoreditch" final street art, and it served as a place to get street food and an event space in the final years. It was one of those places in London that had an abundance of creativity and street art that was slowly replaced.
I previously covered this hotel as it contains an early mural from Banksy, and they salvaged it from a wall and placed it in a prime place above the entrance.
The gallery on Brick Lane is currently hosting a concept shop by street artist Ronzo, an artist responsible for sculpture paste-ups across east London and primarily on Brick Lane. The shop sells his artwork, mainly "bricks" (for Brick Lane) which have smiles and are painted with spray paint. These were pasted up on the streets in east London, and now visitors can purchase their very own Brick Lane brick or paint their own.
Various bricks are for sale, and some of them are framed. Some are pasted up on the wall.
More street art by Ronzo can be seen below.
New Ronzo Street Art 2023
Ronzo's Rainbow Street Art
New Street Art From Ronzo
Street Art: Ronzo.
The Whitecross Street Party is a large annual community event that takes place in mid-July. This is the 15th year of the event, and it was held on the weekend of July 12th and 13th. I went along on the Sunday afternoon to see the street art, but there are other community events for children and adults, a market, street food, live music, and live street art painting. This was my first visit to the actual event day, although I have been in the weeks after to see any output hung on the streets. Earlier, I posted about the work from EPOD and Perscipere.
Vlad Real Art
Suzi Foxy Art
Ed Hicks
Baked Earth Elephant
RPM, Vents, Hefs, Rainmain
London Paste Up
Driper
Whitecross Street Party Community
Sweet Toof
Beth Suzana
272 Birds on Roscoe Street
Curtis Hylton (previous year)
With nice weather, many people were out to enjoy the party. I was late in the afternoon, so next time that I go, it would be good to go earlier in the day to see the atmosphere.
The annual Whitecross Street Party took place on July 12 and 13 this year for it's 15th anniversary year; it is always held on this weekend in July and brings the community together to appreciate good music, food, street art, and more. It is always a large street art event with several popular artists taking part. The street artist .EPOD (also known as epod3000) has been painting a mural at the Whitecross Street Party for the past few years. This year, he painted "On the Surface", which shows a figure holding a smiley face yellow balloon emoji up to their face.
The street art was painted at the top of Whitecross Street.
Street artist Fanakapan is known for painting murals featuring chrome foil balloons, and one of the walls the artist paints on is located on Brick Lane near Star Yard where there has always been a lot of street art and grafitti. The work was painted at the end of June on the building, which now contains restaurant "What The Pitta". The artwork features a smiling soda drink, onion, and a tomato.
On the side of the building is the artist's trademark name "Fan" in chrome foil balloons, a style coined by the artist as "balloon graff".
More artwork featuring Fanakapan can be discovered on my blog here:
"Oscar the Grouch" Fanakapan in Penge
"Pay Rise for the NHS" and Other Street Art by Fanakapan
Voyder and Fanakapan Street Art in Camden
Fanakapan and Nerone Collaborate on "Neighbourhood Watch" in Penge
Fanakapan "No Words" Mural, Hoxton Square
Fanakapan Street Art Around East London
Fanakapan "Up Yours" Mural on Heneage Street
Fanakapan "BITER" Street Art on Pedley Street
Fanakapan Street Art Smiling Balloons
Fanakapan Paints "Hah" Laughing Gas on Pedley Street
Halloween Street Art by Fanakapan
Fanakapan Street Art on Mornington Crescent and Star Yard
Fanakapan Paints PacMan Pizza on Brick Lane and Other Street Art
Fanakapan Star Yard MagnaDonuts Mural
"Follow the Leader" by Fanakapan
Peace for Manchester
Fanakapan Paints Shoreditch Clowns
Chrome Balloon Dog in Star Yard
Fanakapan Paints "Power Tools" on Village Underground Wall
Fanakapan Paints "Drunk Glass Elephants"
Fanakapan, Horror Crew, & Jerry Rugg
Louis Masai and Fanakapan: "Freedom?"
New Chrome Street Art Mask by Fanakapan
Balloon Animal Street Art
Cranio & Fanakapan
Fanakapan and Horror Crew
Camden Street Art Self-Guided Trail
Halloween Street Art (2018 and 2019)
Cranio Returns to London in 2020 and Paints Brick Lane
In late June, I had a fleeting visit to Flatford Mill, which is maintained by the National Trust and is famous as a setting that artist John Constable used in his paintings, notably "The Haywain" (photographed in the series of pictures in this post). "The Haywain" is one of my favourite paintings and hangs in the National Gallery in London. There are miles of landscape in the picturesque countryside to walk at Flatford. When I visited on the Friday, there was some event going on with local schools, which meant that the place was very crowded, so I did not stay long. The below photograph is of the view that Constable painted in "The Haywain".
There is a little wildlife area here with birds, bugs, and plants to explore in a little trail. I captured a common robin.
There are a few walks around the river and some bridges across, and visitors can also do some tours on boats and hire a boat.
I went inside the little cottage, and the ground floor room is open to view how people used to live (probably in the time of John Constable in the early 1800s).
Below is the picture of "The Haywain" painting.
There is beautiful countryside to explore.
Inside one of the buildings is some information about Constable and the paintings painted at the location. There are a few locations at Flatford that the artist used in his work, such as wooden locks on the river and by the wooden bridge.
John Constable grew up at Flatford, and his family owned the mill. He was inspired by Gainsborough, who also painted the Stour Valley. There were many artists from the area or who were inspired by the Stour Valley. The valley had a rural charm of winding rivers and wetlands, nature, and pictursque buildings and spires. It is an idealist example of rural English countryside.
I enjoyed an ice cream with the view.
I wish that it had not been so busy as I would have liked to have had more of a walk here, and it was a beautiful day and not too warm for it.
Environmental charity group Tusk has brought a charity sculpture trail to London, and this time it features the turtle. The turtle was selected as its numbers are declining due to ocean pollution and other environmental factors. Previously, Tusk brought lions and gorilla sculptures to London in other trails. The turtle sculptures were painted and designed by famous artists and celebrities. They were put in place at the end of July and will be removed on September 12.
Dave White
Chila Burman
Adam Dant
Jacob Vilato
Jen and John Cleese
Rankin
Hannah Shergold
Magda Archer
Andrew Scott
Deborah Meaden Steve Bartlett
Mauro Perruchetti
Ronnie Wood
Jemma Powell
Ralph Steadman
For previous sculpture trails by Tusk, see the below posts on this blog:
I visited Castle Rising Castle at the end of June when I visited Norfolk. The castle, located near Kings Lynn, is managed by English Heritage, and visitors can explore the 12th century castle and earthworks. The castle is mainly in ruins but with its structure largely intact, and it served as a royal residence and hunting lodge. The castle was the home of Queen Isabella (mother of Edward III) after the murder of her husband Edward II, and it was passed to the Howard family in the late 1500s. The Howard family still own the castle.
The castle is surrounded by a moat, which is now dry today but still contains a bridge over.
The gatehouse is in ruins, but the arches are still intact.
The shell of the castle itself is still standing and very improsing, and I can imagine how it could have intimidated and been a symbol of power to all who visited it.
The castle was built by th brother of William the Conqueror after marriage to the widow of Henry I.
Visitors can enter inside the castle, and I walked up to the top of the stairs to start the exploration of the ruin.
This room at the top was the reception room, and th arched doorway here is in fine detail and would have been painted different colours and meant to impress visitors.
Off of this room is a hallway off to other rooms that would have been in the apartments over the keep / great hall.
The great hall is now open to the elements.
There was one room still intact with som floor tiles as well. I also visited the chapel area, but some areas were blocked off due to safety concerns.
I went to walk to th top of the castle tower to see the view, but this was also closed off. There were also a couple of roosting pigeons.
On the lower ground floor, I explored more rooms of the shell.
After exploring the remains of the castle, I walked around the earthworks around the moat to see some glimpses of the castle.
The castle is open all year around, but there are reduced hours and closure on some days throughout the autumn, winter, and spring months.
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