Category Archives: Shoreditch

Brick Lane, Shoreditch

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There is a lot of street art and graffiti in Shoreditch and one of the streets where it is plentiful is Brick Lane.   There is much more than be covered in one blog post.  What follows is a selection of the street art that I saw in that area back in March.  I’ve tried to find the artist as often as possible…  but it’s not always possible!

below: Four people, quadruplets, standing at attention with eyes forward, on a wall.

paste up of four men standing in a line, shoulder to shoulder, on a background of graffiti tags.

below: Letters pasted on a wall, “Expand your comfort zone” but with D, U and Z missing.
A couple of faces looking on.

words on a graffiti covered wall that once said Expand your comfort zone, but some of the letters are missing and others are starting to peel.
below: Posters by agheras73 aka Arturo Garcia de las Heras

a row of posters showing a man in various jumping poses, each with a different coloured background, green, orange, red and blue.

street art of a man with skull face, helmet and googles on his forehead, ammo belt across his chest.

paste up of a woman's head, black sunglasses, with some red details and highlights on her face

below: On the left is a woman in profile by Irish artist Iljin.

three graffiti faces on a wall, one woman in profile painted in blues and two identical black and white paste ups of a young man

street art and graffiti on a wall, a woman in a green skirt suit and some creature's heads

below: Blue head, red head, @ne_illustration aka Nathan Evans.

two large heads by ne illustrations, a blue head and a red head.

below: Love, love bunny-ish paste up and love on polka dots.

a square paste up of a rabbit's head and a circular paste up below it, white polka dots on blue with the word love written in cursive in the center.

 

below: “This being human is a guest house.”

scribbled drawn line drawing of a face with a wide open mouth, amongst other written graffiti on the wall

below: He stands guard by the door while she watches the passersby.

a very small black stencil of a man with a target as a head, standing on a wall, with feet at sidewalk level . Near him is a woman's face painted on the wall of a doorway

below: A likeness of Frida Kahlo sitting cross legged with her hands in her lap, a few scribbles by Elsie and a paste up of Lt. Vincent and his cat  – his red, white and blue character is seen  running all over Shoreditch.

a paste up of Frida sitting crossed legged on the floor, hands in lap,

below: What do a plastic toy helicopter and airplane, a scrunched up foil wrapper, part of a German cigarette package (rauchen mindert ihre fruchtbarkeit = smoking reduces fertility), a pink pencil and a picture of what looks like Richard Nixon (who is it?) have to do with each other?  Not sure, you’ll have to ask artist Mr. Fahrenheit.  He’s the maker of the art with U R so Porno Baby.

street art picture of Richard Nixon's head, with red paint splattered below.

below: Queen Elizabeth over and over again (also the work of Mr. Fahrenheit), along with Pinch Rio whoever he may be.  Do the numbers on the poster have any significance?  The bottom line is a date but the others are a mystery.

many identical paste ups of Queen Elizabeth's head, outlined in different colours, pasted on a wall,

portraits in Shoreditch

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As I walked around Shoreditch and other areas in east London, I saw a lot of portraits by street artist Paul ‘Don’ Smith.  He’s been painting on the streets for more than 25 years, mostly portraits of famous people or characters from TV and movies.   These are the ones that I saw (March 2016).

below: Two portraits side by side.  On the right, from the TV series, The Avengers, Patrick Macnee as John Steed with Diana Rigg as Emma Peel.   On the left is #wooshinism  If I google that, I get photos of this portrait that people have posted on instagram.

two street art portraits, on the right is character from the TV shaw the Avengers

below: The title on this one has been covered over I’m afraid.  Any ideas?

A couple, man and woman, portraits by Paul Don Smith, street art

below: Telly Savalas as  police detective Kojak, a TV series from the 1970’s.  “Who loves ya baby” was one of his catchphrases.

Kojak portrait, from the TV series, by Paul Don Smith

below: Statham, or Jason Statham, actor.  Kiss kiss bang bang.

street art portrait of a man with a gun to his head, Statham,

below: “The Message” a portrait of Malala, referring to Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani advocate for education for women and the youngest ever Nobel laureate.

portrait of Malala, by Paul Don Smith, street art, on a door

below: And one I don’t know.  Do you?

portrait of a woman, street art by Paul Don Smith in London, on a door

 

 

people on Fashion Street

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The Fairy Goth Mother store stands at the corner of Commercial St and Fashion St in London E1.  First the bright blue caught my eye and then the name of the store made me smile.  When I walked this area back in March 2016 I saw a lot of graffiti and and street art on Fashion St and I took the following pictures.

A storefront in a line of brick buildings, at an intersection, with blue wood window frames and door frame, a woman is walking past. the store is called, L and L, Fairy Goth Mother

below: Why so serious?  Joker’s face by Syd, one of a number of pieces (and people) together on a brick wall.

street art painting of the joker's face up close, bright red mouth, other features in black on white, with the words, Why so serious? bySyd

a wall in Fashion street, London E1, with a painting of the jokers face and some paste ups

below: Is this Liza Minelli?  Or someone else?

large paste up of woman standing, looks like Liza Minelli in red and white striped long top and black leggings, red shoes, on a brick wall

below: Wrapped up in Yves Saint Laurent.

detail of a paste up of a woman in a head scarf made of fabric with the Yves Saint Laurent logo all over it and a child, in grey tones

below: Another wall in Fashion Street.  Close ups of some of the graffiti are in the following 2 photos.

a man walks past a wall that is covered with stickers and paste ups graffiti and street art in Shoreditch London

below: Stikki peaches James Dean paste up man, Rebel with a cause.  A purple beaver, pistachio shell art, and can you spot David Bowie?  Hint, check the telephone.

stylized animal paste up by Costah, small blue beaver head, man paste up by stikki peaches, and other graffiti stickers and paste ups on a wall

below: The background of the collage is a page from the ‘Financial Times’ of 27 June 2012.  The white strips of paper have words printed on them, the same words over and over again, “UR SO PORNO BABY if you want it”.  The small white poster on the right says, “Danger, Community Support in the area: screwing the community and attacking the vulnerable”.

collage on newspaper, face, the word Baby many times, in a black outline

below: A mural on the side of Joe’s Kid Cafe, painted by Jimmy C.   It features the owner, Danni as a three year old child with her grandfather Joe.  Joe also ran a cafe in East London back in the 1930’s.

A man hugging a young girl, Joe's Kid is the title,

below: A person (Michael Jackson?) constructed of other people’s faces.   An interesting concept.  I don’t recognize all the constituent faces and perhaps they aren’t all famous people, but I can see Mohammad Ali, John Travolta, the Bee Gees and possibly Grace Jones.  The printed text on his T-shirt is more “UR SO PORNO BABY if you want it”.  The rant in grey on black is as follows:  Now you can’t stop me even thought (sic) U think that if U block me you’ve done UR thing and when you bury me underneath all UR pain I’m steady laughing while surfacing baby I’ve got what it takes and there’s no way u’ll ever get me.”

a street art peice in the shape of a person walking, made up of a collage of pictures of people's heads

 

Two paste ups on a wall, a running wolf with hind legs outstretched to the back, and a woman in an orange and black outfit

street art, collage woman's face with an eyeball in her mouth, scrawled letters of Howl Owl and a white rectangle with two black ovals,

below: Beside #31, Eastco Industrial Wear Ltd.  She has been since painted over with a mural by the same artist – another woman’s face but in purple tones.

a mural of a woman's face in profile on a wall, many colours, long hair, maroon background,