Street Art - Transient Art - Graffitti

Call it what you like, Street Art has flourished in the early 21st Century perhaps defining a period of immense political and economic upheaval. Whether you love it or loathe it, Street Artists are here to stay. The most successful artists go on to have gallery careers with works fetching multi-million dollar prices at exclusive exhibitions.

I've been to a Mr Brainwash Exhibition in London where bouncers carefully guard work and ladies in suits take orders for prints costing thousands. It's on the Street where I find the most innovative, creative, pioneering and downright whacky art which gives the inner city a sophisticated if slightly unplanned veneer all of it's own.

Brick Lane

A popular location and in an old part of the East End, Brick Lane is dominated by the enormous, defunct Truman Brewery which now hosts huge design shows for London Design week in addition to some of the best art and photography graduation exhibitions. At the weekend this labrynth of a landscape plays host to thousands of stalls selling everything from world foodstuffs to antique furniture and clothes, up and coming fashion designs and lots of artisan cheese. Have you ever tried Columbian street food or Vietnamese coconut pancakes ?

Captive Audience

On a good day in summer the streets around Brick Lane are literally a throng of people. 500,000 visitors in the sunshine, often queuing down the street for it's world famous Beigels with SaltBeef or cream cheese and smoked salmon. It's right next to the city so is a haven for street artists and street performers hoping to gain recognition for their unique brand of creativity. Beatboxers, buskers and street barbers rub shoulders with spray can artists, shoppers & tourists.

Selection

Here's a selection from my Street Art collection, this clutch hand picked for their originality wit and unique style. There's even a famous piece in here which has been featured in a TV commercial for a well known, high Street Bank

1/160th @f4.5 ISO 100 This conglomeration of art along the old market wall on Sclater Street produces vibrant colours as the cheeky spray can character pokes out among the scrawl. In a very post modern twist, I've exhibited my photographic work in the gallery opposite this very piece of art.

1/100th @f5 ISO 100 This tiny wheat paste composite placed near the ground level at the start of Columbia Road, home to the world famous flower market and part of the Brick Lane tour would almost be missed if you didn't have eyes like a hawk. It's scale and placement are clever, giving it a semblance of a modern street fairy or brick sprite as I call them ;)

1/320th @f7 ISO 100 This old fashioned cartoon phone replete with telephone cables is placed just at the right height to make an imaginary call. I'm not sure of the artist's subplot here but there's something genuinely interesting about the idea of facsimile and the cartoon style harking back to an earlier time is intriguing and made me smile. It's as if a comic book has begun to infiltrate the real world. These phones just don't exist anymore but they did when I was a kid.

1/200th @f7.1 ISO 100 This clever image of a technicolour human skull at a distance of 3 metres becomes a strange visual illusion as we realise the eyes and nostrils are faces and the teeth are hands A fine example of the lesser know sub genre of Op-art Street Art or Op-Street.*

1/160th @f5 ISO 100 This professionally executed & very cute little dog & bones motif alludes to the many owners of very small dog breeds in the area, who dress them up as fashion accessories in a world where little dogs make great surrogate children for city dwellers living in cramped space.

1/200th @f7.1 ISO 100 La Peregrina has sat largely untouched at the entrance to Columbia Road for many years. A certain respect for this old lady of Street Art, she has survived countless seasons, the weather and council intervention to become something of a celebrity, featuring in a tv advert for a high street bank. Strangely in the advert she is facing the other way, which means they flipped her around to follow the shot... She now has also has a moustache and a swinging little smurf to keep her company.

1/160th @f4.5 ISO 100 Although I've seen this artist's meticulous primitivism influenced work around all the East End, I don't know anything about them. It's a very distinctive style and the art is more like traditional painting techniques than the familiar quick and grab stencil / spray can / wheat paste. Using marker pens, spooky ghost like, geometric figures adorn tight space and look custom designed to fit the location.

1/400th @f9 ISO 100 This oversize piece of scratch art in the shape of Albert Einstein's face is created from scratching into the affixing panel for advertising posters at The Truman Brewery in Brick Lane. A fascinating and labour intensive piece of relief sculpture, it measures about 2.5 x 1.5 metres and was gone soon after it was put up. The billboard guys came and filled it in

1/160th @f5.6 ISO 100 Making a statement about the Magic of Mushrooms, computer games and the illegality of substances, this composite poster by Graffik Gallery is joined by an installation of a CCTV camera. London has the most Closed Circuit Television cameras of any city anywhere. The estimate is that if in central London for the day you will be picked up 300 times.. You are already famous !

1/160th F6.3 ISO 100 A piece of subconscious techno fear, this robotic wheat paste character on Sclater Street is coming to get you. It is the newest piece of art on a wall composed of older work. I remember when the posters to the left were fresh and there was a whole series of them pasted up hastily to coincide with a gallery exhibition by the same artist. Note the out of focus female face wheat paste at the bottom of the frame like a ghost of street art past. And that concluded this episode of Street Art brought to you by the power of Panasonic micro 4/3rd mirrorless technology.