Concrete-brick jungle

Animals, after people, are one of the most gripping subject for the street artist. No wonder as what else could bring more life to the grey street than a wild animal? Serious, with a wink, grotesque, funny, scary or very sophisticated- Parisian jungle lives its own life in hundreds of ways.

Below, first two pictures present the art works of the artist called Bonom. Creating mostly in Paris and Brussels, Bonom likes to make us felling uneasy with his sprayed works, that occupy the highest parts of the buildings, like if they were "floating close to the sky". A nice article about Bonom you can find here. 

Below: boar on the spit. Scary, bit gory piece of art arranged around the technical ladder fixed on the wall. He uses very often this element of the building as an integral part of his graffiti. Very, very impressive...

Boar on the spit by Bonom

Rummaging in the web I found few short movies showing the way he works. How he climbs the high buildings to create his most remarkable graffiti and looks for some adrenaline at the same time... 

Gare au Gorrile - Street artist Bonom painting a gorilla in the center of Brussels

Belgian reportage about Bonom 

Bonom about being more than a street artist and criminalisation of the street art

Fish by Bonom

Monkeys by artists: Kouka and Ponz. 

Kouka

Ponz

Stencilled green jaguar, artist unknown.

City of Paris is full of little stencilled animals everywhere. Usually black sprayed, little fellows roam free, without an owner.

There's a group of animals that makes us smile and/or actually smile to us, too.

Smiling panda by Sheez

Dancing, a little bit satanic-like goat...Is it for fun or is there some message behind?

Little red fox carelessly sprayed in the 3rd district of Paris.

If we talk about the animals, we couldn't not mention about Codex Urbanus. The number of his bestiary is growing really fast. My previous post about him to be found here. 

Fig 76 - Saurus Cervus by Codex Urbanus

Fig 204 - Eliphas Axolotl by Codex Urbanus

Some animals are bored to be constantly exposed, so they simply descend the walls and go somewhere else, leaving the traces behind them. 

Seal by Burins

"Kraken - Je t'aime", "Kraken - I love you", artist unknown, is to be found near the Republique in Paris. If someone is interested to find out more about this legendary giant squid, or is in love with it as well, can read more about it on Wikipedia. 

Kraken, je t'aime - Kraken I love you

The last presented group of animals is treated in a very artistic way with a kind of wildness preserved, which is hard to see at first glimpse, but we feel it very well. There are the beautiful compositions taking the final form of the animals, as well as the animals that are more or less "anthropomorphised". Picture below, forming a tiger's head, probably is made by an artist called Dourone, but I'm not entirely sure.

Another tiger made by Fred le Chevalier, a Parisian favorite as a street artist. Actually, Fred's tiger is transformed to represent a daemon. More about him and his numerous characters created with the pinch of onirism to be found in my previous post about Fred le Chevalier.

And here the brick jungle ends.

Road sign's street art, vol. II.

Exactly one year ago I have posted the photos about road signs, plate's stickers etc. Today I'm doing it again, as the amount of the new street art pieces on the traffic signs and plates is growing fast every day and the artists are getting more and more creative!

Below: author unknown

No thoroughfare road sign originally retouched by Clet Abraham, was, in my opinion, enhanced once again, but by another artist, who pasted the eyeball instead of the head. Moreover, this eyeball sticker is reflective, which gives different effects with and without a flesh (made by night ). 

Clet Abraham again.

Here Clet Abraham, of course, and just below the work of Leo'n'Pipo - enhanced road sign about bicycles.

Liberte - freedom. In my post about London, you can see an English version of this traffic sign.

About the last two photos, I'm not sure, whether they belong to Clet Abraham, or not, but the last one made me a big smile whilst the morning rush to work

Yuuupi!

Leo'n'pipo below

I also found a bicycle (I'm not sure though, whether was it really bicycle or not...) frame, attached to the wall, with the RIP sprayed behind it. Apparently, for some people the feelings don't need to be addressed to the human/living beings only.

London's art by night

It was very short, my visit in London... Though, still I had a little time to make a quick shot "here and there". Mostly taken by night, but it gave them even more charm. Enjoy the report of what is just happening on the London's streets! 

Bestiary of ROA.

By wikipedia : "ROA (artist from Ghent in Belgium) generally paints wild/urban animals and birds that are native to the area being painted. ROA usually uses a minimal colour pallet like black, white and red, but also creates works using vibrant colours depicting flesh and/or internal systems within the animals and birds". 

Giant rat - ROA

I must admit that these animals, of a large format - as they occupy entire walls, found by chance around the corner, arouse some kind of terror. They also remind us, that in this post-industrial and super urbanized environment we are not the only inhabitants...

Giant squirrel - ROA

Almost all the photos were taken in Shoreditch area of London (let's say it's an equivalent of the Parisian Marais).

Street art piece below is just breathtaking. As it was taken by night and under the bridge, the quality is not the best, but thanks to it the 3d effect is much more enhanced. I was starring a little while on it, completely amazed. Not only because of the 3d effect, but the motion that artist was able to create using this particular technique. After, on DailyMail, I found a long article about it. DALeast, chinese secretive graffiti artist, whose "unusual paintings, which are sometimes hundreds of feet across, can look 3D and as if they are created out of thousands of tiny metal shards, but in fact they have been spray-painted onto a flat surface." 

DALeast said in one of the interviews: "I hope I am creating illusions through my paintings that can be a switch for people's minds. I like to express life-emotions and the environment, and use different artistic forms to speak. I prefer people staring at my work without saying any words - it means they are taking it in."

Panoramic view

Changing the subject from animals to people, a few "faces of London" to look at.

Below the mural dedicated to Charlie Burns, that passed away 2 years ago in London. He was the oldest inhabitant of Brick Lane. "He achieved glamorous success and universal respect as the patriarch of the Burns family, celebrated for their endeavours in boxing" - as we can read here and there. Artist unknown. 

Powerful expression...Artist unknown.

Portrait presented below made by painter Guy Denning is quite creepy. On wikipedia we can read: "Denning uses not only powerful brush strokes to express his emotions deeply, but also scratches the paint to show the audience the intensity of the emotions he is trying to portray with his artwork. His work involves other techniques such as blacking out eyes and mouths maybe to emphasize Denning's theme of darkness, horror and maybe even despair."

Making-of presented in this movie. Superposing and spraying many stencils, one on the another is not only an interesting technique in itself but also, in my opinion, serves to emphasize the "message" contained in his works.

Johnny Cash

More fantastic than realistic. Born in 1979, Ricardo Akn is an illustrator, photographer, and street artist.  Akn has worked with well known brands and publications including Nike, Ellus, CK One, Doc Dog, and others. 

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