Street Art Sculptures in the Whitechapel Area

I went on a pay what you feel like walking tour of graffiti and street in the Whitechapel area of London. (Cheers Raw.) Forgive me for indulging in my special interest area of street art sculptures and guerrilla installations rather than giving a general report on the walking tour.

D*face, Banksy and others in Whitechapel

It was good to see other street art sculptures outside of Melbourne, not to make a comparison as I couldn’t do that in a few hours in one part of London, but to see what other artists are doing. Although, it was not all unfamiliar there were, of course, Invader’s ubiquitous mosaics (and a I spotted a few pieces, tags, paste-ups, stickers and even a whole building by some familiar Melbourne artists but that’s another story).

Jonesy

It was my wife that first spotted a small Jonesy, a whimsical bronze sculpture on top of a pole. Inspiring City has two articles about Jonesy. “Jonesy street art in London, the artist who is our little secret” and “Studio interview with Jonesy, the environmental artist who places bronze sculptures around the city.” Bronze sculptures can be made in multiples, but it is hard to see how an artist working in bronze can be called an environmentalist.

Dr Cream

I saw lots of Dr Cream’s rolling fool on the walls. A cast plastic animated series of a jester rolling in a snail shell, not a surprising piece from someone, like Dr Cream who has worked for most of his life in animation. Read a long interview with Dr Cream by Dutch Girl in London.

Gregos

Amongst the mosaics, masks and heads on the walls of Brick Lane there are the painted faces of Gregos, a French artist who casts his own face.

Our tour guide took us to a community garden that included some large garden sculptures made of recycled materials. It is difficult for a sculptor to work on a large scale and these community gardens provide this opportunity.

D*face and Banksy were also working on the large scale with these two pieces using cars. The Banksy is the old pink car that is now under plexiglass; I was told that once contained a stencil skeleton in the driver’s window. Banksy could be seen as a street installation artist, especially after his work in NYC and Dismaland. Banksy pieces often uses the found location for most of physical part of his installation, rectifying the readymade location (alá Duchamp) with a stencil. Good placement of a stencil makes all the difference.

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Street Art Sculpture 5

I walk up Hosier Lane, Hosier Lane no longer has the best street art and graffiti in Melbourne but it has become a traditional place to make your mark, and I finally see what I’ve been looking for a piece of low relief by Discarded. Discarded is a new street art sculptor working around Melbourne, creating lyrical surreal collages from ceramic casts of discarded objects.

Discarded, Hosier Lane, 2015

While I was in Hosier Lane I chanced upon another work of street art sculpture, Soul Mates, with a corny, folksy aesthetic.

Unknown, Soul Mates, Hosier Lane, 2015

Every year or so I have posted something about street art sculptures, installations, what ever you want to call them because contemporary three dimensional art is very diverse from performance to traditional materials. This my fifth blog post on the subject, hence the title. I have written about street art sculptures in the final chapter of my book on the public sculptures of Melbourne, for these are public sculptures, even if they are unauthorised. Not that street art sculptures are the final word in public sculpture but they are the most recent new development.

Here are some more photos of street art sculpture that I have seen. Some of these you might have already seen from earlier posts but it is good to bring them all together.

Mutant, Little Lonsdale St, 2015

A surreal low relief piece by Mutant. I thought that Discarded might be working under another tag but I checked and it is not. Mutant and Discarded appear to be an example of convergent evolution in art.

D*face, Collingwood, c.2011

Old can from D*face when visited Melbourne in 2011

GT, Suitcan, 2015

New cans by GT.

unknown, Hand on pole, Brunswick c.2014

A hand in Brunswick by an unknown artist. I thought might be by Van Rudd because he has done cast arm on another occasion but he confirmed that it was not his work. If you know who the artist is then please let me know.

unknown, Minuature Door Chealsea NYC, 2013

A little door in Chelsea NYC.

See also:

10 Great Street Installation 2014

Street Art Sculpture III 2012

More Street Art Sculpture 2010

Street Art Sculpture 2009

Daniel Lynch, Junky Projects, Presgrave Place, 2014

Collingwood, HaHa and the Street

I went to see Regan Tamanui’s (aka HaHa) ‘Residency’ at the House of Bricks in Collingwood. HaHa is amongst the best stencil artists in the world and House of Bricks is one of the funky converted warehouse gallery spaces focused on the street art scene. Why a ‘residency’ was my first question? He explained that was offered the space due to a cancelled exhibition.

HaHa cutting stencils with both hands.

It is an informal way of working in public. Set up a studio, just a couple of tables and chairs, at the House of Bricks. With the roller doors of the House of Bricks open, Regan is practically working in the street and in public.

On the white wall he was taping up his work for sale at the very affordable price of $60 a piece, so I bought one. He is also offering to do stencil portraits for $100.

Regan is happy to explain and demonstrate his multi-stencil technique or just chat with the people who come in. He said that he has been attracting a fair number of local identities and eccentrics. He told me the best advice was not make eye contact with them otherwise they would talk forever.

There were small stencil studies for future work inspired by recent trips to Singapore, the Northern Territories and Papua New Guinea: orchids, crimson sunbirds, kookaburras, the Devil’s Marbles in the Northern Territories, along with portraits of dogs and people.

After that I wandered around the area. Regan told me about a large concrete cast spray can in an empty lot behind a chainlink fence a block away. I’m sure that is by Dface when he visited Melbourne in 2011. At the back of the lot against a concrete wall there was also a fake tomb stone, presumably also by Dface, that reads ‘Cheat Death’ (too far away for the zoom on my little camera).

On my walk I saw Tom Civil’s wooden cut out versions of his figures decorating the wall of the community garden on the corner of Cecil and Gore streets. It is not a big garden just a few planter boxes and benches but it makes a big impact on the street.

In Easey Street there were these decorated power poles, I didn’t think much of them, they looked a bit ugly, not surprising given the Christmas theme of some of them.

Also on Easey Street is the graffiti influenced architecture of the End To End building with the three train carriages on its roof. (For more see my post on Graffiti and Architecture.)