London Graffiti and Street Art Tour

Left: Paul Don Smith; Center: Pure Evil “Keith Haring”; Right: Steam 156 Sticker

We took the London Street Art and Graffiti Tour a few weeks ago while in London for a few days. The tour provides a fascinating glimpse into a fascinating aspect of London culture. We highly recommend the tour. Our only regret is that we didn’t sign up for the longer tour. We only did the two hour tour and we never made it over to Brick Lane (and we’ve been kicking ourselves for it ever since).

We met the tour guide Frank (aka Steam 156) at Old Station near coffee shop in Shoreditch neighborhood neighborhood of London. At the end of two hours, I’m not sure we were really grokking the subtle difference between street art and graffiti, but we were loving it anyway and we were able to start telling different artists styles.

Artists we saw on the tour – and, by not means, at all complete are shown below. Enjoy!

Ben Wilson [UK] – you’ll never look at gum on the sidewalk the same way again.

Ben Eine [UK] – It’s all about the lettering. “Worth More”

Paul Don Smith [UK] – stencil-based work, that is everywhere when you start to look. For an explanation of the black banker silhouette image that he uses as a tag, see interview London Art Spot: Paul “DON” Smith at the Little London Observationalist (great title).

Teddy Badden – Like dogs? Check out his work.

Conor Harrington* [Irish] - historic and hypermodern work. Bio.

Gregos [French] – sculpture, faces.

Andy Seize [UK] – bright colors, superheroes, cartoons.

Otto Schade* [Chile] – surrealist images.
Mobstr – It’s all about the words.

Banksy – We did not see any Banksy work on the tour. It was either removed or blocked from view.

Endless [UK] – cultural references. Left: Shoreditch; Right: Soho

Invader [French] – pixelation with tiles.

Stik [UK] – Well, stick-like figures.

Left: Cityzen Kane [UK] – sculpture, interview, YouTube channel.
Right: ROA [Belgium] – black and white animals.

Left: Phlegm [UK] – monochrome images of elongated creature in fantastical settings.
Right: Pez [Spain] – happy, smiling fish. www.el-pez.com and Lily Mixe [French] – patterns, sea creatures.

Left: C215 [French] - stencil work.
Right: Jana and JS [Austria/French] (partnership) – stencils, people.

Alice Pasquini* [Italy] - people, and to my eye, it’s about the eyes.

Swoon* [USA] - life-size wheatpaste prints and paper cutouts of human figures.

Bortusk Leer - happy monsters on newspaper.

Pure Evil – aka Charles Uzzell Edwards - Crying pop stars, nightmare series.

Left: RONE [Australia]
Right: Mysterious Al [UK] – street franks (Frankensteins).

Left: Scatterugly (aka Mala influncia) [Mexico] – the not-so-pretty side of life? See this interview.
Right: Faith47 [Cape Town, South Africa] – urban image, human condition.

Left: 616 – reminds me of fish.
Right: Burning Candy Crew - UK’s most prolific nonconsensual painters and decorators. Composed of DSCREET , SWEET TOOF , CYCLOPS, TEK 33, LL BRAINWASHED, CEPT, GOLD PEG, MIGHTY MO and ROWDY.