Nick Walker @ The Black Rat Press

Nick Walker is, like Banksy, a stencil artist primarily just not as well known. He has an exhibition currently showing at the Black Rat Press located behind Cargo in London. I was in town to do some work but was able to take a couple of hours out to pop along and have a looksee.


Someone misusing a well known Banksy stencil to gain votes in the local mayoral election.

Moorfield Eye Hospital. Guess what's located behing that piece of white board. Yup, one of Banksy's rat pieces.

Cute two-part piece across the road from the hospital.

This is in Shoreditch and I saw it last week but it had a van parked in front of it. Quite a stunning piece when in the clear!

The "Fresh" logo is metallic. A futuristic attempt at tagging :D

Some big piece behind the Rivington Gallery.

Nice stencil outside Cargo.

An Invader piece on the same piece of wall.

Now for the Black Rat Press gallery proper. It's quite hard to find, you have to walk through the Cargo gardens on Rivington St and its the building at the back. When there's an exhibition on they sign post it to make it a little easier.


Liking this one!


The pieces seem to be having a dig at Virgin. Nick often uses a bowler hatted pin-striped businessman in his more observational pieces.

At least I've now found out who's responsible for the butterflies I found in Bristol :)




Is this a piece aimed at another well known artist?

Not all of the pieces were canvas based, but unlike those this one didn't appear to be for sale.

Nor this one.

Most of the pieces were for sale and way too expensive for me to afford.




Liking these ones too!



Back outside, and 2 of the cargo walls have been white-washed, no doubt in preparation for some new pieces. I'll have to pop back in the next few weeks. The two Banksy pieces are still preserved fortunately :D

These rather gross stencils run along the bottom of the white walls.

I'd seen those stupid dogs around Shoreditch and didn't realise they were decent enough to be painted here.

This is Nick's most famous piece although its often misattributed to Banksy. This Moona Lisa is outside Cargo under the bridge and has lasted fairly well.

A toaster!

There's another much newer Moona Lisa outside Cargo now. Looks like the exhibition doesn't just exist indoors. Actually he's also supposed to be putting some laser projections of his work onto the main buildings around London, just a shame I'm not planning on being in London when it's dark enough to see them, plus I have no idea where they're going or when.



Another toaster

Nice piece on Rivington St.

More toasters

The Banksy Giant Rat is still hidden.

Loving this Mona Lisa near Old Street.

I wonder what the stencil looked like before they painted over it.

A rather strange door covered in penny coins. Found down the road from the big Old Street roundabout.

List of problems solved by MacGyver - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

List of problems solved by MacGyver - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It saves me documenting them :D

Invader in India

Noooooo, I didn't go all the way to India to photograph them but someone else did.

Varanasi Invaders.

A brand new big Banksy

It made the London newspapers today but I'd already been tipped off in the morning that a new Banksy piece had appeared over the weekend.

and here it is, it's massive. Not as big as the Old Street Rat but certainly bigger than most of his pieces of late.

What makes it particularly funny is that this was painted up directly under a CCTV camera that should have caught him. He apparently had 3-storey scaffolding erected, did the work, removed the scaffolding and left without being stopped once.

The detail on the policeman and dog watching on.

The detail on the kid.

I like this piece and as with the Tesco flag it was attracting a small crowd when I got there and as more people read the papers I guess the crowd would have gotten bigger as the day went on.

If you're wondering where this one is its behind the Rathbone Place post office on Newman Street, just off Oxford St. It's so large that you can't miss it from there.

Banksy hunt part 2

I'd found the girl, now to find the boy. The life belt was a clue that it was somewhere along the river, it wasn't until I'd seen another shot with the gherkin in the background that I realised it must be on the South Bank east of Tower Bridge.

Part of the reason for locating the Banksy work is that it gives me a reason to visit parts of London that I wouldn't usually go to, in fact it goes further than that having visited Bristol primarily for that very reason. This part of London I'd never been to before and it actually looked quite nice some of it.

The boy was clearly white-washed but the guy who did it (a local resident I believe) realised his mistake and did what he could to clear the white off. It's a shame that its faded so quickly but at least the guy so the error of his ways (and the potential fortune he'd almost painted over)

In the original piece there was a syringe on the end of his line, but its all but gone now.

Banksy hunt

I'd heard that Banksy had been back in town and posted 3 silhouette kids around London. One in West London had already been painted over but the other two were still around. All I had to go on for the first was the wall and a picture of a bus with half the number showing; a number 4. Checking his usual haunts showed a 48 bus going through Hackney so I figured that would be the best bet. However I had no idea where on the route it was, so guess who spent 90 minutes riding it all the way from one end of the route to the other, then riding it nearly all the way back looking for it.

I eventually found it near Hackney Baths. I'm not sure whether I like this sold silhouette style but I did like the way it interacts with the stuff around it.

Having found the first Banksy (the second wouldn't be til tomorrow) I decided to take a walk through Hackney and Shoreditch to see what new works were around.

Not sure if this D-Face piece is new or not but I like it.

Baby toaster.

Daddy toaster

This actually reads "EXCITING" but its hard to capture all the letters in a single shot. I'm guessing this is Eine who seems to have painted a load of shutters with letters in this area (something that I'm thinking on photographing late at night when all the shops are closed and the shutters down).

Hoxton Square, there used to be a red ninja woman here.

Some weird art installation in the centre of Hoxton Square. Would be more interesting if one of them was real.




A Faile piece in Shoreditch.


Invader

I saw this from the bus and wondered if it was a Banksy, it's not as it's been pasted up, but still quite nice.

I think this is the largest invader piece I've found yet!

Last Night at Turnmills

I'd never been to Turnmills before so thought I'd go along to one of their farewell bashes, if only to say I'd been. To end this particular night they'd got the Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim on the line up.

As it turns out I only managed to survive the Chemicals set which was a full on aural assault of the best kind. Due to a family emergency I had to leave straight after so I never got to see Fatboy's set, but I'm seeing him this Summer so I wasn't too bothered.

As you can see there was quite a turnout of the last night. Too little space to enjoy the main room, I ended up in the third room into which they'd pumped the main room sounds.

No more Old Skool

This is where Banksy's Old Skool piece used to be but like a few other pieces recently it's been removed probably to sell on. For a few days there was a scissor line around where the original lay but when I went to get a picture of that it had been painted over.

The Orphanage

The phrase "the scariest movie you'll see this year" seems to be misused quite a lot these days. Often films quoting that rely on a smattering of gore to get the scares so when you see the phrase being used you often switch off and ignore it.

However seeing what Guillermo del Toro had done with Pans Labyrinth I was prepared to give this movie a chance. Although not directed by him, it clearly has his influence running all through it.

The story is around a woman, who as a child was brought up in a small orphanage on the coast. Having grown up she decides to return there to reopen it and offer the same solace she received as a child to a fresh bunch of kids. Accompanied by her HIV-positive adopted son and husband she prepares to get the orphanage ready for its new arrivals but when her son begins talking to invisible friends the horror starts up as the orphanage's history is revealed.

There are only a few films that have mastered perfect horror timing. Think the head passing the porthole in Jaws or the grave bursting hand in Carrie. There is a scene in this film that ranks up there with them. When it happened the entire cinema jumped; women screamed and men laughed. It was great and I'd not seen a crowd-wide reaction like that in a long long time.

The story itself is great, there are a few unanswered questions and the ending although sad is beautiful. There are plenty of scares but the mastery in this film is in the cranking up of tension throughout it.

Highly recommended, it's just a shame its so hard to find, even in London. I hope that's not because it's subtitled and I hope we don't see a Hollywood remake any time soon.

Step Up 2 The Streets

Now, I'm not really sure why I went and saw this. The plan had been to see The Orphanage but I couldn't find it showing anywhere, and there was not much else interesting me; consider this one the best of a bad bunch.

It's a really cliched plot about a young girl from the streets, who wears vests to show off her ample cleavage. Threatened with being moved out of her bad neighbourhood to her aunt (Fresh Prince anyone?) she signs up with a local dance school that focuses on more classic (read posh) dance styles in an attempt to remain in her turf with her friends. Realising she's gone posh her crew disown her.

So feeling ostracised she meets up with a bunch of misfits at school who all harbour a secret desire to be B-Boy megastars and she forms a crew to battle her former one at a major underground dance contest called...yes you've guessed it...the streets.

The plot is rubbish, the film is actually all about the dance routines. Those that know me know I'm a fan of b-boying and although I can't manage even a basic backspin I love attending the championships each year. This was a bit like the team battles put to music with some ropey filler in between.

The producers of the film somehow managed to find a geeky white kid who could dance pretty good too!

It's rubbish but good rubbish if the street dancing is your thing.