I paid a visit to the inaugural Storytellers exhibition at The Glue Factory in Farnell Street on Saturday 23rd June.
This exhibition showcases Glasgow’s street culture and creatives, providing a space and a platform for artists to present their work.
There was a wide range of mediums on show, with something for everyone across the entire ground floor of the Glue Factory, from graffiti and paintings to sculptures and videos, there even was a wall where kids, of all ages, could express themselves.
I will admit that I took the wrong camera with me to the event, however, I still managed to get some good shots of works fromMack Colours, Ejek, Priest!, Chelsea Frew, Barry the Cat, Micheal Corr, and Ross MacRae. I loved the area Conzo & Glöbel had set up, this displayed their typical sense of humour, and I was mightily impressed by Mark Worst’s display wall. Saving the best to last, up high on the back wall of the space is a tremendous piece by GazMac, which highlights his status in Glasgow’s Street Art community.
I ventured out today to find something new and was pleasantly surprised that a couple of old favourites are still there and looking fairly good.
My first stop was in Govanhill where Conzo Throb & Ciaran Glöbel created ‘A Postcard from Govanhill‘, the first mural in the Govanhill Open Museum art trail. The mural, which contains patterns from Middle Eastern tiles, Romanian fabric, Scottish tartan and ‘wally close’ tiles, represents a different aspect of the diverse local community and is very reminiscent of a similar one created by them in Dennistoun.
Maryhill was my next stop, where I went looking for a new(ish) mural by Mack Colours and Frodrik on Stockline Plastic’s building on Hopehill Street, it really is well worth a visit to see it, the company are delighted with it and In their opinion, it makes a wonderful addition to the impressive collection of murals around the city.
Mack Colours & Frodrik
Whilst in the area, I popped along Maryhill Road where I photographed a piece by Ohpanda in theBraeside Community Gardens, a nice big fish from Frodrik on the front of a building near the corner of Cowal Road. At the end of the building, you will find the little Scottie Dog and Bumble Bee and across the road, there is the Glasgow Panther, both created by Rogue One and Ejek way back in 2014.
Now that I’ve had a bit of time I’ve put together a couple of pages of the street art I photographed during my recent trip to Northern Ireland. I discovered so much I have split it into two pages, one for Belfast City and the other for the pieces I found in the other towns I visited on my trip. A few sample images are shown below.
I have been quite busy recently volunteering at the COP26 conference in Glasgow, I was based in the City Chambers in George Square in a Protocol role, this basically was a meet and greet role at the many Civic Receptions being held there. It was good to see the reaction of many of the delegates to the mosaic of the city’s coat of arms at the entrance to the building, and the many other mosaics found throughout the building, on the ceilings and domes, with an estimated 1.5 million individual tiles used and laid by hand. However, the greatest surprise was shown by many delegates when confronted by the marble staircase, made entirely from imported Italian Carrara marble, they were stunned to hear that it’s the biggest of its kind in Western Europe, meaning it’s one storey taller than the one in the Vatican City.
City Chambers entrance
Marble staircase
Marble staircase
City Chambers
COP26 gave some of our artists a chance to put up some new related works with some on the arches at SWG3 facing towards the SEC Campus. Although I was disappointed to see Guido Van Helten’s badminton player disappear from Wilson Street, I was pleased to see a new mural by the Fearless Collective showing the faces of indigenous leaders who have been at the forefront of the COP26 conference. If you look closely at the top of the mural you can see the top edge of the shuttlecock, a little bit of Guido’s legacy left behind.
Fearless Collective Wilson Street
Govan
YTardworks Arches
YTardworks Arches
YTardworks Arches
YTardworks Arches
While travelling around the city during the conference, I did manage to catch some good street art, with an especially nice piece by Frodrik at the side of CASS Art on Queen Street, a good mural about youth homelessness in Midland Street opposite James Kling’s portraits, but what really pleased me was a little charcoal type drawing of a figure in a doorway on Candleriggs, I noticed that as I made my way down the street after having a rather good pizza in Nonna Said with it’s ghood artwork by Conzothrob, he also pooped up in the St Enoch Centre with a funadvert for the new cinema there. I’ve also included a mural from Mikaku on Queen Street painted by Rogue One.
Frodrik Cambridge Stret
Frodrik Queen Street
Rebel Bear Sauchiehall Street
Nonna said Candleriggs
Nonna said Candleriggs
Nonna said Candleriggs
Unknown Candleriggs
Molly Hankingson St Enochs
Conzothrob St Enochs
Rogue One Mikaku Queen Street
End youth homelessness by GWMcLaughli midland Street
I got my walking shoes on again and over a couple of days I wandered around Glasgow to see what pieces of street art I could find, and I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised by the amount I found. My first walk was a regular for me, from the bottom of Byres Road, and it’s lanes where I photographed a couple of older murals, one by The Rebel Bear created at the start of the pandemic and a fun poster by Conzo & Glöbel on the side of De Courcy’s Arcade , I then headed up to Great Western Road, and walked along to Charing Cross via Georges Cross. A stroll along Sauchiehall Street to Renfield Street and then on to Stockwell Street to get the bus home.
I must admit to a couple of stops along the way, the first was at the Inn Deep Bar where I had a refreshing pint before photographing some of the nice artwork there, mainly from Frodrik and Negative Destination, whose works greet you as you enter from Great Western Road.
NegativeDestination – Inn Deep
NegativeDestination – Inn Deep
NegativeDestination – Inn Deep
NegativeDestination – Inn Deep
NegativeDestination – Inn Deep
NegativeDestination – Inn Deep
Frodrik – Inn Deep
Scent – Inn Deep
Frodrik – Inn Deep
Back on Great Western Road again I came across a well decorated electrical junction box painted by Negative Destination, something I would love to see more of, and a colourful mural by Molly Hankinson on Woodlands Drive. At Charing Cross, in addition to one of Oh Panda‘s Big Heids, I came across a bright and busy mural by Ursula Kam-Ling Cheng, appropriately called Love on the wall of a bridal wear shop.
On Sauchiehall Street I found another of Frodrik’s monochrome hands. My next stop was for lunch in another of my haunts , The Raven on Renfield Street before a stop in Buchannan Street to capture Conzo & Glöbel’s fun poster in one of the lanes next to Princes Square.
Negative Destination
Molly Hankinson
Oh Panda
Frodrik
Ursula Kam-Ling Cheng
Conzo & Glöbel
After being lazy over the past while and missing out on my daily walks, I was certainly quite tired by the time I reached home, but I was glad that I had started again, so much so that I have another walk I have complete to post with more photographs, so watch this space.
I recently took a trip down to see how the Arches Project at SWG3, was coming along, it was a really sunny day and it was good to meet up with Gaz, Dan, Barry, Smug, and the rest of guys working away. As usual, I took plenty of photographs, some from the narrow pavement beside the arches and some from across the Expressway.
Some pieces are completed, however many of the pieces are still to be finished and there are a couple of arches yet to be started. Most artists were assigned one arch, but Smug and the Cobolt Collective were each given 2, looking at what has been done to date on them they are making full use of the expanded space.
I was highly impressed with the work so far, but as I’m getting ready to disappear for a wee while, I’ll just have to wait to see the finished articles on my return.
With not a lot to do today, I took a trip to SWG3 to see a new piece by Conzo and Glöbel I had heard about. While I was there I bumped into Mark Worst as he was getting started on a new large scale mural, from what I have seen it will be really good, I took a photograph of his preliminary work but I won’t post it until the work is completed. Mark told me that this new work is part of his new direction of portraiture murals for 2019, I look forward to seeing more of his work.
While I was there I also had the chance to have a chat with Garry Mackay aka Gaz Mac, the director of swg3, it was great to eventually meet up with the man who many say is Glasgow Graffiti’s Driving Force. We blethered about the development of art in Glasgow and this year’s forthcoming YardWorks which I’m hoping will not be on while I’m away travelling.
I took some other photographs whilst there, mainly of stuff that the lads were working on last week. I’ll credit the images later.
To try and make it easier to find photographs of street artists with a significant quantity of murals, I have created a new top-level section called The Artists. I have added as much information on the artist as currently known by myself and a gallery of images. I will add more information and Images as I receive them.
Jim's travels 