Across The Tracks and Through The Looking Glass

ONE FOOT IN THE GROVE ‘Christmas special’

‘One Foot in the Grove’ is back from the 4th of December.

‘Our festival of underground art provides a welcoming, inclusive and visually astounding experience for all ages in an atmospheric 12,000 square foot setting just off Portobello Road. Walk amongst giant sculptures, installations and unique artwork and hang out for good times at our licensed bar with proper music and delicious grub.

We are featuring loads of new work including an epic wall by Elate, Vibes and Obey Giant that cracks and crumbles the Westway to rubble before your eyes!

There’s new work by Joe Rush, a giant collaboration by Sam Haggerty and Dotmasters, new pieces by Teddy Baden, Wreckage, Seize, Code FC, Bleach, Best Ever, Zadok, Fuel, Skore, Crok, Mear, Towns, K-Guy, to name but a few, also light installations, lasers, stalls, bric a brac, curios, and anarchist crockery.

We have rehung our gallery room that offers exclusive posters, prints, originals, sculptures, photography, clothing and object d’art that make perfect prezzies for you and your discerning friends and family.

We provide that much needed alternative to the Xmas chaos of Oxford Street – so don’t miss out on the best show in town.

See giant fire-breathing robots walking, drink at our licensed bar, see and hear film shows, trains thundering past and experience an authentic friendly festival vibe in the heart of London.

This promises to be London’s biggest, most inclusive, interactive and underground street art event this Christmas.

Families are welcome to this multisensory extravaganza!.

Full dates and opening times below. We look forwarding to seeing you!

Opening times:

Opens December 4th to December 20th – FRI / SAT / SUN

Fri – 2pm -10pm
Sat-1pm – 10pm
Sun – 12pm-9pm

We are also open 2 Wednesdays for the Portobello Winter Festival on the 9th & 16th December – 6pm -10pm

FRI & SAT (NO ENTRY AFTER 9PM)

SUN (NO ENTRY AFTER 8PM)

£2 before 6pm / £3 there after’

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ONE FOOT IN THE GROVE ‘Christmas special’

‘One Foot in the Grove’ is back from the 4th of December.

Mutate Britain opens once again for the festive season with loads of new exhibits, new artists and a selection of favourite pieces from past shows.

See weird and wonderful sculptures from The Mutoid Waste Company. Marvel at screen-prints, stencil art, paintings street art and photographs from some of the UK’s finest accepted and unaccepted artists.

Browse the objecs d’art, bric a brac and anarchist crockery all on view and for sale.

Our festival of underground art provides a welcoming, inclusive and visually astounding experience for all ages in an atmospheric 12,000 square foot setting just off Portobello Road.

Walk amongst giant sculptures, installations and unique artwork and hang out for good times at our licensed bar with proper music and delicious grub.

The gallery room offers exclusive posters, prints, originals, sculptures, photography, clothing and object d’art that make perfect prezzies for you and your discerning friends and family. We provide that much needed alternative to the Xmas chaos of Oxford Street – so don’t miss out on the best show in town.

Full dates and opening times below. We look forwarding to seeing you in December!

Opening times:

Opens December 4th to December 20th – FRI / SAT / SUN

FRI 12-10pm / SAT 12-10pm (NO ENTRY AFTER 9PM)

SUN 12-9pm (NO ENTRY AFTER 8PM)

New Elate graffiti at Stik’s street art event in Mile End, East London that finishes This Sunday see blog post with full details here

Sorry for the lack of pictures and updates on this event, my camera broke, so many thanks to Art Of The State for stepping in with this, check his excellent website and blog for more pictures of this show plus lots of amazing underground and not-quite-so-underground art plus awesome photos of punk bands in furious action.

I have a new camera now so expect to resume normal service.

[WP-CUMULUS}

Filmed and produced by Writer’s Block for Dont Watch That! TV

writers block – elate on MUZU.

See more videos at the Writers Block Youtube Channel

The London Handstyles book is out now featuring tags by a selection of London graffiti writers from the mid eighties to the present, many who were considerably more prolific than myself. The launch party was on Friday in Rarekind Gallery below Chrome and Black graffiti art supplies shop on Bethnal Green Road by Brick Lane.

It was great to meet certain influential oldskool legends for the first time and to hook up with old friends.

The book is for anyone who wants to know more about the roots of the movement, reminisce about the mad old days or learn how to bomb their name effectively. Here’s a few shots from the party- I’ve posted pics of the handstyles rather than the heads who write ‘em.

Buy your copy and see pages from the book here

Brick Lane was in a state of urgent need of some proper graffiti, We have been decorating it…

photo © Romanywg 2009

Elate

Keen

Elate  Keen

Elate

Nearest tube Liverpool Street or Aldgate East.

Elate  Fuel

Keen  Fuel

Elate

Envy  Don  Aks

Keen  Elate

Many thanks to Skire for this classic shot of an early Elate ‘EL’ throw-up taken in 1989. This is on the District Line tracksides in Bow, East London and done with Fugi, Spasm & Pusher.

If anyone else has any old Elate flicks I’d be very glad to hear.

Last Saturday 27th June I went along to the Covent Garden writers bench reunion to meet up with some very old friends, put some faces to old tags and drink some beer. The day started well with glorious sun…..

I started hanging out there in 1986, but it had been a meeting point since ‘84. Every Saturday afternoon through the late eighties it was a hive of activity with often over 100 writers signing blackbooks, showing photos and planning missions to get paint and then on to the train yards.

It was one of the first places in London to have proper graffiti art on the street, the work by The Chrome Angels on the hoardings around the Royal Opera House. As a young inexperienced writer it gave me a focal point  to meet up with those with more experienced, make friends and be taken along on various missions.

The sun was however short lived and the day took on a dramatically different turn…..pictures continue….

When we all went off to paint together at Tufnell Hall of Fame that changed very quickly….The heavens opened and what followed was a torrential hail, thunder and rain storm of epic proportions…

This was the size of the hailstones ricocheting around our shelter spot, every now and then over the roar you’d here a surprised ‘Ow!’ or a ‘Eek’ as they found their mark…it was like being pelted with icy stones.

After about half an hour of this the heavens really opened and it turned to torrential rain, before long the trees provided no cover at all and deafening  thunder and lightning broke out directly overhead so by now fearing a direct strike and utterly drenched we made a dash and hid in various bin rooms and people’s porches. It carried on like this for about another half hour.

We emerged from our cover soaked to the skin but laughing to do some tags and take some shots. It was a brilliant day and certainly one to remember and laugh about even more in years to come. After this we all went to the pub and I dried off under the hand drier and carried on. I hope to see more old faces at the next one, but better weather next time please…

Massive, massive respect to Envy, Colt 45, Sham 59, Dj Dexter, Mess, Prime, Coad 5, Reez, Dev 666, Crane, Shoom, Time, Jano, Baps, Mear, Urge, Crime, Keen53, Don One, Fuem, Merc, Fued, Dsia and anyone I missed…Legends All !

Please note the ‘rant’ that previously accompanied this post has been removed for revision as it appears that some people completely misunderstood my point….

The Painting

In this painting I have gone back to the gritty roots of UK graffiti, to show where it all started, tags, throw-ups and early pieces on London trains.

The images from New York in the book Subway Art and the film Style Wars had radicalised fertile minds in 1984 where it incubated, mutated and developed through  important years of early bombing. By 1986 London writers had become numerous and dedicated enough that most trains were running with live graffiti on them and confident enough to concoct identities and assimilate styles more independently of New York influence, by now using our own indigenous cultural references and attitudes.

This is when our scene really began in earnest as a uniquely London phenomenon rolling on the oldest underground railway in the world. Pieces got bigger more beautiful and more original, raising the bar higher and higher.

This painting is not meant to be a complete list of London’s graffiti pioneers but features many of London’s legends. I’ve painted it from my own personal memories with input from my pal Envy, one of my old bombing partners, and from my experiences of the yards (particularly Loughton)  between 1987 and 1989.

Anyone who spent any time in the yards of London in the late eighties will instantly recognise the vintage rolling stock, layers of stains of old tags on the panels, empty cans on the gravel, and spookily quiet atmosphere in this painting.

It’s based on Loughton train yard. Check out the leaves around the outside and the trees to the left, it could be accessed through bushes and this was one of my favourite views of the fronts of the rolling stock as emerging.

I have put people’s tags and throw-ups in the places I remember them hitting wherever possible. I realise there are discrepancies that purists will notice, (I have included certain writers who didn’t actually hit that yard) but it’s not meant to be historically accurate more a ‘dream-yard’.

Featured writers are Robbo 484, Doze, Prime and PIC from WRH  We Roc Hard crew. Envy, Jano, Kis 42, Coma and Dsia from CD Criminal Damage, Elk and Drax from WD World Domination, Cast and Fuel (who kindly did his own F throw-up on the canvas) from Cold Crush Dukes, Chane and Grand from YDS Yardies, Tilt, Hit, Rate, Kez, Sham 59, Cop and myself, Elate.

If you look carefully at the ‘stainers’ of old tags you may be able to pick out a few others. …there are many more legends that are missing than there are included!! Massive respect to all….

Many of these writers were either better artists than me back then or more ‘up’ than me and did more pieces on trains than me but I was still there doing my thing on the trains for a good couple of years and I spent a lot of my best memories bombing with some of these guys, who showed me the ropes and took me to yards, the others I looked up to and emulated their work.

The early graffiti scene was however vital to my development and one of the biggest influences on what made me the artist I am today. I can almost feel the crunch of gravel under my feet, surge of adrenalin thumping in my heart and the sickly smell of the paint fumes…

I got the idea for this series of paintings as this was a time in history that most never got to see, so decided to try and get the vibe of  those mad days across as well as I could. Anyone who wants to see photos from this era of London graffiti should check out Rocking The City.

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A new art supplies store has recently opened and is rapidly becoming very well established in East London’s Bethnal Green Road, near the top of Brick Lane, the heart of Graff-land! Its opposite the 90 meter graffiti wall. With the Rarekind gallery downstairs exhibiting work by original first generation graffiti artists it really is worth a trip. 

Specialising in the best spray-paint and markers available they carry a full range of Molotov paints markers and inks including the classic Belton range in the full spectrum of colours. They also carry the new mtn94 range, a staggering array of markers from minis through to ultrawides and mops, unbuffable inks in the full spectrum of colours, caps of all descriptions from needle to superfat, magazines, books and accessories and claim to be the cheapest in London.

Read more…