RIP Anonymous1981

Posted on May 16, 2023 by JHiggott

We were very sad to hear that Marty, better known to fans of street art as Anonymous1981 has passed away. Marty will live on in the many street art archive websites that adorn the interweb, including here on The Street Art Directory.

The Street Art Directory is an independent website showcasing contemporary street art of over 1500 artists from around the world. Get updates to The Street Art Directory direct to your mailbox by signing up here. If you find The Street Art Directory is a useful resource and would like make a small donation to help with the costs of running and maintaining the website take a look here.

Lots of new artists added to The Street Art Directory

Posted on April 4, 2023 by JHiggott

We have made another attempt to fill some gaps in The Street Art Directory and have added lots more artist galleries. Many of these we found had created works in London but we also feature pieces from New Brighton, Belfast, Southend, Costa Rica, Norway and more.

There’s too many new artists to feature works by each in this one post but we will give you links to their gallery pages. New artists include: 33wallflower33, Luax, Lucie Flynn, Lotte, Lobster Robin, Bruna Alcantara, Ernesto Romano, Iljin, Guccini, Wafa Love, Love, Smug, Manual Halftone, Cleon, BadBelfast, Ollystudio, 2onetwo, Rot, Rory O’Connor, Robski, Annisower, AlieNadia, Alex Rubes, Acter, Glafira Severianova, Alexander Menukhov, 3ZETAS, Bozek One, Asem, Aroe, Plannedalism, Nexlev and Nute.

Here’s just a small selection of pics by these artists:

New gallery: JoLA

Posted on January 15, 2023 by JHiggott

Having recently discovered a large selection of pasteups in London by the artist JoLA we are pleased to created a new artist gallery to house the works on The Street Art Directory.

JoLA has been an active street artist since 2022 with her ‘bird spotting’ paste-ups appearing around Shoreditch in the spring. She works with stencils, spraypaint + acrylics to produce her creatures. The stencil artwork often in black & white and then adorned with colourful masks + jewellery. We think the Magpie particularly is a cracker!

JoLA has a website and you can also follow her on Instagram at @jola.artist.

The Street Art Directory is an independent website showcasing contemporary street art of over 1500 artists from around the world. Get updates to The Street Art Directory direct to your mailbox by signing up here.

If you find The Street Art Directory is a useful resource and would like make a small donation to help with the costs of running and maintaining the website take a look here.

Top 10 street artist galleries of 2022

Posted on January 2, 2023 by JHiggott

When we created The Street Art Directory website we set out to produce the sort of site we’d love to have stumbled across when we began taking a more detailed look at the cities’ walls. The site has continued to evolve and grow through 2022 and now features over 1,500 artists from around the world.

As in previous years we have checked which have been the 10 most-visited artist gallery pages on the site during the last year. We are again surprised (and encouraged) that the top 10 is not dominated by what may be considered the household names of the art world.

We are already working on further improvements for The Street Art Directory in ’23. We have acquired more capacity so will be able to share more photos of street art without fear of running out of space and have almost 6,000 photos and many artists waiting in the wings to be added as well as updating existing galleries.

Anyway, back to the most popular artist galleries on the site in 2022…

NUMBER 1 – Nicky Nailed It
The most visited gallery this year is that of Nicky Nailed It. We have found several of this artist’s child face pasteups around London’s Shoreditch. According to the artist’s website, “Nicky Nailed It™ has been created to encourage the spirit of childhood in the sense of curiosity, freedom and the innocence that drives us to do what makes us happy regardless of outside influence.” Nicky Nailed It can be found on Instagram at @nickynailedit.

NUMBER 2 – LT66
East London’s LT66 has been active as a street artist since 2019 and we found the first of his works in the following year. He has been prolific with his pasteups around East London in 2022. LT66 is a self taught artist working with spray paint applied by brush to vintage newspaper. He shares very well observed and executed paintings of his female muses. Original artwork can be purchased from his website and he can be found on Instagram at @lt66art.

NUMBER 3 – Jake Ghost
The third most visited artist gallery in 2022 was Jake Ghost. This is another artist whose work we have found around East London. His pasteup works featuring celebrities including Amy Winehouse, Boris Johnson, Kate Moss and Pete Docherty have been a fixture since 2019. Jake Ghost is on Instagram at @_ghostgallery.

NUMBER 4 – Mantra Rea
French artist Mantra Rea is well known for his ultra-realistic large scale pinned butterfly murals which incorporate excellent use of shade to convince you that you are actually looking at a massive entomological cabinet rather than the side of a building. On our site we feature two of Mantra’s works, both from Jaco in Costa Rica. Check out Mantra Rea’s Instagram account @mantrarea.

NUMBER 5 – Cliff Phillips
Cliff Phillips has featured regularly in The Street art Directory’s ‘Top 10s’. A very talented artist, his pasteups have been encountered mainly in Manchester’s Northern Quarter but also in London. We interviewed Cliff a couple of years back and you can read this here. Cliff remains popular despite the lack of a social media presence.

NUMBER 6 – Bluntroller
Bluntroller is a talented stencillist who has a running (bouncing?) space hopper theme. The first works we found of his were of a policeman on a space hopper. In 2022 Bluntroller’s gleeful Queen Elizabeth on a space hopper took on an added an added poignancy with her passing. He doesn’t have an online shop or website that we could find but Bluntroller can be contacted via his Instagram: @bluntroller87.

NUMBER 7 – Helch
The artist known as Helch is perhaps the only truly ‘famous’ graffiti artist in this year’s Top 10. Helch’s fame (infamy?) stems from a 20m ‘HELCH’ tag on a railway viaduct in Windsor back in 2019 which left the late Queen Elizabeth “extremely upset”. Helch has since adorned a number of motorway bridges around London including amending the popular ‘Give peas a chance’ over the M25 to ‘Give Helch a chance’. Helch has since widely decorated east London with his undoubted roller talents. He has recently launched his first (and very quickly sold out) print and retains a low profile on social media.

NUMBER 8 – Thierry Jaspart
We don’t know a lot about Thierry Jaspart. We know he is a bilingual visual artist who lists his skills as including ”illustration, photography, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, video shooting and editing”. His pasteups have been prominent around East London for some time now. Thierry is on Instagram as @thierryjaspart and he has a website.

NUMBER 9 – Jean Peut-être
Jean Peut-être, produces modern screen prints on old paper – blueprints, accountancy papers, maps and more. His highly detailed single colour works of fish, lobsters, unbrellas, etc. are very distinctive and the bold designs stand out on any city wall. We have a large collection of Jean Peut-être’s work on The Street Art Directory. Find Jean Peut-être on Instagram at @jeanpeutetre and via his website.

NUMBER 10 – Marco Polo
Marco Polo is a talented Essex/London-based urban artist and painter who has worked on walls on the streets of London, New York, Los Angeles and Barcelona. He works in acrylic, oil paint, spray paint and stencil. It is perhaps a surprise to see Marco Polo in The Street Art Directory‘s Top 10 as we have not found any works of his on walls since 2015, after which time he put his efforts into gallery works. In fact he seems to have vanished without trace. Hopefully Marco Polo will resurface with a new body of work, either on walls or canvases, in due course.

The Street Art Directory is an independent website showcasing contemporary street art of over 1500 artists from around the world. Get updates to The Street Art Directory direct to your mailbox by signing up here.

If you find The Street Art Directory is a useful resource and would like make a small donation to help with the costs of running and maintaining the website take a look here.

John Dolan RIP

Posted on November 17, 2022 by JHiggott

Here at The Street Art Directory we were very sad to read on social media that John Dolan passed away on Friday 21st October 2022. We were never fortunate enough to meet John but his fun portraits of his beloved dog, George, have been a familiar sight on the walls and pavements of Shoreditch. We have updated John’s gallery page on The Street Art Directory website with more photos of his work as a lasting tribute.

The Street Art Directory is an independent website showcasing contemporary street art from over 1500 artists from around the world. Get updates to The Street Art Directory direct to your mailbox by signing up here.

If you find The Street Art Directory is a useful resource and would like make a small donation to help with the costs of running and maintaining the website take a look here.

New galleries: Stephen Hiam & David Gersch

Posted on November 10, 2022 by JHiggott

During our recent wander round the streets of Shoreditch the work of two artists seemed to pup up on every corner. Here at The Street Art Directory we were previously unaware of Stephen Hiam‘s work. His monochrome stylised head pasteups are certainly very striking, their simple bold form making them stand out on even the busiest wall. We were really pleased to be able to photograph over 20 of Stephen’s works and these now populate his gallery page on the website. Stephen does not (yet) have a website but you can find more of his works on his Instagram page: @stephen_hiam.

The other artist that has obviously had a prolific streak around East London is David Gersch. David’s pixellated self portrait pasteups and stencils are spread widely around Shoreditch. We’ve added those we stumbled across to David’s gallery page on the website. David’s instagram (@thedavidgersch) and website inform us that he is a “World Renowned Artist & NFT Creator” and we look forward to seeing more of his work.

New galleries: Benson Koo, Brager, Benzi Brofman, Sven, Lobogordo Grolou, Emmalene Blake, Driper, Cry, Anonymouse, Alethea, Brickflats

Posted on November 7, 2022 by JHiggott

This update to The Street Art Directory includes another new suite of artist galleries. We have Brager, Driper and Cry from Southend-on-Sea which include works from the recent street art jam there; we will be bringing you another selection of work from the Southend City Jam shortly. Also added are Benson Koo, Benzi Brofman, Alethea and Brickflats from a recent visit to London’s Shoreditch, Anonymouse from last year’s London International Pasteup Festival and an Emmalene Blake mural from Hit The North in Belfast. Finally we include a wall photographed in San José in Costa Rica with a Lobogordo Grolou work partially painted over by Sven.

*Brager wall from the Southend city Jam 2022.*

*Benzi Brofman‘s Salvador Dali from Brick Lane in London.*

*Sven over Lobogordo Grolou in Sân José, Costa Rică.*

*Cry‘s excellent 2021 work from Southend.*

*Anonymouse for the London International Pasteup Festival 2021.*

*Brickflats flat in miniature in Shoreditch.*

New galleries: Griff, Greg Abbott, Goldloxe, Glen Molloy, Gerry Norman, Gaute Haugland, Gakusel, Fem Sorcell, Faigy, Eugène Barricade, DragoSteaArt, Doink

Posted on October 19, 2022 by JHiggott

Some more new artist galleries have been added to The Street Art Directory. We have the decorative little head sculptures by Griff that have been found around Shoreditch, Greg Abbott‘s painted finger nails from Hackney Wick, and Goldloxe and Eugène Barricade pasteups from last year’s London International Pasteup Festival. There’s also Glen Molloy, Gerry Norman, and Faigy murals from Belfast, Doink mural from Hackney Wick, and stickers from Fem Sorcell and DragoSteaArt. Finally we have an old piece from Cheltenham by Gakusel and a Gaute Haugland mural from Bergen in Norway.

More new artists coming soon!

*One of a couple of Greg Abbott pieces we found in Hackney Wick.*

*Goldloxe pasteup for London International Pasteup Festival in 2021.*

*Eugène Barricade for the 2021 London International Pasteup Festival.*

*DragoSteaArt sticker in Manchester*‘s Northern Quarter.

New galleries: Amuk, Amed, Catherine Chinatree, Candie, Carl Kenz, Brave 1, Ster, Voyder, Dan Leo, Yeko, Soma359

Posted on September 17, 2022 by JHiggott

Here’s the latest selection of street artists who have their own gallery page on The Street Art Directory website. We have added a few that we photographed at the recent Southend City Jam – Amuk, Amed, Brave 1, Ster, Voyder, Dan Leo and Yeko. We’ve got loads more artists to add to the site from the Southend jam and will share more in the coming days and weeks. There’s also work by Catherine Chinatree from Leicester and a couple from Soma359 from The Wirral, one of which was also featured in our review of street art featuring Boris Johnson.

The Dan Leo gallery brings together pics of a few of his wildlife murals. As well as the impressive crab from Southend there’s also a Black Guillemot from Bangor – an iconic bird of the town’s harbour. Slightly less geographically relevant but equally impressive is the Palm Cockatoo from Australia and New Guinea which was painted in Belfast.