Best Street Art in BRISTOL – Part I: From Nelson Street to Stokes Croft

Guys, did you really think I would come back from Bristol and not have a zillion photos of the best street art with me? Is it even possible to visit Bristol and remain indifferent to urban art? If so, I don’t see how to do it. In any case, I’m a weak-willed victim when it comes to street art in general, so Bristol was able to easily lure me into the rabbit hole of incredible tags and murals.
As there are so many works worth featuring, I’ve split my post on the Best Street Art in Bristol into two parts, and in this first one, I’ll introduce what there is to discover from ​​the shopping district around Nelson Street all the way to the rather rough neighborhood of Stokes Croft.

Bristol

Over the last few years, I have put together many posts about street art in many different countries, you’ll find them all in the Urban Art section of this blog. Whether in big European cities such as Amsterdam, Berlin, London, and Paris or hidden gems in unexpected places such as Pointe-à-Pitre and Willemstad. I even visited the world’s largest mural in the South Korean city of Incheon. I’ve seen them all and introduced them passionately.

So this year, it was finally time to travel to the cradle of subculture and urban art. For me, going to Bristol felt more like a pilgrimage than a weekend trip. I was on a mission, a colorful Hajj.

Although there are cool murals everywhere in Bristol, there are two neighborhoods where almost no wall was left unpainted. This concentration is largely due to two street art festivals. The first project, cleverly titled See No Evil, took place around the Nelson Street shopping district. In 2011, See No Evil successfully improved a fairly run-down neighborhood. Also, due to the many people who populate the streets in search of street art, there is less vandalism and petty crime. So what happened was exactly the opposite of what is always assumed about graffiti. Also, Bristol gained its fame as one of the most important cities when it comes to urban art.

The other project is the annual Upfest in the district of Bedminster. You’ll find a comprehensive post on this stronghold of amazing street art in my post Best Street Art in BRISTOL – Part II: North Street.

From Nelson Street to Stokes Croft

Another part of the city, where graffiti and murals dominate, is much rougher around the edges than Nelson Street. Stokes Croft is not actually an official district, but rather the informal name for the entire area surrounding the main street called Stokes Croft.

The area is best known for its run-down houses, squats, anarchist activities, counterculture, and alternative nightlife. This militant spirit has led to the emergence of a group of activists calling themselves the People’s Republic of Stokes Croft, in short PRSC. They try to make the area more liveable for residents through actions and art in public spaces. Consequently, there is a lot of graffiti and street art to be found here.

These works were obviously not created as part of a funded cultural project, but as an expression of anger and resistance.

Stokes Croft gained further notoriety when residents protested against the opening of a Tesco supermarket in 2011. After the low-key opening of the store, there were various protests. However, riots only started as the police came to evict squatters from a property opposite the store.

Street Art in Bristol

“Will there be any more Banksies on this tour”, asks the gentleman with a clearly sour undertone. His wife doesn’t even bother anymore at this point, she’s sitting on a bench, looking very annoyed through her expensive sunshades at the tips of her expensive shoes. “Well, no”, answers our guide very clearly and rather politely than apologetically. So far, we have seen the iconic so-called Well Hung Lover, a mural that’s right across from College Green in the very heart of Bristol.

The guide explains that Banksy’s works are spread all over the city so that it’s simply impossible to visit them all on one walking tour. He even points out some places where the unhappy couple could see Banksy’s pieces in a very comfortable way since they are now exhibited at art museums.

And that’s one reason why I’m not unhappy at all that our tour is not racing from one Banksy to another. Many years ago, I came to Bristol for the first time to see some of Banksy’s murals. Yes, as I said, that was many years ago.

Meanwhile, I have probably seen each and every work this hyped street art superstar has ever put out there. I’ve seen his work in books and magazines. I’ve seen it in galleries in Amsterdam and Rome. His sculptures greeted me at museums in Liverpool and Bristol.
I’m sorry but I’m getting tired of the Banksy hype. It’s kind of worn’n’torn.

New Kids on the Block

Another reason I don’t have the ambition to scour a city for Banksy murals is that in the years since my first visit to Bristol, I’ve seen so much street art in a variety of forms that his work simply no longer impresses me that much.

Walk through any large city with your eyes open: you will see fantastic masterpieces on houses and walls. There are street art festivals even in the most remote corners of the world, where a wide variety of artists come together from all over the world. Man, I saw incredible street art in the small town of San Nicolas on the island of Aruba. Roaming the streets of Rabat, I spotted amazing remains from the annual Street Art Festival Jidar. In Naxos, the ground cracked under my feet as I was searching for murals at the abandoned hotel ruin of Alyko, and instead of awing at the Alcazar in Seville, I took the bus to the suburb of San Pablo where striking murals embellished the drab façades.

What I’m saying is that Banksy was definitely the one who opened the door to street art culture many years ago. In the meantime, however, large crowds of incredibly talented artists have passed through that door in countless metropolises around the world.

The fact that I can’t fit all the murals I saw in Bristol into a single post shows that the urban art culture in the city is unbroken and thriving. Come along and see what artists like HazardOne, Conor Harrington, and Inkie have created. Let them surprise you with their fresh, original ideas and perfect craftsmanship instead of searching for pictures that you have already seen a hundred times.

The Artists – Quay Street to Nelson Street

I introduce the creators of the best murals on a walk going down Nelson Street and then along Stokes Croft. You can find them in alphabetical order further down in the Instagram section.

El Mac

Miles MacGregor aka El Mac was born in Los Angeles in 1980. Even at a young age he was enthusiastic about classical art and especially Art Nouveau. Today he is best known for gigantic portraits using a specially sprayed technique. In addition to unknown people, he likes to portray his friends. He also enjoys collaborating with other artists such as Retna and Aryz.

The list of countries where he has left his artistic mark is long: In addition to his native USA, his portraits can be seen in Belgium, Cuba, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Singapore, and Vietnam, to name just a few to name.

Nick Walker

Nick Walker was born in 1969 and was one of the most prominent participants of the See No Evil Festival.

Walker is one of the artists who creates parts of his works using stencils. It was brought to life by Robert Del Naja in the 1980s, and the everpresent Banksy also used this technique.

And just like Banksy, Walker can make a comfortable living from his art, to say the least: Back in 2006, Walker’s sprayed work Moona Lisa was sold at Bonhams in London for 54,000 pounds. In 2008, at a solo exhibition at London’s Black Rat Gallery, fans camped outside the door overnight – like at a Robbie Williams concert. As part of this exhibition, works of art worth 750,000 pounds were sold.

For Stanley Kubrick’s film Eyes Wide Shut, Walker recreated the graffiti-covered streets of New York City. One of his works can also be seen in a video by the Black Eyed Peas.

Although Walker is now a global star, he still lives in Bristol.

SheOne

Next to Nick Walker’s Vandal is a work by London-born artist James Choules aka SheOne. Choules was one of the first generation of street artists in Great Britain in the early 1980s. Originally, he worked exclusively with spray cans and on the street. His abstract, mostly monochrome paintings made of lines and splashes brought him success outside the borders of the United Kingdom. Over time he was able to transfer his unique style of light and shadow from the street onto canvas.

This means that, even though SheOne is self-taught, he has been able to work with well-known galleries and present his art all over the world.

Conor Harrington

One of my favorite murals in Bristol is by Conor Harrington who was born in Cork in 1980.  He is known for his large-scale murals in which he combines contemporary and historical references to tackle socio-political themes. 

Conor’s murals have a clear touch of Renaissance art to them as they capture not only the movement and expression perfectly but also express a particular mood in a powerful way. Historic events are often the center of Harrington’s gigantic murals.

I introduced Conor Harrington’s impressive works in my posts on the Best Street Art in Paris and Best Street Art in Copenhagen.

HazardOne

According to The Guardian, Harriet Wood aka HazardOne is considered one of the top five graffiti artists in the United Kingdom. On top of that, she was also named one of the top 25 street artists in the world. HazardOne creates her large-format portraits in rich colors and plays with light and glitch effects.

From a 7-story mural in the heart of Bristol to a collaborative work on the border between Arizona and Mexico, HazardOne’s murals have a purpose and a message.

In recent years, she has been commissioned to design graphics for films produced by the Cabot Institute for the Environment.

Inkie

Tom Bingle aka Inkie is originally from Bristol, however, today, he lives in London. Along with Banksy, 3D, and Nick Walker, he is one of the fathers of street art in Bristol. Because of his style, which is based on Art Nouveau, you can quickly assign his works to him.

Inkie began working as part of the Crime Incorporated Crew in 1983, along with FLX and Joe Braun. With Banksy, he organized the Walls on Fire Event on the Site of the Future in the Bristol Center in 1998. In August 2011 and 2012, he was appointed organizer of the See No Evil Festival. He also took part in the annual Upfest in Bristol, the largest urban painting festival in Europe, which I present in my post Best Street Art in BRISTOL – Part II: North Street.

After working in the video game industry, including as head of creative design at Sega, Inkie now teaches art and graphic design to youngsters.

Aryz

Aryz was born in the Californian city of Palo Alto in 1988. He then came to Spain as a small kid and grew up in Barcelona.

Aryz is a highly recognized street artist basically all around the world. He has painted in various countries in and outside of Europe including China, Finland, France, Italy, Japan, Morocco, the US, and Venezuela. In 2012, he collaborated with Brazilian street art superstars OsGemeos on a mural in the Polish city of Lodz. In 2013, he embellished homes and boats in the small village of Andavadoaka in Madagascar with his art.

I introduced another one of Aryz’s impressive murals in my posts Best Street Art in Berlin. 

FLX

Felix Braun aka FLX is one of the fathers of street art in Bristol and records the history as an author in the book Children of the Can.

Braun earned a BA in visual communication and is trained in youth work. As a result, in addition to his artistic work, he dedicated himself to youth art projects.

FLX co-founded the mural collective Paintsmiths of Bristol. Their large-format works celebrate the life of Nelson Mandela. They also captured the special relationship between Donald Trump and Boris Johnson in a brotherly kiss that attracted global media attention.

You can see more works by FLX in my second post on Bristol’s street art Best Street Art in BRISTOL – Part II: North Street.

Kin Dose

Nick Harvey aka Kin Dose or Kin One, is a Bristol-based street artist who specializes in large-scale murals and airbrushing. He learned more traditional painting techniques in college and university. He masters a wide range of techniques and works in many styles and media.

In recent years his work has moved heavily into the realm of photorealism. Although he still depicts a lot of animals, he now portrays people more often.

Stik

Stik is a British graffiti artist based in London. He was born in 1979 and has no formal education. He is known for painting oversized stick figures. His motifs are childlike in their simplicity and come from the time when he studied Japanese calligraphy characters in Japan.

He began his street art in London in the Hackney and Shoreditch districts. Today his characters decorate walls in Europe, Asia, and America.

PixelPancho

PixelPancho was born in Turin in 1984. His grandfather introduced him to the wonderworld of painting. Later, he enrolled in the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts in his hometown and eventually in the Academy of Fine Arts in Valencia. No wonder he got in touch with the graffiti and street art scenes since that’s really big in the Catalan metropolis. I’ve dedicated an entire post to the best street art in Valencia.

Obviously, PixelPancho soon began to engage in urban art himself. Meandering between Turin and Valencia, he created street art using different mediums such as tiles, paint, stickers, and posters. Interestingly, he names Valencian historic painter Joaquin Sorolla, the surrealist master Salvador Dalí, but also contemporary artists Ron English and Takashi Murakami his inspiration.

Today, PixelPancho’s quirky robots can be found in Amsterdam, Paris, Vienna, Warsaw, and many other cities.

I’ve introduced one of his murals in my post JIDAR Street Art Festival – How Rabat Celebrates International Urban Art.

The Artists – Stokes Croft to Montpelier

So now we come to the partly notorious district around Stokes Croft. You will notice that on the one hand, there are a lot of wild tags and graffiti as well as murals with clear political demands and statements.

On the other hand, in recent years, there has been created a wide range of works commissioned by the local shops. Those are clearly not intended to cause a stir.

Stinkfish

Stinkfish was born in Mexico but spent his childhood in the Colombian capital of Bogotá.

At the turn of the millennium, he began making stencils. However, it took another three years before he created a very complex piece of street art in Bogotá. This image was designed in memory of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

For his murals, Stinkfish photographs randomly people who don’t always know he’s taking a photo. He then converts these photos into stencils, which he uses for his wall art.

For its murals, Stinkfish prefers to look for locations with high traffic and good visibility. Stinkfish chooses to work on older walls, usually those that have unevenness, cracks, and humidity. It is also important to him to create his works in a neighborhood where people live, rather than in areas full of shops and businesses.

So far he has made his creative mark in Argentina, Colombia, England, France, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Austria, Russia, and the USA.

I’ve introduced a mural created by Stinkfish in my Post on the Best Street Art in Vienna.

Banksy

Does anyone need an explanation as to who Banksy is? In case you have sailed across the Atlantic without a signal for years or lived in a deep forest in the past few decades, here is a brief summary.

Banksy is the pseudonym of a street artist, political activist and film director. Although he has been active since the 1990s, his real name and identity remain unconfirmed. He is popular with satirical and subversively stenciled murals in different sizes.

Banksy comes from Bristol and has made the city world famous with his work. Here he was active in the underground scene of artists and musicians. Banksy himself claims that he was inspired by the graffiti artist and founding member of the band Massive Attack 3D. Since then, his works have appeared on streets, walls, and bridges around the world.

Banksy’s documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. 

In 2018, one of his most famous pictures was auctioned and shortly afterward shredded itself. Banksy claimed to criticize the art market. Nevertheless, the work went to a new owner in 2021 for 13 times as much, namely 16 million pounds!

Roo

Already the iconic slogan Roo has a crew. It consists of mostly animals, which vary in color and personality. Some are friendly and others will eat you reflecting the playfulness and quirky humor of London-based artist Roo.

Yes, she is one of the far too few female artists beautifying the streets of the world and probably one of the best muralists who focus on detailed illustrations. Roo’s work enchants every viewer with its humor and sweetness.

It was her brother who inspired her to venture into the world of graffiti and eventually street art. As a teenager, she first drew graffiti lettering on paper. It wasn’t until 2006 that Roo began to take her art seriously – albeit, serious and Roo don’t seem to fit in the same sentence. She moved to Birmingham for professional reasons where she got in touch with many other artists, including her brother Miles.

I’ve introduced a mural created by Roo in my Post on the Best Street Art in Vienna.

Urban Butterfly 

With her dreamy, imaginative paintings in bright colors, Emma Holloway aka Urban Butterfly brings positivity and hope to gloomy areas. Growing up in Birmingham, her goal was to improve the harshness and dreariness of the urban jungle with her colorful murals.

She graduated from Bath Spa University with a BA in Fine Art in 2004. Eventually, she had her first solo exhibition in the city in 2009.

She later taught art in Mexico, a country with a long tradition of mural painting. Today, she’s a secondary school teacher in Bristol. In 2019, she was commissioned to create a mural on the front of E5 Church. Many works followed.

Since Emma enjoys learning and trying new things, she recently got into children’s illustration. 

Lucas Antics

Lucas Antics is primarily Alexandra Lucas, who lives in Bristol with her co-artist and husband Paul Fearnside and their child. She is an illustrator and street artist.

Alex Lucas has a degree in multimedia textile design and masters in animation and
illustration as well as in art therapy.

Many private and commercial customers as well as architects have commissioned Lucas Antics to decorate their façades. There are countless house fronts in Bristol that she has embellished with her artistic, ornamental motifs. Although the designs are very different, they can always be identified as real Antics by their soft, organic curves and clear, harmonious color compositions.

And since all Bristolians seem to support a good cause in some way, it should not go unmentioned that Alexandra Lucas and Paul Fearnside are ambassadors for the wonderful Frank Water Project.

You can see more works by Lucas Antics in my second post on Bristol’s street art Best Street Art in BRISTOL – Part II: North Street.

Phlegm 

Phlegm is a muralist and artist from Wales which is basically just across the Bristol Channel. He is world-renowned for surrealistic motifs including architectural features like turrets and stairways as well as fantastic creatures. His intertwined fantasy worlds remind me a bit of the aesthetics and technique of M. C. Escher.

Phlegm’s fantastic motifs consist of complex details painted in precise strokes, mostly in black and white. The artist considers each of these drawings as a part of a gigantic illustration that extends around the world. Apart from walls, he decorated airplanes, boats, and vehicles. Also, he participated in many street art projects for instance in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Italy, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sri Lanka, and the USA – to name just a few.

I introduced Phlegm in my posts JIDAR Street Art Festival – How Rabat Celebrates International Urban Art as well as Best Street Art in LONDON – Part II: Shoreditch.

Object000

You can blindly rely on Object000 to step into the breach when it comes to political statements and actions.

For this local hero, the political power often overshadows the artistic side, but that’s not necessarily a shortcoming. Object000 passionately stands on the side of the oppressed, needy, and marginalized.
His pieces are always born out of outrage, and he leaves no doubt about what is important to him.

Cheba

Cheba was born in Bristol in 1983 and began making urban art in the early 2000s and has left his artistic mark all over the world ever since. He has worked with leading names in the field of street art. His work has also appeared in publications such as Children of the Can and Banksy’s Bristol, to name a few.

The artist combines spray paint with more traditional media such as oil, acrylic, and ink. His recent works depict parts of the cosmos such as nebulae and star clusters.

Cheba has donated many works. Also, he was selected for two fundraising public art exhibitions where his sculptures were sold for five-figure amounts, making them some of the best-selling sculptures at both auctions.

Anonymous Rebels

Credit where credit is due: I would have loved to introduce the creative minds behind the images that illustrate these bold statements. But to do this you would have to tag your works.

So if anyone knows who created these beautiful murals, please let me know!

On Instagram

To dig deeper into the subject and see more of the amazing art the above-featured artists have created, you can just check out their Instagram accounts:

How to Get Around

There are basically two ways to hunt for street art around Bristol: on foot or by bike. Due to the location of the murals, however, it may be a little easier in places to walk from mural to mural. As you can see in this post, the spots are pretty close to each other. It doesn’t take any effort to walk through both areas in one go as we’re talking about one or two kilometers here.

To get to the starting point for the Nelson Street Tour, you can take one of the buses 25, 46, 47, 48, 49, and 90 to The Center stop. From there, just walk northeast along Colston Avenue.

If you want to go directly to Stokes Croft, the best way is to take one of the buses 25, 70, 73, 74, 75, 76, and 77 to the Stokes Croft stop very close to the iconic The Full Moon and Attic Bar.

A one-way bus journey in Bristol costs £ 2, a two-trip ticket £ 3.80, three tips £ 5.80, and a so-called day-rider £ 6. Also, capping three or more consecutive days makes your travel cheaper. If you pay with your NFC-equipped credit or debit card, the system automatically adds the trips in a way that you always pay the cheapest price.
You’ll find further info on the bus company’s website.
You can find out all the transport connections on Google Maps, simply enter the start and destination and let the app do the magic.

Map

This map should help you to find the murals I’m introducing in my posts on Street Art in Bristol. However, I split it into two layers, one for Nelson Street and Stokes Croft, and the other one for North Street. This way, you can open them separately.
Clicking on the slider symbol at the top left or the full-screen icon at the top right will display the whole map including the legend.

There is a second part of Bristol’s Street Art called Best Street Art in BRISTOL – Part II: North Street. However, looking for urban art was only one of the awesome things I got to do during my visit. In my post BRISTOL -What to Do on the Best Weekend Break You’ll Have in a Long Time, I take you on a comprehensive city tour.

Pinnable Pictures

If you choose to pin this post for later, please use one of these pictures:

Did You Enjoy This Post? Then You Might Like Also These:

* This is an affiliate link. If you book through this page, not only do you get the best deal. I also get a small commission that helps me run this blog. Thank you so much for supporting me!