He sometimes catches himself trying to piece together her face, like a half-remembered dream that slips away the moment you reach for it.
She was once the centre of everything, the sort of person you swear you’ll never forget, and yet now she’s become a blur at the edges.
He doesn’t miss her in the romantic, run-back-through-the-rain sense; it’s more that he wishes he’d been a better version of himself back then, the kind she deserved.
And so he sits there, squinting at memories that refuse to stay still, memories of her, of his childhood, when he swore he'd always be kind, hoping that by remembering her more clearly, he might forgive himself a little, too.
#contemporaryart #streetart #popart #pasteupart #kaitlyndever
"The older you become, the lonelier you get, and the deeper love you need." - #leonardcohen
"Courage, woman! You are not alone" - @brunaalcantara.00
Bruna Alcantara tells stories. Not with words (well, sometimes with words), but mostly with images. She’s a visual artist. And a journalist. A Brazilian from Jacarezinho, way up in the north of Paraná. She received her journalism degree back in 2010 from PUCPR, but instead of chasing headlines, she started digging through something much closer to home - her family’s old photographs. That’s where the real stories were. The ones about motherhood and about the body.
She mixes photography with embroidery, collage, installations, and whatever else helps get the point across. And the point? It’s often about things that are hard to talk about. Indignation. Trauma. Violence. The thin, fragile line between what’s public and what’s private. She doesn’t just make art. She starts conversations. And she makes sure you can’t look away.
🔗TAP THE LINK in my bio to read my interview with Bruna and discover the stories behind her incredible art.
NEXT WEEK: Don't miss my interview with the awesome animator behind 'Nigel Leadfeather – YouTube Sensation'; @adamfrith_ .
#streetart #feminism #pasteup #brazil #motherhood #urbanart
I often think what I really need is a bit of time to myself. A small, magical window in which nobody is asking me to fix something that has mysteriously broken (and of which they know nothing about), or how to reset Netflix, or what my favourite Pokémon is (Psyduck, obviously).
I fantasise about it in the way other people may fantasise about yachts, or something. Just me, a cup of tea, and the radical concept of not being required for anything at all. And then, astonishingly, it happens. Our home empties. The phone stops. The universe grants me what I have been manifesting for weeks.
And within four minutes I am feeling like I have somehow tricked everyone. Should I be doing something more useful? That fourth load of washing maybe? There is a peculiar guilt that arrives with solitude, as though enjoying my own company is faintly suspicious behaviour. I love being by myself. I am excellent company. And yet the moment I get it, I sit there like a man who has pulled off a minor heist, waiting for someone to burst in and say, Sorry, this was meant for someone more deserving.
#80s #90s #popcultureart #pasteup #bricklane
She had that calm confidence people have when they know all the answers but aren’t in a rush to give them. Like she’s been to every party before it even started. Like she’s read every book you’ve ever lied about reading and found them a bit predictable.
She speaks softly, but something about her is... wrong. Not in a big, obvious way. Just in that tiny, creeping way where your brain quietly tugs your sleeve and says, “Let’s go. Now.”
And you should. You really, really should.
#vampire #pulpart #pasteupstreetart #streetart #streetartlondon
I've had a minor inconvenience at work. Now, I’m not saying I overreacted, but I did briefly consider drafting a strongly worded email, then immediately felt that wasn’t quite proportionate enough. In the end, I settled on smashing the place up and setting the building on fire. In hindsight, perhaps this was all a bit over the top. Still, you live and learn.
#streetart #popart #bricklane #popcultureart #80s
She sat there with the quiet certainty that she had somehow failed at being the sort of adult she had imagined at seventeen, the sort who would be impressive and certain and possibly own a very nice coat. Instead there were unfinished plans, WhatsApp messages she had not replied to, friendships she had meant to maintain properly but somehow had not, and the creeping suspicion that she had spent several years doing sensible things while accidentally misplacing the person she was or had wanted to become. It felt heavy and her heart felt sick in that way only private disappointments can.
At some point the adventures had simply stopped. Not dramatically. There had been no official announcement that the wandering around and saying yes to strange invitations was over; the door to that time of her life had just quietly closed.
It had been replaced rather efficiently, by caution. By routines. By the idea that she ought to know what she was doing by now. She had started choosing the familiar café instead of the new one, the safe answer instead of the curious one, the evening at home instead of the train to somewhere she had never heard of.
But then she remembered that seventeen-year-old her had absolutely no idea what she was doing either. She had simply said yes to things, walked down unfamiliar streets, caught trains to places she had never been, and assumed the story would sort itself out along the way.
Which meant the adventure had not ended at all. It had merely been waiting, patiently for her to notice that the door had never disappeared, and neither had the world beyond it, and all she had to do was stand up and wander back into it, but this time wearing her very nice new coat.
#popart #streetart #pasteupart #bricklane #pulpart
There’s a peculiar comfort in wanting to speak to someone all the time, even when you’ve absolutely nothing to report from the front lines of your day. No grand updates. No thrilling anecdotes. Just… them.
The line open. Both of you quietly existing at opposite ends of the same bit of wire (or, more realistically, the same invisible cloud of phone signals). Every so often there’s a faint rustle, maybe a small sigh, perhaps the distant clink of a mug being put down, and it’s oddly perfect.
You’re not talking, exactly, but you’re also not alone. It’s like sitting on opposite ends of the same sofa while doing completely different things, except the sofa is several miles long and made of mobile reception. And the remarkable thing is that the silence doesn’t feel empty at all. It feels full. Entirely full, simply because they’re there.
#pulpart #popart #streetart #80s #90s
A FREAKING AWESOME burst of black and fluoro pink, this Riso print is bold, bright and just the right side of unruly. The black lays down the facts; the fluoro pink barges in with a brilliant idea.
Printed with soy-based inks on 170gsm A3 Context Natural, it’s tactile, weighty and pleasingly analogue. Riso printing uses minimal electricity, no heat fusing and plant-based masters, making it a lower-energy, more sustainable alternative to conventional digital print. Good for your walls, gentler on the planet.
Printed at @yallariso in Dundee, Scotland, each print carries the charming quirks Riso is loved for: slight shifts, tiny variations, meaning no two are exactly alike.
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#streetart #kaitlyndever #popart #pulpart #bricklane
Music by @heffvansaint
Trying to recall someone’s face from years ago is like loading a blurry photo on terrible Wi-Fi. You know you knew it and could have picked it from a line-up, but now it’s just fragments: hair of some kind, eyes, a nose. The smile keeps morphing into other people’s. The harder you focus, the more it slips.
You remember random specifics, like the fact they owned a coat, but the face itself has retreated to a dusty mental loft labeled “Early 2000s,” tucked behind some emotional baggage and a Nokia charger you can’t quite throw away.
This isn't a drawing of the person I'm talking about. Or maybe it is; I can't remember.
#streetart #pasteup #80s #popcultureart #streetartlondon
At some point in your forties your back simply decides it’s had enough of your leadership. You haven’t fallen off anything heroic. You haven’t lifted a grand piano. You merely… existed. The true indignity isn’t the pain. It’s not knowing why. Your back won’t explain itself. It just sits there, quietly throbbing, as if to say, “We both know what you did.” And you absolutely do not.
#80s #90s #bricklane #rogueone #streetartlondon
The dog sighed, which felt personal. Outside, the rain had that indecisive drizzle about it, the sort that can’t commit to being proper weather. She wondered if this was it, the height of her Wednesday.
Maybe, she thought, lighting a cigarette, if she just picked up and went somewhere, anywhere, life might start behaving differently. But then the kettle clicked off, and she decided the revolution could wait until after her cup of tea.
#acefrehley #kiss #popart #pulpart #urbanart #streetart #bricklane
INTERVIEW:
If you’ve ever wandered through East London and caught sight of a burst of colour that seems to wink at you, something part comic strip, part album cover, part childhood memory, you might have stumbled across the work of @carl.stimpson .
His art doesn’t whisper for attention; it shouts cheerfully across the street, full of bold lines, familiar faces, and a knowing nod to the world of pop culture that shaped us all.
Carl started out, as all great things do, by nicking ideas from magazines. Not literally nicking them (probably), but freehand-copying pop culture cut-outs, a sort of DIY art school for the visually obsessed. Fast forward a bit, and he’s now a screen-printing, mural-painting, street-art-making machine, with a style that feels both familiar and entirely his own.
In this chat, we talk about everything from Tintin’s ligne claire influence to the humble brilliance of commercial packaging; from anti-war undertones hidden in bright, upbeat prints to the most important question of all: What’s your favourite dinosaur?
TAP THE LINK IN MY BIO TO READ MY INTERVIEW WITH CARL.
#streetart #popart #urbanart #tintin #popcultureart #bricklane
