Meeting Of Styles UK 2014

all photos NoLionsInEngland except HowAboutNo where stated

Meeting Of Styles is an international celebration of the art of the spraycan, graffiti and music. Since 2002 Meeting Of Styles spraycan art jams have taken place in 16 countries. Last weekend it was the turn of Shoreditch to host the Meeting Of Styles UK 2014 event. Billed as featuring nearly 60 artists, though some on the list didn’t make it and some who painted weren’t on the pre event MOS list, our own entirely unofficial crude estimate is that about 350m of walls were decorated.

I will be amazed if Shoreditch sees another wall smashed in this style this year, right to left top: Gent48, Vibes RT, Odisy; bottom: Soker, Ders, Twesh riffing on a man vs beast theme

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We went to our first Meeting Of Styles event in 2008 when it was held on the roof and walls of what is now Village Underground on Holywell lane and Great Eastern St. That was back in the day when you never saw street art or graffiti being created live in the daytime so on that occasion it was incredibly exciting to mingle with artists and watch this incredible graffiti being created, all in the ambience of super cool party with great music and great drink.

2008, End Of The Line offices, Village Underground

2008, Village Underground

This weekend there were artists out in force everywhere you walked, all quite happy to chat and be photographed – on the whole. Mainly. Well, some perhaps, if you asked politely.

Lovepusher

Zadok

ID Crew were out represented by Stika, Tizer, Lovepusher and Wisher, joined by friends Aeon Fly and bridged over by the legend 3DOM from Bristol

Stika, Tizer, Lovepusher, Wisher, 3Dom, Aeon
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CHU wrestled with the most challenging multi-faceted surface of the weekend and created a greatest hits medley of his tongue in cheek work. This sparked controversy when a commercial spraypaint outfit painted over half of his work the day after, not good but in way, just an accelerated form of the normal life cycle of street art.

CHU

Alongside CHU, Inkfetish’s character cradles masterful bubblegum coloured 3D lettering.

Inkfetish

I was surprised to see the old Curtain Theatre mural painted over but it had accumulated a lot of un-authorised additional art over the years and End Of The Line brought their A game to the negotiation of spots and the results of Sepr, Dank and Inkie’s weekend are particularly impressive.

Dank

Sepr, Inkie

Die Dixons came from Germany, their cheeky use of a traffic cone was one of the more inventive approaches to overcoming the physical limits of a wall.

Die Dixons

London based Norwegian Zina had to contend with a strong breeze blowing the spray across her wall to paint this martial arts inspired piece

Zina

This wall by Squirl, SPZero 76, Captain Kris and Si Mitchell of the Lost Souls crew is probably the strongest piece I have seen yet from this unit.

Squirl, SPZero 76, Captain Kris and Si Mitchell, photo HowAboutNo

Elph and Hicks worked an underwater landscape in the company of Candi and AR. Getting to paint a wall at Meeting Of Styles on only your second time painting on the streets (AR) kind of waters down the idea that we are seeing the legends and the best of the best.

Hicks

Elph

Meeting of Styles is the full package with art, food and a party groove. The Beatbox Collective teamed up with a friend to lay down aa awesome beatbox and sax combination on the Sunday evening to a totally chilled Pedley St wasteland crowd.

Beatbox Collective & cool sax playing friend

Approaches to painting ranged from block letter and wildstyle graffiti to abstract, cartoon to old masters, characters to animals, photorealistic to surreal. A bit of everything for everyone and undoubtedly a massive refresh of the Shoreditch landscape, surely the biggest MOS in the UK yet. More photos of the MOS walls HERE