Stand at the top of a steep street in Totterdown on a grey Tuesday and look out over the rooftops. A pink terrace, a yellow one, and a blue house with a satellite dish bolted to the chimney. It doesn’t look designed. It looks lived in, and that’s a fair description of Bristol artwork too.
Most people think of one name when they hear the words “Bristol art”, and you can probably guess which. But Banksy is a small part of it. A lot of original art gets made in this city by people you’ve never heard of, in back bedrooms, shared studios and sheds. Some of it is loud. Plenty isn’t.
What counts as Bristol artwork
There’s no tidy definition. For some people it means the stencils and murals around Stokes Croft, where the Banksy teddy bear with the petrol bomb sits on the edge of the area, and where a wall you photographed in spring can be gone by August. For others it’s a painting in a gallery, a drawing from a studio down the road, or a print by someone who’s lived here for twenty years.
What links them is that the city is in there somewhere. It doesn’t have to be obvious. A picture doesn’t need the Clifton Suspension Bridge in the corner to count as Bristol artwork. Sometimes it’s the colour, sometimes the subject, sometimes just the person who made it and the street they made it on.
Street art and gallery art aren’t separate worlds here, either. Plenty of artists who started out on walls now sell canvases and prints too.
Why an original is worth having
‘An original’ means ‘one of one’. Someone made it by hand; it exists once, and if you stand close, you can see the brushwork. Prints are a good way in, and lots of Bristol artists sell them, but an original is a different thing to live with. You start noticing the bits that don’t quite work, and those tend to become your favourite bits.
A fridge magnet of the Clifton Suspension Bridge is fun. It isn’t the same as a painting by someone who has walked across it in the rain.
What the city gives an artist
Start with the harbour. The old dock cranes are still standing, boats bunch up along the edges, and the light off the water changes every hour. Up in Clifton, Brunel’s bridge hangs over the Avon Gorge, and painters keep going back to it because it never looks the same twice. Over in Bedminster, Upfest turns whole streets into painting surfaces every summer, and it’s free to wander round.
Then there’s Totterdown. The hills are so steep that the houses seem to be climbing on each other’s shoulders, and the colours stack up the slope in a way you notice even if you don’t think of yourself as an art person. Artists who live here don’t have to hunt for subject matter. It’s outside the window. If landscapes are more your thing, we’ve written about them in our post on Bristol landscape paintings.
Art from people who actually live here
We’re on Wells Road in Totterdown, so we’re a bit biased about this corner of the city. Over the years we’ve worked with a group of local artists and put on shows around Bristol. Peter Lyons, a Totterdown painter, shows a different side of Bristol artwork. His pictures are autobiographical, so they feel personal rather than decorative, and you won’t find them on a wall outside.
How to choose a piece
Start with the wall. Go and stand where the picture will hang and look at the light. A big dark canvas can look fantastic in a gallery and gloomy in a north-facing hallway.
Ask who made it and why. Most artists are happy to be asked, and a picture with a story attached is one you’ll still remember ten years on.
Check the basics. Look for a signature, ask for the artist’s name and the year on your receipt, and if you’re buying online, ask for a photo in daylight. Screens flatten colour.
Think about the budget honestly. Drawings, small originals and prints cost a lot less than large canvases, and they’re a perfectly good way to start a collection.
And don’t buy what you think you should. If you’re still thinking about a picture a week later, that’s the one.
Come and have a look
If you’re nearby, drop in at the gallery on Wells Road. If you’re not, have a look through the gallery or the shop, and message us through the contact page if something catches your eye. We’d rather talk about the work than push you towards it.
The wall on Stokes Croft will be repainted by next year. The picture on your wall at home won’t be.
