Odds and sods

You’ve seen pretty much all we have to offer at the House of Pain(t) - but not quite everything. Today we have a round up of all the stuff that hasn’t fitted in elsewhere. We’ve got some wheatpastes, stencils, bits of cardboard and a bit of wall…

Bobblehead

My least favourite bobbleheaded creature has to that stupid dog from the Churchill adverts. If i’m honest I’ve got little in the way of explanation for this piece or why he has what appears to be a bobblehead other than the wall was there and needed painting on. Not everything in this world can have a purpose…

Mupan flexing his muscles. Just a little.

Mupan has bigger muscles than you without even flexing. You know it and he knows it. Now on your way…

One too many

We all know the feeling (well, Team id-iom certainly does) of having just one drink too many in pursuit of a good time. The main problem is the more you drink the less self control you have – just when you need it most. Ah well, at least it’s the wekeend soon enough.

Tigers Only

Strange Facts #11 Siegfried and Roy once stayed in the House of Pain(t) (back when it was a normal house) and their tigers stayed with them in the basement. This was a warning sign above the door. And the male tiger always wore a hat. And that’s a fact. Or at least that’s what i was told…

Moustachio

We’re a little late for Movember but this gentleman is not the kind of man who only has a moustache for a month. No, siree. His is a permanent fixture and he’s proud of it.

I never really read superhero stuff as a kid

The funny thing about this piece is that i did read superhero stuff as a kid. Ha! Hey, irony, try that one on for size! I have a huge treasure trove of comics stashed away at home, an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of comic trivia and have even worked at a comics publisher. So there. Anyway, i digress.

I’m not sure if you will have seen a film called Super (which i quite enjoyed – maybe i should start doing film reviews too?) but the girl in this picture reminds me of his female sidekick Boltie (played by Ellen Page).

I’m a mole and I live in a hole

How on earth this mole seems to be climbing out of a pot that wouldn’t even fit him in I have no clue. Suffice it to say the mole was sat in the basement and needed a new home before we moved out.

We’ve got one final wall to show in the next day or two then we’ll hopefully have some demolition porn and then the House of Pain(t) will be no more. We will also have the video that the guys from Spraying Bricks shot that should be out before Xmas and also a little video for posterity that we shot ourselves (when it’s finally all edited together). Bring on the next condemned building…

Cheers

id-iom

Below are previous articles from our House of Pain(t) series:

• Spraying bricks (thisisidiom.wordpress.com)
• House of Pain(t) – id-iom x Agent Provocateur (thisisidiom.wordpress.com)
• Star Chamber Panorama (thisisidiom.wordpress.com)
• Feminax (thisisidiom.wordpress.com)
• This is the end of the line… (thisisidiom.wordpress.com)
• A portrait of the artist as a young man (thisisidiom.wordpress.com)
• The Girl with the Pelmet Crown (thisisidiom.wordpress.com)
• Sholto & Hugo’s House On The Hill… (thisisidiom.wordpress.com)

House of Pain(t) – id-iom x Agent Provocateur

Hitchcock’s Psycho – id-iom x Agent Provocateur

So we had a couple of fellow artists helping out somewhat with the redecoration at the House of Pain(t). We’ve already covered our attempts to finish up Perspicere‘s work in the thread room and now we’ve got a couple of pieces where we’ve done a little work with artist Agent Provocateur (who unfortunately has nothing to do with the lingerie company of the same name).

First up we have a beautifully placed reference to Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho‘ that I just couldn’t resist adding the blood splatter to. I think this is a top notch bit of placement and the ‘blood’ just really finishes it off. It really isn’t the kind of place you’d want to have a shower (even if the ceiling hadn’t caved in somewhat).

Eagle Eyed Herrods

Eagle Eyed Herrods (detail)

 

And then we have our eagle eyed wheatpaste which just seemed to fit nicely over AP’s ‘Herrods’ logo which was already on the wall.

Cheers

id-iom

Related articles

• House of Pain(t and wheatpastes) (thisisidiom.wordpress.com)
• King Dog and the Angels (thisisidiom.wordpress.com)

Hanging tough

Hanging Tough

Hanging Tough

Arghhhhh! It’s the pink room again! I don’t know if I could ever have lived with such garish coloured walls. But luckily I don’t have to. As we are now slowly beginning to sort out the studio in preparation for the imminent arrival of the demolition crew we found (amongst other things) a load of wheatpastes that we’d somehow neglected to paste up and thought that could be easily remedied whilst taking up a bit more space in our death row townhouse. So after mixing up some pasting solution we set to work with gusto.

As the wheatpaste was only of her top half we thought it best to give her a bit of shadow and have it look like she’s stood behind something. I like to think of this girl as the proper tenant of the pink room and that she’d sooner punch you in the kidneys than suffer fools gladly.

Cheers

id-iom

Pigeon Grenades

Pigeon Grenades. Good Price.

Pigeon Grenade – cryptic advertising wheatpaste

Living in London it’s  sometimes hard to ignore the pigeons that are constantly hanging around looking shifty with their scruffy wings and malformed feet. They are particularly numerous around the city centre and obviously flock around you whenever you produce something to eat. Well now we have the answer. Pigeon Grenades! Safe to use – even in an urban environment. They will blow those suckers right out of the sky with a minimum of collateral damage. Get them now whilst the good prices last. Email Mark for details…

I first came across Mark Aburi when he sent me an email promising a sizeable share of several million dollars if only i’d help him shift it out of Africa. Since then I’ve decided to do my best to make sure he gets some emails – although they probably aren’t quite the emails he was hoping for. Welcome to id-iom’s continued attempt at artistic scam-baiting. You can view our earlier efforts here, here and here.

Please feel free to get in touch with Mark (at aburimar777@gmail.com) about Pigeon Grenades, any of our earlier efforts or just about any topic at all as he’s happy to help on any issue – from the mundane to the world-shatteringly important. Just drop him a line…

Cheers

id-iom

Wha’ Gwan? uncovered!

Wha’ Gwan?

Today’s offering is a little bit of graffiti archaeology. We have had a few different versions of this ‘Wha Gwan?‘ design up on the blog before but this one I particularly like as over time it had disappeared under layer upon layer of posters for bashment nights, circuses and fairs and local theatre productions but once they had become too numerous they were cleared away and I’m proud to see that our little paste up was still clinging tenaciously to the side of the metal box and looking largely unharmed.

For the uninitiated, the phrase ‘Wha gwan’ (whaa gwaan) means ‘what’s going on?’ in Jamaican Patois. The spelling varies but the meaning does not change. As we live in Brixton this is not an unusual phrase to hear around the place.

Cheers

id-iom

Street art without borders

Hamburg

Hamburg

Copenhagen

Berlin

Amsterdam

There’s a certain thrill to sending off a tube of paste up’s‘s to Street Art Without Borders. Once dispatched you then wait patiently for a while whilst the intrepid paster gets out and about around Europe (and beyond)  and finally – hey presto! – you get some pictures back of your work adorning walls at various international locations. What could be easier? This time we’ve got work up in Berlin, Hamburg, Amsterdam and Copenhagen. The one in Berlin is even on a 2km section of the Berlin Wall that is called the East Side Gallery. All this from the comfort of our own front room…

Many thanks to Urbanhearts for the photo’s!

Cheers

id-iom

Never mind the length, feel the quality…

After our initial trip to Southport for the inaugural UpNorthFest earlier in the year we had a few wheatpastes left which we didn’t manage to get round to pasting up. So instead we send them up to Optik Nerve – our man on the scene in Southport – who kindly agreed to get them up for us. Many thanks to him for getting them up and getting some photos for us.

As Southport pier is the second longest pier in the UK (after the 2km pier in Southend-on-Sea) we decided on the slightly tongue in cheek slogan of ‘Never mind the length, feel the quality’ above a stencilled image of sunrise at the pier. Surely Southport tourist board couldn’t have done better themselves?

Cheers

id-iom

Bill Posters is innocent!

When I was growing up I occasionally saw the graffiti ‘Bill Posters is innocent’ about the place and didn’t understand it until my dad explained the joke to me at some point. I reckon I must have thought he was some kind of Robin Hood figure who the police were after but had public opinion on his side. This obviously appealed to me and lodged in my mind and now, after a good deal of processing, has now manifested itself in this piece.

I selected the date of 1880 as after a little internet research it would appear that was the date the ‘Bill Posters is innocent’ joke first made it to print (apparently in The London Graphic) so it’s certainly not anything new. I like the fact it still works today though. Anyway i’ve only done wheatpasting a couple of times and now Spring is in the air (well, sort of!) I intend to remedy that so keep your eyes peeled…

Cheers

id-iom

Title: Prosecute This!

Media: Screenprint, stencils and spraypaint

Size: A3

Available from our Big Cartel store for £40

Sticking it to the Man…

With all the fine weather we’ve been having we have finally got round to getting a bit of wheatpasting done. After we had been out we went back for some photo’s the next day and only half of the paste ups remained (and even then the bottom one is obviously not the most securely placed of wheatpastes as the left hand edge has started to curl but at least it’s up to some degree. Must remember to try harder…)

Cheers

id-iom

Evil Ice knows what you are thinking

A little experiment with LED’s had us come up with the awesome power of Evil Ice. We got a couple of red LED’s and batteries, cut some small holes in the piece so the LED contacts could go through the eyes then taped them onto the batteries on the back. Once you’ve taped it up securely (to prevent any paste shorting the connection) it’s time to hit the street. We just had to ensure that we were relatively careful where we put the paste and it was easy to put up. The batteries would have lasted about a week but the paste up eventually only last a few days. Oh well, c’est la vie…

Cheers

id-iom

EVIL ICE READY TO HIT THE STREET

EVIL ICE IN SITU