Street Art: Gee, Paul Insect, Sweet Toof, Bortusk Leer

I've been noticing a lot of paste-ups appearing in East London this year. These tend to be put up all at once, and then it will go relatively quiet for a short period, but there's been a lot of activity recently. I've noted Gee, Paul Insect, Bortusk Leer, and Sweet Toof already this year, although the work by Bortusk Leer may have appeared in late 2012 as they look as though they've been around for a little while. 

Street artist Gee Higgins (Energized Art) added many paste-ups to Shoreditch and Brick Lane at the end of January. There are three main different types of paste-ups added with varying colours. These include a flowery skull 'no angel', US president Obama with a punk hair style 'no angel', and several images of the infamous 'V for Vendetta' mask with different colours. There are many of these throughout Shoreditch. In addition to this, there's a painting near some of Don Smith's artwork on Brick Lane called "natural born artist".

More information about the artist is below. I'd like to see more examples of some of his work on his Flickr page.

Paul Insect's work uses bold, bright colours and graphics. Damien Hirst is a fan, and when Paul Insect had an exhibit at a gallery in 2007, his work was bought in advance by Hirst. At the moment, there are two types of new work around London. The first features a circular character with legs. Different colours are used on some of the prints. The other artwork features a graphic pattern using multiple colours and is printed on brown paper.

Bortusk Leer is a street artist from the UK who creates friendly-looking monsters. These remind me of drawings that a child would make, and I think the artist is attempting to bring the viewer of the artwork back to their childhood days. The characters look comical and are brightly-coloured.

More examples of Bortusk Leer's work can be seen here: http://www.tonysgallery.com/?p=29

Sweet Toof's work is characteristic of bright pink gums and teeth. His street art always depicts this imagery. According to the artist on the Wikipedia page, the tooth symbolises death but also symbolises life and the need to live life. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Toof