London attracts many people from all over the world and the street art scene has more than it’s fair share of talent rocking up and gracing our walls.
The French in particular have contributed some great works and that’s perhaps not suprising as, according to a BBC report, London in terms of population is actually Frances sixth biggest city.
That means that London, in terms of the number of French people living here, is bigger than Bordeaux, Nantes and Strasbourg. Now that’s a pretty impressive statistic, with up to 400,000 French people living in London.
So with those numbers in mind it’s high time I paid tribute to the French Street Art of London with my top 5 french street artists.
French Street Art in London 2013
1. Invader
An icon of the street art scene, invader had ‘invaded’ citys all over the world and London has had frequent visitations. Spotting a little tile space invader is always a treat. Many of them are based on the aliens of the computer games of the 80’s others have diversified and Invader no longer sticks to type in terms if what he creates. A big hitter in terms of recognition his art often gets nicked but not before his invasion has ended.
2. Christian Guemy aka C215
Internationally renowned Guemy tags his work, generally small stencil portraits, with the tag C215. He is a regular visitor to London but also paints a lot in France and around the world. His most recent visit to the city included a series of stencilled cats dotted around alongside his more recognisable portraits.
3. Thierry Noir
Recently invited to London as part of a Street Art London project. Thierry originally came over to paint the village underground wall with Stik in February and other locations around Shoreditch. Since then he has returned with work appearing as part of the Chichester street art festival and at Dulwich with a room in the ‘arthouse’. He made his name in Germany painting his colourful characters onto the Berlin Wall.
4. Zabou
Zabou is a French artist living in London. Her work can often be seen in Dalston with a usual spot on Hartwell Street and she has also painted on the South Bank and on Leake Street. She produces some striking images which are often black and white with some key elements of bright colour. You can read more about Zabou and her art by checking out my interview with her here.
5. Bom.K and Liliwenn
I’ve put these two together as there is only one collaboration piece by them in London at the moment. Both are incredibly talented artists and the detail of their work is superb. In November 2012 they painted a spot in Hanbury Street and this piece is still there. I spotted them in action at the time and got to see them work for a bit.
For more articles featuring French street art in London, have a look at:
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