APRIL 2024 · PATINA
BEWARE OF THE DOGS
South Bristol
The sign is hand-painted on a piece of ply, screwed to a chain-link gate at the entrance. No dogs visible. Possibly no dogs ever. The warning has been there long enough that the letters have started to lift at the edges.
This is the kind of industrial estate that the city forgot to demolish. South Bristol has a few of them — small units from the eighties, gradually boarded up, gradually tagged, gradually left to whoever still pays rent and whoever doesn't. The combination of those two groups is always interesting.
I was looking for colour. Not scenic colour, not the harbour at golden hour — that kind of colour. The found kind. The kind that has no business being here.
It was everywhere.
A campervan parked against a warehouse wall, every panel a different geometric pattern, turquoise and ochre and a particular shade of green that reminded me of the inside of the Dinorwig quarry tunnels.
South Bristol industrial estate — April 2024
An orange wall, two storeys, no windows. Red sliding doors with 1985 stencilled on them in white — I don't know if that's the unit number or the year and I'm not sure it matters. A campervan parked against a warehouse wall, every panel a different geometric pattern, turquoise and ochre and a particular shade of green that reminded me of the inside of the Dinorwig quarry tunnels. Two bikes leaning against a post box, both turquoise, matching the van exactly, which felt like either coincidence or an installation.
There's a discarded sofa in the middle of one of the yards. On its own, in the open. Somebody had to carry it there. The yard is locked.
The graffiti is sedimentary. Tags from maybe five years ago sitting under tags from last month, different colours bleeding into each other at the joins, some of it almost legible, most of it not. On the warehouse windows the glass itself has gone opaque with layers of it, so the graffiti is on the graffiti.
A cyclist came through while I was shooting — just passing, not going anywhere in particular, taking a shortcut through. The concrete wall behind them was four metres of nothing. The timing was right so I took it.
An hour in South Bristol on a Friday afternoon. I got sixteen frames I'd keep.
Colorful painted campervan with geometric patterns parked beside turquoise bike
Orange and green two-storey storefront with boarded windows on industrial street
Red industrial sliding doors with white number 1985 and weathered graffiti
Bright red post box against stone wall with turquoise bikes and graffiti
Warehouse window with layers of faded glass panes and vibrant graffiti tags
Brick building with blue graffiti door, white doors, and heavily weathered walls
Tall orange wall and blue tagged metal panels beside narrow white doorway
Red industrial gate with No Parking text, orange safety posts and green graffiti
Weathered brick building with colored graffiti tags and overgrown boarded windows
Discarded couch and debris scattered across industrial yard between brick buildings
Large red industrial garage doors with weathered metal frame and faded markings
Orange industrial fencing and black metal shelter with colorful graffiti coverage
Brick wall fragment with weathered stone surface and faded window graffiti text
Cyclist on bicycle against tall concrete wall with industrial boarded windows
Brick industrial building with green door, metal gates, and warehouse architecture
Concrete warehouse wall with boarded industrial windows and weathered surface