Art On Our Streets – Farkfk

You’ve been walking round with your eyes shut if you haven’t seen the work of Fark  dotted round our fair city. A prolific wall painter and wheatpaster, Fark has been decorating the walls of Portsmouth (and pretty much everywhere else) with his bold graphic cartoon like characters in super clean lines. Ring leader of the paint crew PAM (Pompey Alleys Mush), Fark has worked tirelessly to paint and repaint the outside of Fratton park with the rest of the PAM crew and visiting writers. If you haven’t been down there you really should check it out.

Aside from the street and alley walls, Fark’s flickr page is a good place to see his work www.flickr.com/photos/farkfk/

The Utility of Space – Zurich House

We Are Pseudonym (WAP) are getting a serious team of graffiti artists together in Portsmouth on 29th January 2011. The event, entitled ‘The Utility Of Space’ will see respected artists such as Aroe (MSK + HA), Trans 1 (TND + AP), Gary (MSK + HA), Ebee (TND), Fark FK (TND + PAM), Snub 23 (GW), and many more, all coming together to paint hoardings around the iconic Zurich House in the city centre.

The event will be the first of its kind to attract such big names to the seaside city, but hopefully it won’t be the last. Long time collaborators Pseudonym and Fark FK are helping lead the way in the upsurge of street art and graffiti projects in Portsmouth and Southsea. Aiming to reclaim some of the under developed or forgotten areas of the city for more creative and inspirational use, We Are Pseudonym are hopeful that Portsmouth is taking the first steps to a more colourful future.

For further information contact: us@wearepseudonym.com

Lex & Fark

I am always thrilled to discover little delights during my morning dog walks down the seafront and this morning was no exception.

Local street artists Lex and Fark have been busy again around South Parade Pier. Putting some colour and fun into the sometimes bland view.

Strong Island Charity Raffle Prize Update

Excuse the really long picture post again. It’s another little update to keep you up to speed with our 2nd Birthday Party at The Belle Isle this Thursday 30th September and I thought you would like to know what’s on offer as the date gets closer.

The tickets will be £1 each or £8 for 10 and will be available on the door on the night only, so grab a strip with your FREE Strong Island Ice Tea (limited drinks so get there early). Pet Sounds will provide the background music with a Strong Island VS Pet Sounds Playlist to accompany this relaxed social.

We will call the winning numbers sometime around 10pm. Listen for the bell…

All the donations to the Raffle will be available to win on the night and all of the proceeds are going to The Portsmouth Autism Support Network and The Portsmouth Lifeboat Station.

We look forward to seeing you.

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Strong Island 2nd Birthday & Charity Raffle

We hope you can all make it along to our 2nd Birthday Party at The Belle Isle next Thursday 30th. It’s shaping up to be quite a nice evening with a few friends new & old, accompanied with some drinks and a cheeky Raffle.

All the donations to the Raffle will be available to win on the night and all the proceeds are going to The Portsmouth Autism Support Network and The Portsmouth Lifeboat Station.

Raffle tickets will be available on the door on the night only, so grab a strip with your FREE Strong Island Ice Tea (limited drinks so get there early). Pet Sounds will provide the background music with a Strong Island VS Pet Sounds Playlist to accompany this relaxed social.

Prizes have kindly been donated from the following people: The Belle Isle / Bored / Portsmouth University / Paul Gonella / Claire Sambrook / Desperados Beer / Ian Parmiter / Rob Trigg / Wallspace gallery / Head Hairdressing / FarkFK / Southsea Fixed Gear / James Weaver / Mikee Ayling / Matt O’Neill / Diana Goss / Caleigh Illburn / Cat Vaughan / Steve Bomford / Owain Harris / Miki Organic / Louise Bush / Nick Hicking / Candice @ Inksquatch / MyDogSighs / Paul Thurlow and more to come. Prizes include tee shirts, drinks, hair cuts, photo shoots, art, prints, meals, photography and more besides. Check the photos below for just a taster of what’s on offer.

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Huge Free Art Drop at Eastney

What’s that coming over the shingle? God knows, but it’s pretty damn impressive. The PAM Crew are at it again. This time with one HELL of a drop. If any of you were lucky enough to get down the Bug Jam on the Common last weekend you may have seen FARKFK, LEX, MONK, Mimic and MyDogSighs creating this beast. Grab an ice cream and head down the beach to catch a sighting before it goes in to hibernation, or someone grabs it for themselves.

Also don’t forget it’s MONK JAM and the Indoor Market & Record Fayre this coming Bank Holiday where the above mentioned and others will be taking over the garden at Little Johnny Russells. Check out more details HERE. This will be a really good day for sure. Put it in your diary.

PRIMARY – A Phoneography Exhibition by Strong Island – Call for entries

This coming new year we will be proud to announce our latest exhibition PRIMARY, a Phoneography exhibition by Strong Island and we are even happier to announce that it’s open to you, the readers.

With the continuing increase in impressive camera technology in mobile phones and the ability to alter, tweak, post process and upload the photos to social media networks and websites like Instagram, the popularity of Phoneography has never been greater.

The ‘of the moment’ ability to take a photo at almost any time and any place by most people has really driven the fact that the camera does not make the photographer. By which I mean, you don’t need an expensive camera to take outstanding photos.

Agreed, the quality of the physical image may not stand up to the big guns, but new learnings in composition, style and aesthetic by a new generation of camera users via online media has really driven this popularity, and encourage people to go beyond a ‘quick shot’.

PRIMARY invites you to get out and about around Portsea with your mobile phone camera and take photos of anything and everything based around the three primary colours red, yellow and blue. What you photograph is entirely up to you, but submissions will only be accepted if they stick to the theme.

The call for entires has now begun and the deadline is the 31st of January 2012 with the exhibition being held in March of 2012. Photos can be taken on any mobile phone model and we ask that a maximum of 3 photos per applicant are sent in to primary@strong-island.co.uk.

Please submit along with your photographs your name, photo title, phone model, location of photo on the island and any post process apps you used, if any, to achieve the final shot.

We look forward to seeing all the entries, and the final installation will be something special using every photo submitted in a slightly different fashion from your average photographic exhibition. CLICK HERE TO PRINT YOUR OWN POSTER

Poster by Tristan Savage & Photo by Paul Gonella

It’s going to be a Strong Movember – Closed at £725

Righto chaps, it’s time to clean shave your boat race and get that mighty moustache on the grow in support of Movember for The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. For 30 days of November you can help support and raise awareness through selflessly parading your top lip for charity.

You can sign up yourself, as I’m sure many of you already have, or you can join the Strong Island team and seek out sponsorship as a team. Through the Strong Island Movember page you can ask people to join the group, make donations, upload photos and post updates via the MoSpace page, Facebook and Twitter.

Head over to www.mobro.co/StrongIsland if you would like to get involved and grow a Strong Moustache to help raise awareness, or simply head over to www.uk.movember.com and sign up to personally raise money.

The funds raised in the UK support the number one and two male specific cancers – prostate and testicular cancer. The funds raised are directed to programmes run directly by Movember and our men’s health partners, The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. Together, these channels work together to ensure that Movember funds are supporting a broad range of innovative, world-class programmes in line with our strategic goals in the areas of awareness and education, survivorship and research.

Poster: Tristan Savage