Street Art History Lessons - Pure Evil Pearly Kings (VIDEO)

I love these Pearly Kings & Queens which are popping up all over London - and are by a street artist known as Pure Evil. This work, found on a church hoarding, infuses the London tradition of the Pearly Kings and Queens (started in 1875) alongside stencil sprayed butterflies whose wings spell out Pure Evil (you may need to look closely).

Pure Evil claims the Pearly Kings & Queens were the original East End Punks but I am not sure what the founder of the tradition - Henry Croft - would have to say about that. Though it works well with the ‘poetry is in the streets’ concept. I guess this latest piece is not that different from other figures being represented in Graffiti (almost anyone you can think of has been) but I like the concept of traditional London history being represented in the current London history of awesome street art.

As seen on this site of late - street art has many many different forms and i think the combination of stencils and pasting life sized figured is particularly effective.