Zabou and the London street art trails - Chiswick

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 French street artist Zabou has made quite a name for herself in recent years. She is London based but travels around the world painting realistic murals.

On her website www.zabou.me she describes her work like this:

"Working mostly with spray paint, Zabou creates large-scale black and white portraits with colourful backgrounds. Her artworks are both striking and thought-provoking, and focus on the expression and emotions of her subjects. She likes to push visual and spatial boundaries, sometimes creating playful pieces.

Zabou explores various themes, finding inspiration in the history and the surroundings of where she paints. Her artistic world revolves around humans, art, music, movies, nature, empowerment, love and many more."

She has made work in Indonesia, UAE, Cyprus, Israel, Colombia, Haiti, USA and all across Europe. Her pieces can also be found in the Saatchi gallery in London. I first discovered her work while running around my local area and this led me to find out where else I could see it. 

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My third run was a marathon distance across South London and then over the Thames to Chiswick to see Zabou's newest piece called Spring.

I left Lewisham and ran through Sydenham to Crystal Palace park. A loop around brought me to the top of the hill with panoramic views over south London to the Surrey Hills beyond. I continued down past Norwood Park and through Streatham and Tooting Bec Commons and into Wimbledon. 

At this point I was tired and stopped for a coffee and three empanadas at an Argentinian cafe. Fuelled up again I entered, first Wimbledon Park, and then WImbledon Common. I was back on the Capital Ring which I ran last year. It looked very different in June with the trees full of green leaves and the ferns and Cow Parsley rampant.

Into Richmond Park and I was thrilled to see a parcel of deer, mothers and two young newborns. I looked around warily for the stags, but they were nowhere to be seen. I was in my running gear, but I knew I was too tired for a sprint by this point.

Over the top of the hill I could see down to Richmond and the Thames. Once I had descended I made my way through crowds of people enjoying the hot, sunny weather, supping pints and eating ice creams. With jealous in my eyes I weaved through them and was soon on the quiet river path passing the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.

By now my legs were gone with 23 miles run. I was out of water and ended up run, walking the next couple of miles. Once at Chiswick Bridge however I was revived with the end in sight. After a short detour to the home of Brentford FC - watch out for a future post in which I run to every London Football League team's ground - I ran along Chiswick High Street and found Spring.

The piece was made in 2021 on the side of Villa di Geggiano Italian restaurant. It shows a British singer, Eva Lazarus, surrounded by flowers.

At this point I was shattered and hopped on the nearest train home.



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