T-Shirt Reviews Blog

Posted: 02 Nov 2009 08:58 AM PST

This review focuses on two of my creative mediums, urban/street art and of course t-shirt design. I’m featuring Upper Playground tees today, having been run independently for over a decade by the highly respected Fifty24SF Gallery, it’s the place where some of the big boys and girls of the street movement sell their works in all kinds of forms, including t-shirts at their store. Some of the super fine artists on their books including: Jeremy Fish, who has exhibited his work in esteemed galleries such as White Walls in San Francisco - Rinzen an Australian arts collective who have made waves in everything from fashion to illustration to design, read more about them at Format Magazine - David Ellis who’s woodcut-style intricate prints are highly respected within the urban arts scene and Hera, a German based illustrator who has designed a capsule t-shirt collection for UP based upon her own infamous and darkly comic illustrated characters.

Upper Playground also runs nine retail stores, mostly in the U.S as well as one in the UK and one in Mexico, see all the locales here. Asides the stores, their site, their blog and gallery, they also offer two other t-shirt labels which are 12 Grain by Sam Flores and Fifty24SF. These t-shirt companies feature work from some of the legends of the design and graffiti world such as Mark Bode, Iz the Wiz, Cope 2, Dave Choe, Daze, Faile, Dalek and Sam Flores. There really are too many great tees to feature in one review, but I’ll do my best to give you a brief idea of the exuberance and energetic art tees of Upper Playground…

First off here are a couple of Jeremy Fish tees that really catch your eye the moment you see them:-

Buck You Tee

No real explanations needed for this t-shirt by Jeremy Fish but asides the refreshingly subversive concept, beneath the graffiti humour, there’s some superb illustrative detail in this and in fact all his tees. The Buck You tee is available via the Super Fishal label at Upper Playground for men (only S, XL, 2XL left!) at $24 and women (S to XL) at $26 - both in brown.

Ideas Tee

Another great tee by Jeremy Fish, the Ideas t-shirt tells it like it is. I can really relate to the image, being creative can be a struggle, sometimes to create you may have to destroy, be it old ways of thinking, presumptions about life and society in general, even art history itself must be reinvented to find the ‘new’. However Jeremy’s own explanation is far more bizarre. “Although his girlfriend was upset, the Skull had to remind her that he was already dead, that another bullet to the brain would not take anything away from the love he had for her.” Hmmm… Still a very cool design heh. Get this for men in small for $24 and women (S to XL) for $26, both in heather grey.

Kill At Will Tee

An absolutely amazing t-shirt by rightly self-proclaimed graphic satirist Kenyon Bajus, Kill At Will shows us exactly why Bajus is loved and loathed across the world with equal measure. In this iconic image Uncle Sam is passing you the gun, which opens up a whole kettle of politically turbulent fish. Does it mark the death of freedom, a call for revolution, the banning of hand guns, or just a general rebellious schtick, a familiar theme in much of Bajus’ work? Who knows, and in all honesty, who cares. The image is powerful enough to embrace all these perturbing questions, and many many more I am sure. Beautifully constructed imagery, I love art that shocks and this does it by the barrel load, this guy is doing what I want to do, create works that stop you in your tracks and make you think. Only available for women (I’m guessing the men’s have sold out?) and only large sizes in white are left here.

Grill Tee

For me this tee is a rarity in more than one way, firstly it’s a photographic design, something I’m not usually keen on as a t-shirt, what’s more it’s by photographer and director Estevan Oriol who must be one of very few photographers to work in the fashion medium in precisely this way. Grill is a superbly powerful design by a guy who has worked with such big names as D12, Cypress Hill, and Blink 182, but this time rather than a high budget video we can see his expert photography on a t-shirt. If this isn’t yet more proof that the humble tee is becoming as powerful as the canvas in the arts, I don’t know what is. A traditional shot of an old school hip hop grill (teeth), this superb tee is available for men at $26 in sizes S to 4XL in black.

Here’s a few more designs that caught my eye:-