This relatively new beveled glass technique that Australian street artist Fintan Magee is using has reached an outstanding, almost psychedelic quality – bending light and visual perception in a way we’ve not seen. Here in Sydney his newest painting of the blurred figure of youth is present and immediate, yet hard to capture, somehow distant.
This new mural called “The Riders” on the Alexandria Hotel is meant to highlight the transient and quick nature of bicycle riders, young ones at that. The metaphor is a parallel for him to the rapid pace of real estate development in this city and others that easily displaces the families who live in some neighborhoods so they can collect large rents from the richer among us. In search of a quick buck, this kind of work is often aided by backroom dealing and ignorance of basic principles of urban planning.
He speaks of the fear and uncertainty that this rapacious development strikes in people’s lives, “leaving many low-income families worried they will be pushed out of the area.”
Another aspect of Sydney’s gentrification he says is that a new, richer, downtown center is developing that is only affordable by more established, older folks – discouraging the next generations from coming to the city to grow community and business prospects for the future.
“The cities working young are ignored by housing policy and pushed further into the suburbs, creating a disconnect between its most productive residents and economic opportunity.”
Grassroots organizations like Extinction Rebellion have been battling to raise awareness and turn back the tides of disaster in our climate systems, ecological collapse, and loss of biodiversity. But how many listen, and how many bankers and corporations summon the resources that will be necessary to reverse the extinction of species and biodiversity?
As a worldwide virus sweeps through the species, causing a scale of suffering and fear not experienced in a few generations, the topic of our own extinction presents itself boldly and with no opportunity to negotiate.
Enter ROA and his newly opened show which you are able to attend by appointment only, called “Annihilation”.
During his Street Art career of the last decade and a half, his focus has often been on the marginalized and endangered and our culpability – directly as it relates to the animal kingdom but also by extension it is a metaphor for the human condition. Taking extinction one step further, the word annihilation captures the deliberate violent intention behind the killing, decimating, wiping away a record with great finality.
The Ghent based Street Artist and studio artist cannot invite you to the Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne unless it is by appointment, so hostile is the natural world toward our immune systems right now. But he says in his press release that the new show “is ROA challenging us to quietly focus, observe, and investigate nature without the noise of current climate discourse.”
Looking
at his collection of images from the animal kingdom rendered in the distinctive
style that he has painted on hundreds of walls across the world, he tells us
that this exhibition is “an invitation to reconnect to nature, to empathize,
and as the dominant species, to recognize that the choice is ours alone to
ensure all of nature’s survival, not just our own.”
New brandalism campaign commands attention across 3 Australian Cities at bus stops. They call it #BushfireBrandalism
“We’re not a real group.
There’s no back story, no history, no narrative – it’s a reaction to what’s
just happened,” an anonymous brandalism activist tells us as they describe the
sudden swelling of artists who joined together to take over those outdoor big
illuminated ad kiosks that pepper your walk through public space.
#BushfireBrandalism Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. Australia. January 2020. (photo still from the video)
“Sell the water. Dry the
Land. Watch it Burn. Blame Drought,” says one of the boldface headlines on one
bus-stop ad controlled by the ubiquitous street ad purveyor JCDecaux.
“Despite Australia being the driest inhabited continent on earth, the Australian Government continues to sell water to mining companies, large irrigators and foreign corporations. This must not go on. Act now,” says the remainder of the black and white poster before providing a QR code for you to scan in the lower right-hand corner.
BushfireBrandalism Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. Australia. January 2020. (photo still from the video)
“It’s an awareness project. It’s just trying to raise money for a charity but its so much bigger than that,” says one of the organizers. “It’s about having a conversation, changing our habits, becoming more interested in politics, participating.”
With a very loosely organized 41 artists making brand new works that were installed in the last week with the help of about 20 volunteers across three large Australian cities, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, the new messages in these ad spaces are in direct opposition to the coal industry that the current Prime Minister often promotes. There are a number of solutions proposed, and the tenor of urgency varies –but none seem to use particularly offensive imagery.
BushfireBrandalism Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. Australia. January 2020. (photo still from the video)
“Most of these artists have
never had a political bent to their work,” says one person involved in the
video released here today. “So this campaign can be an exercise in new
territory for the artists as well. These are artists who have huge followings
and people look to them as leaders, cultural leaders.”
Indeed, the group says that they have “a combined 700,000 social media following,” and they hope to raise awareness of the underlying causes of the recent unprecedented fires in Australia.
BushfireBrandalism Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. Australia. January 2020. (photo still from the video)
“We do not accept that this
situation is ‘business as usual’, says a statement by the artists. “We are
making these issues visible in our public spaces and in our media; areas monopolized
by entities maintaining conservative climate denial agendas.”
“I think there is something
cool about taking over the bus stop advertising because we’re the home of
Rupert Murdoch and so much of our media and advertising is controlled by News
Corp,” one activist tells us, “and they are not really interested in having
conversations about climate change so it’s a way to put that conversation out
there in public.”
BushfireBrandalism Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. Australia. January 2020. (photo still from the video)BushfireBrandalism Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. Australia. January 2020. (photo still from the video)BushfireBrandalism Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. Australia. January 2020. (photo still from the video)BushfireBrandalism Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. Australia. January 2020. (photo still from the video)BushfireBrandalism Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. Australia. January 2020. (photo still from the video)BushfireBrandalism Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. Australia. January 2020. (photo still from the video)BushfireBrandalism Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. Australia. January 2020. (photo still from the video)
Artists include: Georgia Hill, Tom Gerrard, Sarah McCloskey, Amok Island, Andrew J Steel, Blends, Callum Preston, Cam Scale, Damien Mitchell, Dani Hair, DVATE, E.L.K, Ed Whitfield, FIKARIS, Fintan Magee, HEESCO, JESWRI, Ghostpatrol, Leans, Lluis fuzzhound, Lotte Smith, Lucy Lucy, Makatron, Michael Langenegger, Peter Breen, The Workers Art Collective, Stanislava Pinchuk, The Lazy Edwin, Thomas Bell, Tom Civil, WordPlay Studio, Peter Breen.
Thanks to the many participating artists and creative professionals who chose to remain anonymous, 20 volunteers, MilkBar Print, Brandalism UK , Bill Posters, Sasha Bogojev, Ian Cox, KGB Crew, Public Access, Nicole Reed, Luke Shirlaw, Jordan Seiler, After Midnight Film Co, Everfresh Crew, The Culprit Club, The Peep Tempel, Wing Sing Records, Waste, Adam Scarf, NCCP, Gabby Dadgostar, James Straker, Partier Bresson and Charlotte Pyatt
“This history represents the aboriginal ghostly inscription that circulates between the past and the present, says Mexican Street Artist and muralist Said Dokins as he describes his two new murals in Queensland, Australia.
As we slowly wake to the idea of decolonizing our institutions, Dokins says he is including the names and stories of people he met in Brisbane to create a collective history, “where the words that describe nature and cultural diversity are intertwined with colonial and globalization references.”
Said Dokins says he asked people to share with him a story of Queensland with a single word. “Stories Of A Word” Queensland University of Technology. Brisbane, Australia. May 2018. (graphic courtesy of the artist).
The new Dokins murals are compositions comprise of his unique calligraphic lettering style, sparkling and ornately street savvy as their curvilinear movement and medallion shapes catch your attention in metal and black. Part of the ‘Brisbane Street Art Festival’ (BSAF)taking place in April and May, Dokins joined other international artists such as Kenji Chai y Cloakwork from Malaysia, Tuyuloveme from Indonesia, Bao Ho from Hong Kong, Rosie Wood from England, and Gris One from Colombia as well as local artists like Sofles, Gus Eagleton, Fuzeillear to create 50+ public facing murals across neighboring towns with a variety of themes and styles.
Supported by real estate and civic/business interests along with art organizations – Said tells us that the festival of music and arts also worked very close to Alethea Beetson, director of Digi Youth Arts, an organization dedicated to protect aboriginal cultures.
In his research many with the goal of recognizing the decimated, destroyed, and marginalized aboriginal cultures of Australia, Dokins says he used an exercise of participatory art. By speaking with and interviewing local people he found key words and specific phrases. Eventually he asked participants to share with him a story of Queensland with a single word.
Back in February we gave you a sneak peak at Gola Hundun’s preparations for his new show inspired by Earth’s population and our individual and industrial impact on the balance of the environment.
Today we have the completed canvasses, which you can see in person should you find yourself lost in Queensland, Australia. Entitled “7.6 Billion and Still Growing”, the show features organic fern and form, an ample layering of motifs and washes in an almost decorative vein, each an emotional distillation of larger systemic challenges. His own balance appears to be achieved by the gathering of these systems within geometric groupings, the riddles and solutions wrapped colorfully within.
Why people want to plunder the Earth for financial gain is not precisely baffling, everyone agrees. But why we can’t have and enforce laws to protect it for everyone is.
Gola’s organic forms and splendiferous color choices are shouting about the beauty and magic of the natural world and he says he took the opportunity to preach to assembled guests at his opening last week.
“It was a blast!!! I also made a speech to the audience telling them about the story behind the canvases,” he says, “and making some active propaganda about how much every one of us can do for the world, like becoming vegan, minimizing use of plastic and refusing to buy from several brands and corporations.”
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1. Indigo Blood Project by Koralie / Work in progress
2. Melbourne 2018
3. Olek: The Artist Weaving The World Together
4. Ben Eine’s New Ted Talk
BSA Special Feature: Indigo Blood Project by Koralie / Work in progress
And the award for sound editing goes to Koralie and team on this brand new video promoting her show and book at Jonathan Levine Projects that debuts shortly and draws inspiration from her travels around the world. You will not miss one audio aspect of the creative process here, nor will you miss how the French Street Artist has incorporated folk, ritual, and traditional craft in her work.
She is creating a “dreamlike multicultural harmony” that reigns in the wildness associated with aerosol and markers – giving everything it’s appropriate, attractive place in the formalized geometry of her new works.
Melbourne 2018
A splendid survey of Melbourne in this moment from Christophe Delvalie, the director allows you to discover the character of the street life with a soundtrack drawn directly from it. Then rather abruptly you are plunged into night time and nature. Oh I get it, this is like an audio visual postcard from his trip to Melbourne! Okay, cool.
Olek: The Artist Weaving The World Together
“With my work I want to create pieces that engage community together and allow us to really create something positive.” From this perspective, it is working.
Ben Eine Does His Ted Talk with Bottle of Gin Handy At All Times
Famed Street Artist Ben Eine speaks candidly about his career as graffiti writer and contemporary artist during the TEDx event at the University of East Anglia.
Italian Street Artist and fine artist Gola Hundun begins the conversation with the raw statistic of how many humans are living on the earth and takes you on a visual journey from there.
His alarm at the developments of industry and extraction and destruction are here, certainly, as is his call for our dedication to take greater responsibility for our Earth and our resources.
Gola Hundun. “7.6 Billion & Still Growing” 19 Karen Gallery. Qld, Australia. (photo courtesy of Gola Hundun)
More likely though, you will see the substantive glory of his abstraction, his generous layerings of leaves and plants and organic forms, his wending and blending of color and washes in a lush wonderland rather than the barren stripped and burned dystopia one might think of.
Gola Hundun. “7.6 Billion & Still Growing” 19 Karen Gallery. Qld, Australia. (photo courtesy of Gola Hundun)
As he makes the final preparations for his new show in Australia just south of Brisbane along a golden coast that is concentrated with the wealth of captains of industry, it is worth considering what part each of us play in a system that heals or destroys. Natural beauty is compelling and life giving and yet our history tells us we will continue to horde it to ourselves, leaving the destruction to others with great avarice.
“This body of work is a consideration of the impact Homo Sapiens have on the environment throughout time. From the agricultural revolution to colonization and to globalization, I track an environmental journey through different stages of human history,” says Hundun in his artist statement.
As Enriqueta Arias observes in her show essay, the artist proposes to review the current relationship of the human species with the planet, as well as the impact and consequences of what appears to be its last phase of expansion.
Gola Hundun. “7.6 Billion & Still Growing” 19 Karen Gallery. Qld, Australia. (photo courtesy of Gola Hundun)
Gola Hundun. “7.6 Billion & Still Growing” 19 Karen Gallery. Qld, Australia. (photo courtesy of Gola Hundun)
Gola Hundun. “7.6 Billion & Still Growing” 19 Karen Gallery. Qld, Australia. (photo courtesy of Gola Hundun)
Gola Hundun. “7.6 Billion & Still Growing” 19 Karen Gallery. Qld, Australia. (photo courtesy of Gola Hundun)
Gola Hundun. “7.6 Billion & Still Growing” 19 Karen Gallery. Qld, Australia. (photo courtesy of Gola Hundun)
For more information about Gola’s solo exhibition click HERE
As we near the new year we’ve asked a special guest every day to take a moment to reflect on 2016 and to tell us about one photograph that best captures the year for him or her. It’s an assortment of treats for you to enjoy and contemplate as we all reflect on the year that has passed and conjure our hopes and wishes for the new year to come. It’s our way of sharing the sweetness of the season and of saying ‘Thank You’ for inspiring us throughout the year.
Australian filmmaker and nomad Selina Miles specializes in street art and graffiti, and is also in love with music video, documentary, and most people she meets. First making her mark with a series of mind-baking action videos with Sofles a few years ago, Ms. Miles is now a dynamic storyteller. She is just as likely to be shooting artists as she is plundering their histories and connecting the dots of their influences, aspirations. Willing to take creative risks and to push her own limits, look out in 2017 for Selina to craft a piece on one of the biggest documentary subjects whom she’s profiled yet – in a way that only Selina can do.
Image of Charles and Janine Williams
Papeete, Tahiti
October 2016
Photo by Selina Miles
I love this photo because Charles and Janine Williams really embody my hope for the future street artist. I still love graffiti, the more ignorant/illegal the better, but if artists are entering into a community and putting up a huge mural in the context of street art, this is the right way to do it in my opinion.
They worked together on this wall in Papeete, Tahiti as part of a series they are working on, painting different species of birds native to a particular area, particularly focusing on endangered species. The CR on this painting of a Tahitian Monarch means the bird is critically endangered. They collaborated with the local bird watching group, who provided the photos and also attended a blessing when the wall was finished, where Charles and Janine sung a traditional Māori song as thanks.
In my opinion, this kind of deep, genuine engagement with people and place is the future of street art, in contrary to the commercialisation and trivialisation we see from sponsored / branded events. As a film maker, these are the kinds of stories I look forward to documenting in the future.
Italian Street Artist and muralist Alice Pasquini pays tribute to immigrants and the struggle to leave one’s home to go to a new country to live with her new painting on the façade of Melbourne’s Italian Museum in Carlton.
Remembering historically how many people around the world were forced to immigrate to new countries is very important to do today as rhetoric fills the air in countries that would seek to scapegoat the victim – rather than the banks, war industry, oil industry, etcetera who are creating new refugees daily.
Almost no one wants to leave their home, their culture and their families by choice – they are usually forced to. They also invariably endure hardship and varying degrees of discrimination that compounds their struggle.
“The wall is also personal to me, as I myself have family living in Australia,” says Pasquini. “I think that in our current times, it’s essential to remember that we all come from somewhere. Tracing a line through our ancestry, almost everyone has at least one relative who was a passenger at one point in time.
“We must remember this and the struggles they must have faced,” she says, “and recall that empathy, compassion, and knowledge lead to growth.”
According to the Spartacus Educational website, the US also received a flood of Italian immigrants at the turn of the 20th Century, a fact which many Americans may not remember – along with the extreme prejudice that greeted many of these immigrants in our history. Says the website;
“From 1890 to 1900, 655,888 arrived in the United States, of whom two-thirds were men. A survey carried out that most planned to return once they had built up some capital.
Most Italians found unskilled work in America’s cities. There were large colonies in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore and Detroit. From 1900 to 1910 over 2,100,00 arrived.”
See Ms. Pasquini talk about her her new painting and her observations of the current growth of interest in public art HERE.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1. Christian Omodeo Talks About “Street Art – Banksy & Co.”
2. Guido Van Helten on Abandoned Silos in Australia 3. CTVà Street Fest 2016 Recap
4. How & Nosm’s Monumental Mural in Detroit by Dennis Porto
5. Shepard Fairey being Quick on his Feet
BSA Special Feature: Christian Omodeo Talks About “Street Art – Banksy & Co.”
It’s impossible to enter a chatroom or a bar frequented by graffiti/Street Art types today without some mention of this exhibition in Italy. The topic centers around an unresolved, largely heretofore undiscussed question of any removal of illegally placed art from property for any purposes except to destroy it. Here one of the curators of the exhibit, Christian Omodeo takes you on a tour of the complete exhibit discussing tags, photography, collectors habits, the relevance of an object as a conveyor of culture. Finally the interviewer, Good Guy Boris, broaches the subject of works taken from the urban wild. The topic is tackled head-on with Omodeo very clearly laying out a case for …
Guido Van Helten on Abandoned Silos in Australia
A beautifully shot feel-good story of a small town farming community decimated by corporate industrial farming in Brim in the Wimmera region of Victoria, Australia. It is a familiar story about the disappearing family farm and our control of the food supply that has happened across much of the so-called First World but most people still haven’t connected the dots. Here artist Guido Van Helten focuses on the local story, the left-behind individuals affected directly by economic downturn and loss of community – and paints them heroically across an architectural archetype that rises triumphantly above the land, a row of grain silos. Juddy Roller produces, Round 3 Creative directs.
CTVà Street Fest 2016 Recap
Highlights of the CVTA Festival – Street Fest in Civitacampomarano in Campobasso (Italy). A small town of 400 celebrated for 4 days in April with Biancoshock (Italy) , David de la Mano (Uruguay) , Pablo S. Herrero (Spain) , Icks (Italy) , Hitnes (Italy), and ONE (Italy).
How & Nosm’s Monumental Mural in Detroit by Dennis Porto
A huge new piece by How & Nosm captured here helps you appreciated the talents and the scope. More on this project soon here.
Shepard Fairey being Quick on his Feet
Quick! A word choice game that keeps you apprised of your local Street Artist’s preferences. Video by Konbini
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1.La Pintura. Graffiti Documentary. Trailer
2. Saving Banksy: Trailer
3. Spencer Keeton Cunningham and Lauren YS go “Batty”
4. Wall To Wall: Benalla, Australia
BSA Special Feature: La Pintura. Graffiti Documentary. Trailer
“You cannot totally enslave human nature. We will always thrive.”
“The city probably hates us. I don’t give a fuck about them because they are all as corrupt as shit.”
La Pintura is a newly released graffiti documentary (series) about the motivation, purpose and commitment of Latin and South African graffiti writers, and the context is helpful for understanding the risks that are taken as well as the drive to “get up” repeatedly. This story has been attempted many times – La Pintura looks like an action film driven by storylines and examination of social factors that form the subculture.
Saving Banksy: Trailer
Another Banksy-driven documentary, of which there will probably be enough for a festival before it’s all over. This one focuses on the people who endeavor to take them off the street to sell.
Spencer Keeton Cunningham and Lauren YS go “Batty”
Because, you know, who doesn’t want a Zombie Bat to get wall time? With their colorful personalities and riveting stories? These two Melboune based artists recently did this one and made a video to capture it.
Wall To Wall: Benalla, Australia
A haven for slick murals by commercial painters and illustrators and Street Artists in Benalla, Victoria , Wall To Wall is a successful venture by a mural business to bring new art to the streets and hopefully more commercial work for the artists and organizers. Great choice of the WAR mix at the beginning.
A ROA update today – with many exclusive photos here for BSA readers with personal pictures taken and selected by the artist himself.
The Belgian Street Artist, whom we long ago christened as an “Urban Naturalist”, has quite defined the category. He’s well traveled and well regarded. He can’t seem to stand still; Borders for him are an imaginary nuisance – or at least he would love them to be. By his own admission he is most at ease while up high on a boom lift battling a wall, or making friends with it.
From highly commercial and corporate sponsored events to respected grassroots driven or socio-politically rooted organizations with whom he works, ROA brings the animal world into the conversation, sometimes tragically and other times comically. In an inter-connected view of the world and its various natural systems we somehow blind ourselves to our neighbors in the animal category. ROA makes sure that their voices are being considered in enormous and more subtle ways, giving them center stage and first billing.
Here are new pieces from Hawaii, New Jersey, Tahiti, Copenhagen, Italy, Denmark, Coney Island, Australia, Puerto Rico, Arkansas, Harlem (NYC), Bangkok, Dubai, and Belgium. Our sincere thanks to ROA for bringing us on this massive and glorious tour with him so far.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
