“Connectedness facilitates a better understanding of self and others,” says Danish artist Jacoba Niepoort here in Horsens, Denmark, “and it is a tool to address current social issues”.
Her new acrylic mural is organized by the staff of the only soup kitchen in town, a tender connection that strengthens her bond to this new wall, as well as the fact that the figures celebrated are depicting her brother and sister-in-law. After 40 murals on four continents, the painter is confident in her command of the tools, and the message.
This wall, she says, is about about love, openness and connection.
“I want to interrupt the
mainstream feelings of disconnection, indifference, bias, and “-isms”, through
showing that underneath, we are alike, thus seeking to humanize that which has
become dehumanized or alienated.”
Here in Fanzara, Spain her new mural for the MIAU Festival is in two distinct parts, separated by bricked wall, interconnected by a chord. The malleable wire of energy seems to envelop the nude as she reaches toward a winged being which is taking flight, thin rope in claw.
This looks like a powerful creature. You may imagine this whimsical scene taking a difficult turn as soon as this bird is airborne and the entangled figure is dragged along behind, haplessly scraping along the ground and banging into houses, cars, and bushes until lifted up above the trees.
Niepoort tells us that this is scene
not to be taken so literally.
“The mural is about the process of letting go of those things we have a hard time letting go of,” she says. Given the moment she has depicted here, there is little time remaining to let go.
Just below the Vienna U-Bahn, and above the street, there are two new archangels shielding their eyes from us, possibly looking into one another’s.
“The only true voyage, the only bath in the Fountain of Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to see the hundred universes that each of them sees, that each of them is; and this we do (with great artists); with artists like these we do really fly from star to
star.”
Italian Street Artist Bifido tells us that this quote is part of the inspiration for his new collaborative piece that spreads its wings below the rumbling of rolling wheels in this busy city. The other inspiration is drawn from the experience of working for the first time with his painting partner, the Danish artist Jacoba Niepoort who adds the extending wings to Bifidos photorealistic searching figures.
“When I saw Jacoba’s work for the first time, I thought, ‘I absolutely have to work with this artist,’ ” he tells us, remarking on the intensity that he rarely finds in the world of Street Art. “It’s not just something decorative; it digs deeper, touching the most intimate and emotional part of people.”
The pair met at the Calle Libre Festival in Vienna this summer and decided that their first project together would examine the intimacy of human relationships. The experience has enabled them both to look at the same scenario with each other’s eyes, he says, and now passersby in Vienna can as well.
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BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
