All posts tagged: Jofre Oliveras

Nuart Reconnects in Aberdeen 2022

Nuart Reconnects in Aberdeen 2022

We were fortunate to have been invited to participate in the very first edition of Nuart Aberdeen back in the quaint days of 2017. We had a blast, and in the process fell in love with this city made of granite. The locals and our hosts made certain that we had all we needed to do our job and to enjoy the festival, the city, and of course its people. With a theme of reconnection, the new iteration of the festival last month brought fresh murals to city walls, perhaps revitalizing people’s connection to the built environment in a new way.

Martin Whatson. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)

A franchising, of sorts, of the original Norwegian Nuart festival and its originators, this offshoot festival was so successful that year that city officials here funded another few editions. The events that engage the community feature live painting, a speaker program, walking tours, a pub fight/debate, and children’s art programming. All told it’s a warm example of street art culture mainstreaming itself right into the daily fabric of this prosperous Scottish city often called the “Oil Capital of Europe”

Martin Whatson. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Photographer Martha Cooper was invited to participate in Nuart’s newest event and she shares with us and our readers her documentation of the 11 artists’ artworks on the streets of Aberdeen.

“Most of the buildings in Aberdeen are built of granite giving the city a distinctive, very gray, look,” says Ms. Cooper of this city that boasts a long industry of granite work. “Martin Whatson’s mural this year shows a stone mason trimming off “excess” graffiti to make a straight edge along a graffiti-covered wall.” Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
Martin Whatson. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
James Klinge and Martin Whatson. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
James Klinge and Martin Whatson. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
James Klinge paints a portrait of his wife. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
Erin Holly. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
Erin Holly. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
Nuno Viegas. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
Nuno Viegas. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
Nuno Viegas’ “Queen of Hearts” is a match to the “King of Hearts” mural he painted for Nuart in 2019. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
Miss Printed. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
Miss Printed. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
Miss Printed. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
Miss Printed. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
Jacoba. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
Jacoba. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
Jacoba. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
Jofre Oliveras. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
Jofre Oliveras. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
Slim Safont. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
Slim Safont. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Martha tells us that this “I Will Pay Taxes” mural is painted on a building whose owner didn’t pay his taxes. It was controversial but in the end, the organizers of the festival prevailed to keep the wall up without alterations or censorship.

Slim Safont. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
Mohamed Lghacham. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
Mohamed Lghacham. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
Mohamed Lghacham. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
Mohamed Lghacham based his mural on a vintage ad from a magazine. He collects these images for inspiration. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
Elisa Capdevila. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
Elisa Capdevila. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
Pejac. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
Pejac. Nuart Aberdeen Festival 2022. Aberdeen, Scotland. (photo © Martha Cooper)
Rubislaw Quarry is the biggest (or one of the biggest depending on the source)
man-made holes in Europe” says, Ms. Cooper. “Now it is filled with water to make a man-made lake in the center of the city of Aberdeen.” (photo © Martha Cooper)
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“Neo-Muralism” for TÀPIA in Spain

“Neo-Muralism” for TÀPIA in Spain

B-MURALS PRESENTS TÀPIA BY AXEL VOID

A Neo Muralist Movement. Is this what we’ll call it?

Axel Void. TÀPIA at Nau Bostik with B-Murals in Barcelona. 2019. (photo © Fer Alcala)

Artist/curator Axel Void is framing it this way when inviting 24 artists to Barcelona for TÀPIA (“walls” in Catalan). Figurative muralism also comes to mind as you look over these new walls of Nau Bostik.

Graffiti writers, Street Artists, contemporary artists: all of these participate in this impermanent show, each in their own expression of realism, and poetic realism, as long as we’re feeling like coining a term.

Axel Void. TÀPIA at Nau Bostik with B-Murals in Barcelona. 2019. (photo © Fer Alcala)

Traditionally in ‘street art’ these walls and spaces have presented themselves as vulnerable to the interventions of artist,” say organizers. “Blurring the edges of this physical, yet metaphorical division, between the idea of private and public.”

We’re pleased today to present original photos of the murals that were executed outdoors in conjunction with the exhibition.

Axel Void. TÀPIA at Nau Bostik with B-Murals in Barcelona. 2019. (photo © Fer Alcala)
Axel Void. TÀPIA at Nau Bostik with B-Murals in Barcelona. 2019. (photo © Fer Alcala)
Jofre Oliveras. TÀPIA at Nau Bostik with B-Murals in Barcelona. 2019. (photo © Fer Alcala)
Jofre Oliveras. TÀPIA at Nau Bostik with B-Murals in Barcelona. 2019. (photo © Fer Alcala)
Jofre Oliveras. TÀPIA at Nau Bostik with B-Murals in Barcelona. 2019. (photo © Fer Alcala)
Jofre Oliveras. TÀPIA at Nau Bostik with B-Murals in Barcelona. 2019. (photo © Fer Alcala)
Cerezo, Fafa, Pollo7. TÀPIA at Nau Bostik with B-Murals in Barcelona. 2019. (photo © Fer Alcala)
Cerezo, Fafa, Pollo7. TÀPIA at Nau Bostik with B-Murals in Barcelona. 2019. (photo © Fer Alcala)
Cerezo, Fafa, Pollo7. TÀPIA at Nau Bostik with B-Murals in Barcelona. 2019. (photo © Fer Alcala)
Cerezo, Fafa, Pollo7. TÀPIA at Nau Bostik with B-Murals in Barcelona. 2019. (photo © Fer Alcala)
Cerezo, Fafa, Pollo7. TÀPIA at Nau Bostik with B-Murals in Barcelona. 2019. (photo © Fer Alcala)
Cerezo, Fafa, Pollo7. TÀPIA at Nau Bostik with B-Murals in Barcelona. 2019. (photo © Fer Alcala)

“Tapia” is currently on view at B-Murals in Barcelona. The exhibition ends February 29 2020. Click HERE for more information and to see the artworks in the exhibition.

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Spanish “El Konvent” Welcomes Street Artists and Nurtures Collective Culture

Spanish “El Konvent” Welcomes Street Artists and Nurtures Collective Culture

Typically you may expect to be praying the novena and asking God for absolution of your dastardly sins here in this sprawling compound called The Konvent near Barcelona. While no one would stop you today, you may also wish to check out a number of new installations throughout the many buildings by Street Artists.

Teo Vazquez (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

The Roman Catholic former convent hosted 50 or so artists over the last couple of years to transform the space, perhaps to reinterpret its original charge in a modern light, perhaps just to ready the compound for commercial, cultural, and community pursuits of the owners.

Certainly the decaying spaces and austere aesthetic is inviting, calming, possibly frightening, depending on your associations. Now they are home for music, dance, theatre, film festivals, and artist residencies – often offered only in Catalan but some also in European Spanish.

Teo Vazquez (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)

As you walk through the spaces you are welcomed by these works by artists, many of them at one time or another categorized as Street Artists, whose voices now usher in a new era of contemplation and perhaps internal exploration.

Our thanks to photogapher and BSA contributor Lluis Olive Bulbena for sharing these images from El Konvent.

For more information about El Konvent please Click HERE

Jofre Oliveras (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)
Unidentified artist (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)
Samuel Aranda Studio (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)
AEC – Interesni Kazki (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)
Valiente Creations (photo © Lluis Olive)
Holy Era (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)
Wedo . Slim (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)
Wedo (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)
Slim (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)
Slim (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)
Slim (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)
Mugraff (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)
Troy Lovegates (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)
Troy Lovegates (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)
Juanjo Surace (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)
Simon Vazquez . Sebastien Waknine (photo © Lluis Olive Bulbena)
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