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      “Tursunay Ziawudun” by Mahn Kloix in Marseille, France

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      Street artist Mahn Kloix recently worked on his latest mural in Marseille, France. Located on 200 meter sqaured wall of the telecoms operator Orange and now dominating the scene is a portrait of Tursunay Ziawudun, a Uyghur who testified on her ordeal in the “camps” Chinese.Suspended from his ropes, the artist put the finishing touches to his portrait on October 7, on the immense facade of this building, rue Félix-Pyat, in the heart of one of the poorest districts of the second largest city in France. . And he signed his work on October 8 with a simple stencil, “Tursunay Ziawudun, by Mahn Kloix”.No message beyond this name and face, which the artist painted from an image from a BBC documentary where this 43-year-old woman recounts the rapes she suffered in one of the “camps” set up by the Chinese regime in the western region of Xinjiang, first in 2017, then in 2018.Several human rights organizations have accused Beijing of interning at least one million Uyghurs in Xinjiang in “re-education camps”, subjecting some to forced labor. Amnesty International has denounced “crimes against humanity”.Beijing denies this figure and talks about “vocational training centers” to support employment and fight Muslim extremism in this province which had been affected by attacks attributed to Uyghurs.Under an almost transparent lace veil, the look is soft. With his hand on the cheek, Tursunay Ziawudun seems “looking to the future”: “One of my challenges”, Mahn Kloix explains to AFP, “it is to talk about negative things without falling into the negative, to always give an image of hope”. This woman’s journey has been “violent”, explains the 40-year-old artist, who spent two years in Beijing, when he was still a graphic designer and above all a long-haul traveler. It was through this BBC documentary that he discovered Tursunay Ziawudun’s ordeal. “It took me to the guts.”“This is perhaps the hardest scar to forget”, explains this Uyghur survivor, in her testimony, reviewing her three gang rapes: “I don’t even want those words to come out of my mouth anymore, (…) in fact their goal is to destroy us all”, she asserts, about the Chinese regime’s policy towards the Muslim community in Xinjiang.“My theme today is oppressed minorities”, he explains. On a wall in Marseille, he paints Nüdem Durak, a Kurdish singer imprisoned in Turkey. On a garage door, still in Marseille, it is Yulia Tsetkova, a Russian activist prosecuted for defending the rights of women and LGBT people. In Eauze (Gers), Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish environmental activist. In Paris, on the WALL (Modular, Urban, Reactive) of Oberkampf, a kiss is scandalous, that of Shaza and Jimena, two women who had to flee Dubai where homosexuality is punishable by death.With Tursunay Ziawudun, it is another resistance that he highlights. “Paint this portrait on the walls of the historic telephone operator in France, in the country of the motto Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, the country which asserts itself as guarantor of human rights but which continues to trade with China, that makes perfect sense! “, he pleads with irony.Mahn Kloix originally began painting in urban spaces in New York City. Heavily influenced by the street art scene, Kloix’s contemporary fluid and free figuration is also expressed on canvas and paper. He pays tribute to young protesters in Istanbul, Tunisia, and Athens by conveying their similarities in his works. Their portraits are a leitmotif to highlight human and environmental struggles.Take a look below for more photos of “Tursunay Ziawudun”defaultdefaultdefaultdefaultdefaultdefaultdefaultPhoto credits: Fabrice Calmettes More

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      Borondo Painted Over One Of His Murals in Turin, Italy

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      A mural by Spanish artist Gonzalo Borondo was whitewashed by the will of the same author. It was covered with white spray paint, sprayed by a man who entered the Colosseum theater in Turin, where the piece is exhibited. The mural was removed from the place where it was made originally without the author’s permission, and displayed in the exhibition.Years ago some restorers were engaged in ripping out walls in abandoned places. They claimed to be non-profit, but Gonzalo and his team recently discovered that some works were for sale on platforms like Artsy.com. This stolen work of Borondo was found at a pay-to-entry exhibition in Turin, sharing space with many other stolen ones.The exhibition, Street Art on Blu 3, which a third of exhibited works of art are created by 36 of the most renowned street artists from around the world including the most recognizable, Banksy.Borondo and his team made a gesture to discourage the fact of profiting from the free interventions that surely we all have made/followed/supported spontaneously in abandoned places — they have whitewashed the work. For them, it was the right way to convey the message.“In fact, these interventions in public space weren’t made with the intention to create objects to consume, but to dialogue and accompany their surroundings. Without their context, the interventions make no sense, the will and the intent of the artist have disappeared, so, in the end, the artworks don’t exist anymore”, Borondo and his team expressed.Check below for photos of the said action.rpt More

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      New Mural by Kobra at the World Trade Center Campus, New York

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      For nearly two years, renowned Brazilian artist Eduardo Kobra was unable to travel to the U.S due to the pandemic. Now, Kobra’s first post-pandemic trip has brought him to the streets of New York City, specifically the World Trade Center campus.Over the course of this weekend (10/22 – 10/24), Kobra worked on a new and historic mural right on WTC campus. The new mural portrays five women, each representing one of the continents—Africa, America, Asia, Europe, and Oceania. The work praises the need for a more feminine planet, with the strength and sensitivity present in women across the world. Given the mural’s unique location on and around construction sheds, Kobra installed a panel that expands through the giant sheds creating a three-dimensional result.Eduardo Kobra is best known for his massive-scale, brightly colored murals infused with bold lines. His famous photorealistic pieces often depict portraits of some of the most iconic people throughout history. He also produces three-dimensional works. Not infrequently, the core message of Kobra’s street art is the fight against pollution, global warming, destruction of forests and war.Scroll down below to view more photos of Kobra’s latest project. Photo credits: Joe Woolhead More

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      “Chasm” by Daniel Popper at EDC, Las Vegas

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      Sculptor Daniel Popper just showcased his latest piece at Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC), Las Vegas. His work is entitled “Chasm” which means a deep fracture in the earth or rock. It can also mean a profound difference between people, viewpoints and feelings. Close to 3 years ago Daniel Popper was asked to create this entrance way to Nomads Lands at EDC Las Vegas. The brief was to create this kind of post apocalyptic rave monument.Daniel Popper is a multidisciplinary artist known globally for his larger-than-life sculptures, and spectacular public art installations. From Cape Town, South Africa, Daniel has travelled the globe creating an array of sculptures, installations and stages.Many of his projects include collaborations with other artists, technicians, and artisans to incorporate electronic music, LED lighting, and projection mapping as key components. Daniel creates both temporary and permanent work in public spaces.Check out below for more photos of “Chasm”. Graffiti work done by A-Aron @ag_pntPhoto credits: @jonx More

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      Artist Interview: Rafa Macarron

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      Spanish artist Rafa Macarron is a young self-taught artist. His work leaves a touch of dreamlike influences and childish reminiscences. Despite the drama and deformity in his characters, the scenes portray tenderness, kindness, and harmony.I recently caught up with the talented Rafa Macarron and talked about his artistic influences, inspirations, and plans for 2022.Rom Levy: To begin, can you tell me a little about yourself and your background?Rafa Macarron: From a very young age I have had a pencil in my hands. When I was 4 years old, I traveled with my parents to Paris coinciding with the inauguration of the Picasso Museum. When I entered one of the rooms I asked for a notebook and colored pencils. I spent the whole morning trying to understand what was in front of me. At the age of seven I used to make drawings full of color, animals or people taken out from some unknown world. By the time I was supposed to go to college, it was the Spanish painter Juan Barjola who encouraged me not to apply to the Academy of Fine Arts.My studies as a physiotherapist have helped me a lot to know the human anatomy. I know the structure of the body perfectly. Afterwards, I started trying deformations and saw that they worked very well. It’s a bit like creating your own body characters, each with their own soul.Cycling has also provided me, not only with the desire to go beyond, but also the solitude, freedom, and also many landscapes, which have influenced my painting so much. When I used to ride a bike, I entered the same state of flow that I reach when I paint. I could be painting for eight or ten hours nonstop and not realize the passage of time.Who and what inspires your work?A small sunrise, the time I spend with my children, a walk with the dogs… To look at the small, ordinary, and daily details. It is very important to me and for my practice, to feel, perceive and keep painting to learn how to create new work. those are the little things that inspire me.Who are the characters in your paintings?The characters come out of my everyday life and I take them out of context. They could be individuals living with us. When I create them, I always like to imagine where they come from, what they do, where they go, what life they have…It is clear to me that I want to speak about life on the street, the everyday life, and my own existence. And I want to speak about these things with humor, more white than dark humor, more compassionate than cruel.I also like that the characters relate to the viewer, and I play with the formats and scales. I go from a large portrait, where the contact with the figure is direct, to panoramas in which dozens of characters seem to be starring in multiple scenes simultaneously.Although your subject engages in daily human activities and has human resemblance, they have a more cartoonish quality. What do you aim to deliver through that, and do your subjects stand as separate entities from ordinary people?My characters don’t go towards the caricature. I flee away from all kinds of cartoonish ornamentation. They are born from a fantastic, surreal, and expressionist figuration. I consider them hybrid characters that are closely related to my admiration for Dubuffet, Bonifacio, and Alfonso Fraile. My characters live in a transcended daily life, clean days, sunsets, and fresh air.What can you tell us about the flat characteristics of your work?I have always liked to transgress reality and invent like-cosmic spaces that relate to the characters. With flat backgrounds I manage to enhance the figure, and thus give more prominence to the character. When it comes to making more worked backgrounds, as it happens with the beach-scene paintings, illusions of perspectives are generated, it happens the other way around as in with the flat background paintings. I create the background and then I place the figure. I use the extremities of the figures, textures, or background elements to break with the flatness and generate volumes, textures, and a sense of perspective. Colors also help me create atmospheres, like when I use magentas to generate warmth.The materials used in my painting give me total freedom of expression. The spray gives modernity, dynamism, and color. The pencils and the marker create the weft, the waxes, the acrylics and the gouaches, nuanced transparencies and the oil brings complexity.When I saw the oeuvre you exhibited in your first solo show at CAC, the first artist that came to my mind looking at the paintings was Picasso and when I saw the sculptures, the first artist I thought of was Salvador Dali. Do they influence your work? How do cubism and surrealism come together with expressionism in your art?Picasso of course. I admire Picasso’s work much more than Dalí’s, for me he is the painter par excellence, but it is true that the sculptures can be a little like Dalí’s work because of my interpretation of the shapes of dogs. But my painting has expressionist features for the immediacy, the stroke is direct, even though I do a lot of sketch work and previous study.Following up on my last question, how does your work relate to art movements?I have had a very direct relationship with the Spanish painting, I have practically grown up in the Prado Museum, the best art gallery in the world. I am very proud to be part of Spanish painting tradition. Goya’s black paintings have always moved me, and of course Las Meninas by Velázquez, which I consider the best work.My parents are both architects, and I feel that architecture has a very important relationship with my work. I have traveled a lot to see art and have visited fairs and museums around the world. I think everything I see influences me in some way. But if I have to mention specific movements, I would mention El Paso Group in Madrid, the New Figuration or the American Abstract Expressionism as movements that have been able to influence me. I look at your work, and for a moment, I am dwelling in the ordinary moments in life, in a peaceful sense. What do you aim to deliver to the viewer?I invite the viewer to look at thigs differently as I’ve mentioned it above. I’d like the viewer to relate to my interpretation of reality and what surrounds us. I hope they experience my painting and its characters the same way I do, asking themselves: who are they? What is their life like? Where do they come from and, where do they go?I am interested in the ephemerity of paintings, do you view your own work as precious? If you are unhappy with a work, do you tend to destroy it or would you rather put it in storage for a while and alter them at a later date?No, if something doesn’t convince me, I destroy it. I don’t like to look back, I’m not capable.How does being a self-taught artist affect your style? Do you think it is liberating, or was it ever constraining?It’s always liberating.Did you ever paint a mural or have any interest to do so in the future?I’ve never been interested, really.What’s next for you in 2022?The truth is that I am very excited because many interesting things are coming up in 2022. I’m going to have a show in Los Angeles with Nino Mier gallery, I will participate in Arco Madrid and many other projects that I still cannot talk about, but that I find very exciting. More

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      Artist Retrospective: Pøbel

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      Pøbel (meaning hooligan) is a pseudonymous Norwegian street artist based in Stavanger. He is best known for the Getto spedalsk (Ghetto leperous) project, decorating abandoned buildings in at the Lofoten islands in the north of Norway, along with notable collaborator “Dolk“.Being fascinated by the graffiti and street art movement that happened in the bigger cities, he was inspired to take this urban culture and place it in the middle of nowhere.. turning it into a strange kind of Norwegian “wild” style.“The Lovers” in Bryne, Norway, 2020Mural in Vardø, Norway, 2012Mural by Pøbel and Dolk Lofoten, Islands, Norway, 2015Norwegian artists, Pøbel and Dolk organised the “Getto Spedalsk” (“Ghetto Leper”) urban art project to draw attention to the depopulation and decay occurring in rural Norway, specifically on the remote Lofoten Islands, 95 miles north of the Arctic Circle.Over the next few years, they worked on murals on abandoned barns throughout the islands. The pieces tend to be somewhat lighthearted like Julie Andrews singing and Batman being pushed in his wheelchair by Robin.“Home” in Teriberka, Russia, 2018“家” (“Home”), is Pøbel’s piece in Teriberka. More than 100 people in Teriberka have been forced to move from their homes. This is one of many beautiful buildings scheduled for demolition this year. This makes way for development in tourism, and these vacant houses will give way to tourist infastructure, mainly for northern lights tourists from China. This piece by Pøbel encourages people to discuss these issues.Mural in Horsens, Denmark, 2013Mural in Bryne, Norway, 2015“Trump Muted” in Hollywood, Boulevard, 2016Pøbel, dressed in black and geared with a pizza box,  quickly drop a stenciled muted sign over Donald Trump’s name back in 2016 in Hollywood.Mural in Nordland County, Norway For more updates on the talented Norwegian artist, check out our #Pøbel page! More

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      Carlos Rodriguez “Primer Encuentro” Limited Edition Print – Available October 21st

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      Artist Carlos Rodriguez have collaborated with ArtPort for his newest limited edition print entitled “Primer Encuentro”. Primer Encuentro (First Encounter) is the painting that opens the artist’s series ‘Costumbres Amorosas de los Animales’ (The Loving Habits of Animals).The overall motif of it was to explore the similarities between human and animal behaviours when interacting with other living beings. Primer Encuentro is also a sort of fable about love at first sight. The character is naked in a mysterious and exotic jungle with Henry Rousseau’s touch. He embraces a gigantic rhinoceros, in a magical encounter, under an intense orange afternoon sun that permeates everything with a golden hue, to Rodríguez that light cast a touch of eternity and a sort of solemn happiness.Primer Encuentro comes in an edition of 30 and measures 50 x 70 cm. Technique used is Giclee & Etching on SIHL Smooth Matt Cotton Paper 320 gr.The print will be available on October 21, 2021, Thursday 7PM HK Time (7AM NYC, 4AM LA, 9PM Melbourne, 12PM UK, 8PM Tokyo) at ArtPort website.The paintings in the series all have a short text written on the back of the canvas. Rodríguez imagined the moment when two people meet for the first time as two inevitable forces colliding. The animals he related to the most were rhinoceroses with their brute and intense force, mainly because they are solitary, very territorial and practically blind creatures. They were portraited in early medieval drawings wearing strange armours. The back of Primer Encuentro (First Encounter) reads:We, two irresistible forces that have met,lonesome and armoured, a little clumsy and blind,surrendering ourselves to a greater love.Rodríguez is known for his drawings, paintings, and ceramics that explore the male body, sexual desire as a creative impulse, and issues of gender and identity. Inspired by classical paintings, naïve art and porn, his playful work reveals scenes of men naturally engaged in their games and fantasies.ArtPort is a publishing house established in 2020. ArtPort supplies limited high-quality editions and prints by artists from the new contemporary art wave. Created around the theme of travelling, ArtPort aims to have people on board, offering them a journey through the art world and an easy way to bring it to their homes. Each edition is a unique and exclusive collaboration between ArtPort and leading contemporary artists. More

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      New mural by Conor Harrington in Cork, Ireland

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      Ardú Street Art project made a triumphant return to Cork city for their second edition, bringing some of the country’s most exciting street artists to create thought-provoking, large-scale murals across the cityscape: Friz’s “Goddess Cliodhna” at St Finbarr’s Road, Shane O’Malley’s bold and bright coloured angular shapes and colours on Lower Glanmire Road, Asbestos’ “What is home?” at South Main Street.The fourth and final piece of the current series has now been revealed, painted by Cork-born, world-renowned artist Conor Harrington at Bishop Lucey Park (Grand Parade entrance). Based in London since the mid 2000s, Harrington has created street art in New York, Miami, Paris, London, Warsaw, Copenhagen, Aalborg, Mallorca, Sao Paulo, San Juan, and the Bethlehem Wall; this is Conor’s first large-scale mural in his hometown.Harrington says, “My favourite part of Cork is the English market. I used to do as much of my shopping as possible there when I lived in Tower Street, before moving to London. And every time I’m home I’m always sure to have a stroll through and soak up some of the atmosphere. I’ve used the English Market as a starting point for my mural, the gate of which is opposite my wall. It was built in 1788 and has seen us through famine, boom and bust. In my painting, a man sets a table, a composition of fruit and veg in the manner of a lot of still life paintings from the 18th Century, when the English market and much of the Grand Parade and Patrick’s Street was built. The table is overflowing with fruit, an abundance of fresh produce that has been available in the market for years. I’ve included a doll’s house on the table to illustrate how Cork is a city built on food and how our culinary scene is one of our greatest assets. I’ve also included a fire extinguisher on the table as a reminder of the Burning of Cork 101 years ago, and that although the market was mostly spared, damage was still done.In the mural I’ve played with proportion and inverted the traditional scale of figure and dwelling to exacerbate the idea of the Georgian figure as a looming power or Lord over his domain. In my work I examine the role and legacy of the empire, and try to find parallels in contemporary culture. By including the doll’s house as a reference to home, housing and the current crisis in Ireland and the abundant fruit table which is in a state of overflow and collapse, I’m asking the question to whom does power and plenty belong? Despite this historical foundation, my mural is ultimately about the balance of abundance and excess, and the fall which inevitably follows.”Many local businesses in Cork have rallied behind the work that Ardú do throughout the city, a major supporter is Pat McDonnell Paints, who supplied the artists with some of their materials for this year’s programme:“Here at Pat McDonnell Paints, we are firm believers in how paint can transform the spaces we live in. We were delighted to support Ardú and their artists bring colour and vibrancy to Cork City.140 litres of paint tinted in over 22 colours and Conor Harrington talent and vision have given us a modern day masterpiece in a corner of Bishops Lucey Park.” – Aidan McDonnell, Pat McDonnell Paints.Commissioning artwork from home grown talent of the highest level is the main aim of Ardú, which is supported by Cork City Council and Creative Ireland, and with paint generously sponsored by local businesses Pat McDonnell Paints, and spray paint from Vibes & Scribes.In order to cover total costs for this year’s event (paying for the artists fees, painting materials, maintenance,  etc.) and to help secure the future of Ardú Street Art Project, the crew need YOUR support.Ardú’s fundraiser allows for four donation options – €10, €20, €50, or €100 – everyone who donates is entered into a raffle to win a signed photo print of artwork from the 2020 Ardú series, which featured works by artists Maser, Peter Martin, Shane O’Driscoll, Deirdre Breen, Garreth Joyce, Aches and James Earley. There will be 5 winners chosen at random and each winner can select an artwork of their choice. The raffle is available to enter online via bigcartel: https://arducork.bigcartel.com/ More