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      Fifth Edition of Parees Fest in Asturias, North of Spain

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      The fifth edition of contextual muralism festival Parees Fest, promoted by the Municipal Foundation of Culture and which took place between September 13 and 19, has closed a fiveyear period of mural interventions with some thirty large-format works by local, national and international artists.Parees Fest has achieved in these five years that neighbors, organizations and specialists get involved in the joint elaboration of murals that are always tributes to Asturian characters, traditions and events, in a unique mix of art and history. Almost all the neighborhoods of Oviedo, and towns such as Olloniego, Trubia or Tudela Veguín, have walls that are no longer just walls, but memory and people.This year was a really special edition as we could manage to purpose again some activities (last year was under all the restrictions due to Covid-19), and also celebrated proudly this fifth anniversary.Mural by Alba Fabre SacristánThe Catalan artist Alba Fabre Sacristán created an exquisite impressionist mural, where light and movement draw the figure of two “Sidros” captured in full jump.The “Sidros” and the “Mascaradas de Invierno” are Asturian and pagan traditions. Members of these groups (traditionally men, but some women can wear the costume since 2019) are celebrating jumping, dancing, making noise with cowbells, and with improvised sarcastic comedy about what happened in the village during the year. This ritual existed in various places, but almost disappeared with Franco.It’s related to Winter’ solstice, fertility and the beginning of adulthood for young men. On the contrary of Carnival, masks are not to hide, but to show the archetypes of the characters of the comedy (the ugly ones, the handsome ones, animals, natural elements…)Mural by Emily EldridgeThe Primitive “Camino de Santiago”, different from the busiest French Way, starts in Oviedo and takes pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela.In 2015, it was recognized by the UNESCO, along with the “Camino del Norte”, as a “World Humanity Heritage Site”, the highest distinction that a cultural asset can receive. It is a magnificent route that crosses Asturias and Galicia, but is also known for its difficulty, due to the peculiarity of the landscape (all guides recommend an advanced level of hiking).The American artist Emily Eldridge created after some meeting with historians a mural full of colours, representing a “modern” pilgrim, with a skirt and painted nails, walking happily towards her next stage.Mural by Foni ArdaoAmong Parees Fest’ Asturian themes, those with literary content stand out, such as the murals dedicated to Clarín or Dolores Medio. To illustrate the famous story “Montesín” by María Josefa Canellada, a philologist and one of the main Asturian writers of the last century, the Asturian artist Foni Ardao explored the tender relationship between the lost goat and her little caretakers.A well-deserved honour to the first children’s book in Asturian, written in 1979, where we can see the goat Montesín in the arms of the girl, in the lands below l’Escorial, while the boy plays the guitar with his friend the magpie on his shoulder. Surrounded by nature and heated by a fire, the characters convey a lot of peace and sweetness.Foni added to his mural a tribute to his mother, Margarita, who died just over a year ago, represented by the flower bearing her name in the girl’s hair.Mural by Luogo ComuneFor this edition, the Italian Luogo Comune has painted a huge mural dedicated to Oviedo. The inspiration has been provided by citizen testimonies, the personal stories of dozens of people who participated in the campaign “What do you think makes the city of Oviedo special?”.The answers to this question, launched by Parees Fest and the City Council’s Citizen Participation Area, were transferred to the artist, who has composed a work that combines history and nature, the pre-Romanesque past and the proximity of the mountain in its iconography.Check out below for more photo from Parees Fest 2021. More

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      Ardú Street Art Project 2021 in Cork, Ireland

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      Ardú Street Art project arrived in Cork October 2020 injecting a burst of colour, vibrancy, and life into the city in lockdown. Seven of Ireland’s most respected and renowned street artists were invited to create key city-centre locations, in response to a theme inspired by the 1920 Burning of Cork. Find work by Deirdre Breen at Wandesford Quay, Maser at The Kino, James Earley at Henry Street, Peter Martin at Kyle Street, Shane O’Driscoll at Harley Street, Aches at Anglesea Street, and Garreth Joyce at Liberty Street.The Ardú team are delighted to announce their return to Cork city’s streets from today September 27th, until October 11th, with four more large scale murals to brighten up the city centre landscape. Commissioning artwork from home grown talent of the highest level is the main aim of Ardú. The 2021 edition will welcome artists — Friz (Belfast), Shane O’Malley (Galway), Conor Harrington (London), and Asbestos (Dublin).Ardú organisers Shane O’Driscoll, Paul Gleeson and Peter Martin are excited to present the second edition of Ardú to the public, in a safe space where you can observe the murals come to life outdoors. “At a time when we face shared and personal challenges, each of our artist’s murals are a rallying cry to the city – a call to remember that we have been through terrible times before and we rose up. We can do it again.Having made such a positive impact on the city last year, we are excited to be back with another line-up of inspiring artists to transform Cork city’s streets.”Friz is the first artist to kick off this year’s series, she is currently painting at St Finbarr’s Road, Cork. Further details on the Ardú Street Art project, including each mural location, will be announced soon. Keep up to date with the process by following Ardú on social media: Twitter @ArduStreetArt / https://twitter.com/ArduStreetArt | Instagram: @ArduStreetArt | www.arducork.ie More

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      “Sweet Freedom” by Max Sansing in Gothenburg, Sweden

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      This summer Swedish street art organisation Artscape joined the city of Gothenburg to help the city celebrate its 400-year anniversary. American artist Max Sansing created the eighth and finishing mural artwork ’Sweet Freedom’, making his first mark on European soil.Sansing has in the last few years become one of the US most prominent urban artists seamlessly blending his roots in graffiti with classic figurative oil painting aesthetics and strong symbolism. His colourful expression, often featuring portraits of young black people, has now found its way to the neighbourhood of Biskopsgården, placed on the public sports hall at one of the local elementary schools.“To be able to invite Max Sansing feels amazing. He is a politically conscious artist who unites symbolism, realism and expressive colours in a truly inspiring way and it will put Biskopsgården on the international art scene”, says Daniel Wakeham one of Artscape’s founders.Max Sansing received his informal training on the Chicago graffiti scene and has since then graduated from American Institute of Art. Aside from his murals he has had work on display in galleries reaching from Washington to Miami. For ’Sweet Freedom’, Sansing took inspiration both from Swedish nature and the Ghanesian expression Sankofa, translating roughly to connecting to your past for wisdom.The mural was made possible through a generous grant by the Sten A Olsson foundation for culture and science. “The art Artscape produces is free and available to all and through art their aim is to include and inspire. Our hope is that this joint effort will help to create a sense of pride and positive identity in Biskopsgården” comments chairman of the board Madeleine Olsson.“Biskopsgården is an area where hardly any of the events surrounding the 400th anniversary take place. A big and impressive work of art in the neighbourhood can both bring new visitors as well as underline a sense of community in the area. We’re really grateful for the support of Stenastiftelsen making this mural possible”, adds Tor Hedendahl, one of Artscape’s founders.The three storey high work of art was finished in September, being the latest piece in the region’s ever expanding collection of international street art. Before flying back home Sansing praised the Swedish working environment for how free he was to follow his creative intuition. “I didn’t even need to show a sketch and could figure stuff out as I went along. I kind of want to take this mural home with me. It was something special.” More

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      “Mou Mou” by Elian Chali in Rabat, Morocco

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      Argentinian artist Elian Chali recently worked on a mural project entitled “Mou Mou” in Rabat, Morocco. The mural is made of acrylic paint that stretches over 50 x 8 meters of the building’s facade. The project was done in collaboration with Jidar Festival, curated by Salah Malouli.Elian creates vibrant murals that balance a simple aesthetic with carefully calculated designs. He often incorporates anamorphic shapes into his murals, placing squiggles and squares at the corners of buildings, creating the illusion of floating patterns. Clean lines and flat color fields almost seem to be rendered digitally rather than laboriously hand-painted across hundreds or even thousands of square feet.His aesthetics are inspired by the Pop-Art, minimalism, Russian constructivism, and neoplasticism. Through his work, the artist seeks to open a discussion that goes from the social problems to the poetry of the habitat in which he creates.Scroll down below for more photos of the mural and check back with us shortly for more updates from Elian Chali. More

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      Coverage: “Subliminal Matrix” Solo Exhibition by Zhang Ji at Volery Gallery, Dubai

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      Last September 22nd, Volery Gallery opened Subliminal Matrix, a solo exhibition by Beijing-based Chinese painter Zhang Ji. This exhibition showcases a precisely calibrated selection of 12 paintings, created from 2018 – 2020, which demonstrates Zhang’s wholehearted engagement with the very structures and systems of painting. Subliminal Matrix is a collaboration of Volery Gallery with art collector and advisor Fabien Fryns who has been active in the contemporary art scene since 1986.The series, simply titled The Skin of Truth, features the artist’s minimalistic yet richly intricate detailed artworks which appear to radiant into immediate material presence whereupon he shapes the aesthetical effect. From earthy tones to magnetic blue and crimson red etc, Zhang used a variety of rich, bright hues as well as pure white, black and grey etc.His process calls attention to the paintings’ silken surfaces, loaded with oil paint; strengthened with the sheer physicality and expressive power of his medium. Gazing at these ethereal, atmospheric embossed-like paintings provide the viewers the sensation of a commanding optical quality, floating freely, bulged and ebbed, as if unanchored by gravity.In this exhibition, each composition is an independent work but also integral to the whole. Each work, elucidated the others, commenting on proportion, texture and the handling of the medium. The glossy was juxtaposed with the matte, the flat with the protruded, and the monochromatic and polychromatic panelling. Viewed together, these paintings convey a sense of symbolic matrix that can readily shift in relation to the painterly space and viewer’s angles of perception, yet captured visceral at its most subliminal.True to the paintings’ original premises, in this series, Zhang has painted with a restless, innovative and complete technical mastery. Each artwork is a fresh visual adventure with a strong sense of continuity not only as themselves, but also in relation to one another. The artist proves that you don’t have to go colossal to convey epic themes. But if one is to engage them on his/her own terms, they slowly reveal themselves as the artist’s response to his life observation and they allow the sense of things being painted and how we imagine the world through the imageries whereupon Zhang shapes a kind of expanded interrelation, articulated through correspondences of colour, shape and material inspiring trajectories of thought and narrative across the painterly properties.All in all, Zhang’s paintings evoke familiarity and memory in their vastness of collective illumination.Check out below for more photos of Subliminal Matrix and its opening night.The exhibition will run until 12th of October, 2021. 1:00 PM – 7:00 PM at Volery Gallery, Dubai International Financial Center, UAE. RSVP required. Book a visit here. More

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      “The Riders” by Fintan Magee in Sydney, Australia

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      “The Riders” was painted on the Alexandria Hotel in the shadow of the Waterloo Public housing estate. In 2015, the LNP government in NSW marked the building for re-development, leaving many low-income families worried they will be pushed out of the area.  Painted in a bevelled glass technique, the riders appear broken up out of focus and distant. The work depicts the youth as transient, asking where displaced public housing residents will go as more public land is sold off within the city. The mural highlights the ongoing issue of gentrification in Sydney and how 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. Fintan Magee is a Sydney based social realist painter, specializing in large-scale murals. His earlier large-scale paintings often inhabited the isolated, abandoned and broken corners of the city, and today are found all over the world including in London, Vienna, Los Angeles, Miami, Atlanta, Buenos Aires, Copenhagen, Moscow, Rome, Jordan, and Dublin among others.Magee’s practice is informed by a profound interest in political murals, inspired by exposure at a young age to those of his Father’s native Northern Ireland. This is reflected in the socialist nature of his public artworks, which combine journalistic elements with public art. Magee’s work is driven by his recognition of the power of murals to communicate political and social viewpoints and thus divide or unite communities.Take a look below to see more photos of Fintan Magee’s “The Riders” More

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      Brandalism Hacks More Than 200 Billboards Across UK

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      Billboards and bus stops across the UK have been hacked with spoof Barclays adverts by activists, as climate campaigners increase pressure on the bank to stop funding the expansion of the fossil fuel industry.Deisgn by Darren Cullen in LondonMore than 200 billboards and bus stop spaces in 20 towns and cities have had satirical artworks installed without permission, as calls grow for the bank to stop offering credit to fossil fuel companies flouting climate pledges. Barclays is currently considering updating its policy on fossil fuel lending ahead of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow this November.The posters designed by 11 artists reference Barclays financing of companies involved in Arctic oil drilling, coal mining and fracking as well industrial meat companies such as JBS, who are accused of deforestation in the Amazon. They also link the bank’s sponsorship of the football Premier League with fossil fuel profits. One billboard artwork by Darren Cullen reads, “Our plans to stop forest fires: cut them down first.” Another by Inzione shows an Arctic oil rig and reads, “Drilling our way to Net Zero.”Design by Fart Attack in BristolTona Merriman from Brandalism accused Barclays of making disingenuous claims to become a “net zero” bank whilst granting $4.4bn in loans and bonds to fossil fuel companies in 2021 alone.“The posters showcase the environmental impacts we don’t see in Barclays’ own adverts: the deforestation, the ocean drilling, the oil spills, the wildfires, the threat to wildlife. They’re a corrective, right of reply to the greenwash messaging of Europe’s dirtiest bank.”“Ahead of COP26, banks like Barclays will tell the world how much they’re investing in renewables. But what’s more significant is how much they continue to pour into fossil fuels. Put simply, it’s not enough to fund the good stuff, they’ve also got to stop funding the bad stuff.”Design by SoofiyaThe artworks were designed by 11 artists including Darren Cullen, Soofiya, Fokawolf, Merny Wernz, Rhonda Anaconda, Frank Riot, Michelle Tylicki, Inzione, Seize The Mean and F-Art-Attack.Barclays has attracted criticism for being Europe’s biggest fossil financier, granting greater sums to fossil fuel companies last year than any of its European competitors.Pressure has grown on Barclays following the publication of new findings by the International Energy Agency (IEA). The respected industry body has now stated that, in order to reach net-zero by 2050, no new coal, oil or gas projects should be undertaken or financed.Deisgn by Inzione in ReadingThe bank has committed to net-zero emissions by 2050 and campaigners argue that, according to the IEA findings, this means the bank should immediately commit to cease any further financing of companies expanding coal, oil and gas output and infrastructure.Brandalism is an anonymous, creative arts network taking direct action against corporate advertising structures.  Intervening into ad spaces that usually celebrate consumption, the group use ‘subvertising’ as a lens through which we can view the social and environmental injustices issues that capitalism creates.http://brandalism.ch/Scroll down below to view more spoof adverts from the protest.Design by Rhonda in NorwichDesign by Polyp in BrightonDesign by Fokawolf in BrightonDesign by Merny Wernz in Bristol More

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      “On the Horizon” by ONUR, Li-Hill, and James Bullough in Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France

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      “On the Horizon” is a set of collaborative murals painted by three artists, ONUR, Li-hill, James Bullough in Boulogne-Sur-Mer, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France The murals are separated by a road that divides them. Although painted on two separate walls this is actually meant to be seen as one piece.When standing in the center of the road the viewer can throw their view beyond the murals and actually bring them together into one mural with their eyes. This animation shows what happens when you are able to combine the two murals into one.The artists wanted to create something the viewer had to participate in and that spoke directly to the settling of Bolougne-ser-Mer. Known as a major fishing port, the city’s past and future are intertwined with the sea.The images we chose embody a concept of time. A fisherman throws their net into a desolate dried-out landscape becomes a vision of a not-so-distant future. On the second wall, the sun beams over a shoal of fish showing the relatively stable period the earth’s ecosystems have had. The viewer finds themselves on the road caught between these two possibilities and a horizon line connecting these two paths. By combining the walls with thier eyes, one can glimpse a way forward in our current ecological crisis that is potentially harmonious with our surroundings.When mural was created for the latest edition of Street Art – Boulogne-sur-Mer. Check out below for more photos of “On the Horizon” More