NUART JOURNAL ISS 7 : LAUNCH
ABERDEEN ART GALLERY AND MUSEUM 11:00–11:10
Nuart Journal TRESPASS Launch
Join us for the exclusive launch of Issue 7 of Nuart Journal. Nuart Journal was first published in 2018 to widespread critical acclaim. Professor Jeff Ferrell, from Texas Christian University has called Nuart Journal ‘the most exciting mix of political, visual, and intellectual energy I’ve seen in a long time!’ This issue explores the socio-political, legal, geographical, cultural and economic determinants of what constitutes trespass and transgression in street art cultures.
Our TRESPASS issue contains 12 original articles. The journal will be on sale at the launch and throughout the festival period.
Nuart Plus International Street Art Symposium 2023
June 8-11. Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museum and various locations.
Full program online : www.nuartaberdeen.co.uk
All events are free unless otherwise stated.
Nuart Plus is an umbrella term for Nuart’s activities outside of physical art production. It consists of an international research program, a peer reviewed journal and other publications, artist presentations, panel debates, workshops, education programs, film screenings and more. The Plus-series aims to explore and present issues surrounding contemporary street and urban art practice in all its guises, through both entertaining and educational projects and programs. It features contributions from some of the world’s leading street artists alongside academics, authors, researchers, curators, producers, writers and other cultural-sector professionals who are dedicated to exploring issues surrounding new forms of art and activity in public space.
Tamara Alves for Nuart Aberdeen.
Wrapping up the event and trawling through the thousands of images, will post more as we go. Looking forwards to seeing Tamara a little closer to home later in the year.
We’re proud to share the final images of Eloise Gillow’s new mural for this year’s festival on the theme of rewilding, two sister murals on the ancient site of a meadow and brook that from the 13th to 18th century served local flour mills. They act as companions to the 16th century Provost Skene House which also sits quiety on the same street and is the oldest surviving townhouse in Aberdeen.
Eloise Gillow is a painter and muralist from the UK, currently based in Barcelona. Eloise paints in a realist style, having studied classical painting in Barcelona before painting in the streets. She draws her imagery from her surroundings, interested in what is expressed by people’s body language, through their gestures and movements.
Honoured to share the final images of Portugese artist Tamara Alves’ wall for this year’s festival. The artist has always been interested in the kind of work which is inserted in the world, and fascinated with the aesthetics and urban context of the streets.
Tamara Alves weaves a narrative that celebrates in a raw, poetic way the primeval vitality of strong sensations, invoking a universe of (female) human and animal figures in interaction with the natural landscape and objects imbued with a strong symbolic charge that invite us to embrace feelings as a wild and untamed driving force.
Our old friend Escif returns to Nuart with one of his tertiary landscapes, using the recently adopted medium of ink made from harvested pollution. With the topic of this year’s festival being Rewilding, Escif’s muted landscape adds another dimension to an otherwise ordinary Aberdonian urban parking lot.
The image chosen by the artist was taken from the Caledonian Forest, an ancient temperate forest in Scotland. The forest has due to human actions over thousands of year reduced in size to its current extent. By the 1950s, only 1 precent of the original Caledonian Forest, that once covered most of Scotland, remained.
The mural was painted using @air.ink, which is the world’s first ink made out of air pollution particulate matters. By creating a new pictoral forest by using ink created from one of humanities most destructive inputs on the landscape, the choice of material and image reinforces the themes of the work and the festival at large.
"There are many ways of interpreting this work, and we hope that viewers will develop their own based on their sensitivity and personal background. But almost as a ‘mise en abyme’ (literally meaning: ‘placement into abyss’), this goldfish is stuck in an environment surrounded by plastic, keeping it prisoner. The fish wants to rebel with the anarchy symbol drawn on the fog, but that will soon disappear. The use of the goldfish and its “short memory” is the perfect metaphor for humans who are aware of all the environmental issues around the world but seem to forget about them as fast as we are revolted by them and go on with our daily lives.
It’s a work we have wanted to do for over a year but was considered too controversial, so having the Nuart team understand the meaning, support us, and allow us to bring it to life so it is now for the public to judge means a lot. We had the best time there, with the other artists, the team, the speakers, the volunteers and the people of Aberdeen."
“With walls, some you win and some you lose - sometimes it takes the right approach, at the right time, in the right way and with a bit of faith and luck too.
7 years in the making. Will we ever get the chance to create something at this site and, if so, what will it be? If so, how do we access it, whose consent is required, which partners needs must be met and how do we strike the balance through all of that? Which roads need closing, which busses re-routing?
And what’s so compelling about Nuart Aberdeen is that this artwork now feels like it’s always been there, we just haven’t been able to see it.
This is a very special mural. Patience and persistence, time, talent and the best team and partners able to make it happen. And a phenomenal artwork gifted to the city as a result”.
I’m paraphrasing my walls partner at @aberdeeninspired without whom none of this could happen, he fought tooth and nail to get soooo many people and partners on board with this one. @manolo_mesa did us proud !
Honoured to present the final images of Brazilian artist Thiago Mazza’s work for this year’s festival.
Thiago Mazza is one of the exponents of Brazilian contemporary muralism and his work is in dialogue with classical painting, street art and contemporary art. The artist is known in the contemporary urban art scene for his mastery in the representation of flora, especially tropical flora. His current painting project involves collecting and painting local plants.
Thank you Mark Patterson from The Cruickshank Botanic Gardens. And a special mention to @v2k_art for all the hard work, best painter’s assistant in town !
Back to back productions from Stavanger to Aberdeen with two of my favourite people. It’s been an absolute pleasure watching these guys develop over the last few years into the one of the worlds leading stencil artists. An incredible work ethic and a technique they’ve made all their own !
“An Ending, A Beginning" glimmers in gold like the silver in the granite of the city. Staying true to form, SNIK hand-cut over 120m of stencil for the mural making it one of their largest to date.
Internationally acclaimed artists SNIK combine the creation of hand-cut, multilayered stencils with haunting, ethereal portraiture, born from a male/female dual perspective. This traditional-craft, progressive-ethos approach has seen the duo commissioned on walls the world over; their Pre-Raphaelite inspired scenes on post-industrial sites offering pause to reflect over issues below our busy lives.
This one was a little special. Knowing Swoon had retired from street work back in 2017, but also knowing what a perfect match she was with this years themes, and knowing her name was Caledonia, derived from an ancient Pictish clan, I saw a chink of light and reached out, Swoon opened the door, we swapped stories and plans. Some months later she was there, not only taking to the streets, but also opening the festival with a premiere of her latest stop motion film and an in-depth talk with our old mutual friend Carlo McCormick. Eternal gratitude and what a body of work the city was gifted with.
Caledonia Curry, or Swoon, is recognised around the world for her pioneering vision of public artwork. Through intimate portraits, immersive installations and multi-year community based projects, she has spent over 20 years exploring the relationships of individuals to the built environment, using her art as a catalyst for social change and healing.
Her work is included in international collections, such as the Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum, Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, and Tate Modern to name just a few. Her previous work for Nuart Stavanger can still be seen on Fargegate.
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Nuart Aberdeen is curated and produced by Norway based Reed Projects
This wall piece was created from decades of visuals by Jamie Reid, he of Sex Pistols fame, and realised as a wall piece in Aberdeen by collaborator John Marchant and the Nuart crew. Encompassing messages of both political and spiritual engagement and empowerment, Reid never fails to deliver his messages with wit and energy. Reid and Marchant have produced walls like this from Los Angeles to Tokyo, but feel Aberdeen to be a very special environment for this work as it is the place where the very first Sex Pistols poster was produced in 1975 when Reid visited Peacocks en route back to London from Lewis.
The title “Peace Is Tough” was first used in a work reproduced within the collage, of John Wayne in lipstick, wearing a badge that says Peace Is Tough. Reid used the title for a series of exhibitions through the 90’s to 2000’s, notably in Derry, Northern Ireland, where, one year later an important international conference called itself Peace Is Tough and helped heal the city.
Conicidently, it was also the title of Jamie and Banksy’s two man show in Glasgow back in 2001, marking 22 years since they were both in Scotland working on projects. What are the chances?
STANLEY DONWOOD (UK) for NUART ABERDEEN. “Trespass”
I first reached out to Stanley to discuss the possibility of creating a mural from one of his works. With the likes of Jamie Reid and Stephen Ellcock amongst others, digging into the roots, for want of a better word, of rewilding, of Alba and Albion, the commons and enclosures and the rich much forgotten magic in these isles, Stanley seemed like an obvious choice. We couldn’t find a way to justify having others paint the mural, feeling as it did l, closer to a Shoreditch advert than a genuine attempt to connect with something deeper. And that was that. Until going through his archives, we came across a print titled “trespass”. How about we turn these into large scale paste ups and hit the city ? As a cheeky addition to the concept, we’d only paste up illegally and “trespass” whilst doing so. And that was that.
STANLEY DONWOOD (UK)
Stanley Donwood has worked with Radiohead since 1994. His evocative and haunting imagery has created their distinctive visual identity. He has created the official artwork for Glastonbury Festival since 2002 and he has worked with Robert Macfarlane on the Faber bestseller ‘Holloway’ and art directed the film ‘the bomb’ produced by Eric Schlosser and Smriti Keshari, as well as countless book covers and projects too numerous to mention.
and what a body of work the city was gifted with.
Brian Tallman Photography
