London: Herakut – ‘Sad but Happy’ Solo Show

September 6, 2017 butterfly

After five years travelling and painting throughout the world , the German duo Herakut is returning to London for a new solo exhibition at Stolenspace entitled ‘Sad but Happy’.

Hera and Akut first came to London in 2010 when they painted their enigmatic character on the walls of the Moniker Art Fair, followed by a solo show in 2012.

Herakut at the Moniker Art Fair in 2010

The public discovered the magical energetic duo with their spraycans with Hera starting the figurative outlines and setting the rhythm like she’s dancing graciously while Akut focusses on photorealistic feature details like the eyes, conveying a myriad of emotions.

Additionally, the incorporation of poignant messages in their works creates a sense of wonder when observing their art. Specifically, their words take you into what seems to be the childlike, pure essence behind Herakut while delivering a punch to the imagery they provide.

What’s more, the recurrent theme of both animal imagery and hildren subjects transport us back to our childhood where innocent imaginary friends were an embraced accompaniment to our creative minds.

On the title for the show ‘Sad But Happy’, the duo stated; ‘It fits every single piece, we think, and fits our style in general. Ambivalence. Schizophrenia even. That’s us. That’s the essence of Herakut.’

This series of new works sees the duo progress with their distinctive and dark style. Depicting children and animals with large emotive eyes, they draw the viewer in to their mysteriously eerie world, making them contemplate the statements scribbled across the canvas and their relationship with the characters in the works.

Their dark use of colour contrasts with the bright and fast use of movement and brush work. Their style welcomes a kind of imperfect perfection, the brushstrokes seeming erratic and fluid but also so beautifully placed.

Their joint creative art process is about storytelling, the creation of imaginary worlds and inspiring their figures with individual characters:

The message on a canvas where two little girls with kitty masks hidden in a cardboard box says ‘She said lets go back to when all was perfect’, while a portrait of a thoughtful little girl mentions ‘ Stop destroying my city says the dragon’.

View the set of pics here

Herakut – Sad but Happy
Stolenspace Gallery
Until 1 October 2017
17 Osborn Street, London UK E1 6TD

Art Fair, Bristol, Shows

The Other Art Fair Bristol Highlight: Hisham Echafaki

September 2, 2017 butterfly

London based multidisciplinary artist Hisham Echafaki is presenting his new solo exhibition at the Saatchi TOAF (The Other Art Fair) in Bristol. His body of works focuses on the complex and ever changing relationship between humans and the animal world, exploring themes of anthropomorphism, endangered species and the delicate balance between mankind and nature.

His source of inspiration includes vintage scientific illustrations, taxidermy, cabinet of curiosities, patterns in art as well as animal fables. One of the paintings is directly inspired by The Dove and the Crow Fable by Greek author Aesop ‘To enjoy our blessings we must have freedom’.

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‘Family portrait’ depicts a moving scene in an abandoned house where nature takes back its course and a doe and her baby pay tribute to a deer trophy head.

His three dimensional paintings are intriguing and fascinating, and visitors are often wondering how these fauna and flora have been created. The 3D and trompe l’oeil effect is achieved by meticulously painting on multiple layers of resin.

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Hisham Echafaki
The Other Art Fair Bristol
1-3 September 2017
Arnolfini
16 Narrow Quay , Bristol

Shows, Stavanger, Street

Norway: NuArt Festival 2017 in Stavanger

August 30, 2017 butterfly

The city of Stavanger in Norway is getting ready for the world leading street art festival, NuArt. For its 17th edition, the festival will take place from the 31 st of August until the 3rd of September, with their indoor exhibition at Tou Scene staying on view through the 15th of October.

This year’s theme is POWER and through their work, the artists will discuss who has it, who doesn’t and how street art can challenge established power structures. “Nuart’s programs are designed specifically to explore and silently challenge the mechanisms of power and politics in public space” says Nuart Festival Founder and Director, Martyn Reed, and adds “This year’s Nuart Festival will bring together a diverse combination of artists, activists and academics to reflect upon the fluidity of this transgressive new movement.”

12 artists from 10 countries spanning 4 continents will descend upon Stavanger: Ampparito (ES), Bahia Shehab (EG), Carrie Reichardt (UK), flyingleaps presents Derek Mawudoku (UK), Ian Strange (AU), John Fekner (US), Know Hope (IL), ±maismenos± (PT), Igor Ponosov (RU), Ricky Lee Gordon (ZA), Slava Ptrk (RU) , Vermibus (DE).

American artist John Fekner created a series of environmentally conceptual works consisting of words, symbols, and dates spray painted throughout the five boroughs of New York in the 1970s. He continued these text based interventions over the next few decades and earned a place in numerous museum collections across the US and Europe.

British ‘craftivist’ Carrie Reichardt blurs the boundaries between craft and activism, using the techniques of muralism, mosaics and screen-printing to create intricate, highly-politicised works of art. Active in community and public art projects for over 15 years, she has been designing and consulting on large-scale mosaic murals in various local communities.

Israli artist Addam Yekutieli aka Know Hope is best known for his emotive work that mixes written word and illustrative elements or photographs and even sculptures. Through his distinctive work, he often makes connections between difficult social-political situations and emotional conditions

±MaisMenos± is the working title of an interventional art project by Portuguese visual artist and graphic designer Miguel Januário that started back in 2005 and became an entity of its own. As a part of this project, Januário has been producing thought-provoking, cutting-edge work both indoors and outdoors in a variety of media – from video to sculptural installations to painting and performance.

Aside from creating and showing new works by the participating artists, the festival will include its well known satellite program Nuart Plus consisting of academic and industry debates, artist presentations, film screenings, workshops and guided tours.

NuArt Festival
Until 15 October
Tou Scene
Kvitsøygata 25
4014 Stavanger, Norway

Marrakech

The Best Street Art in Marrakech

August 27, 2017 butterfly

The Moroccan city of Marrakech has stood for close to a thousand years, a city of history and culture. Also known as the Red City, Marrakech is one of the most evocative places in the world, a place to engage the senses from the vibrant colourful souks, enticing smells and spices, relaxing hammams to the architectural wonders from exquisite gardens to ornate mosques and minarets.

So it’s no surprise that the city is becoming more and more active with the street art scene, and more and more international artists are creating public art both in the old city and the French quarter, known as Gueliz. Hidden away, down unassuming side streets and inside cafes and galleries, it’s not that easy to discover Marrakech’s emerging street art installations. So we give you some tips to discover the best public art installations in town and surrounding areas.

On the side of a building on Avenue Mohamed VI, a large portrait of Marrakchi ‘Aziz’ by Beikrich greets visitors exiting the main train station. In collaboration with the Montresso Art Foundation, German artist Hendrik Beikrich pays homage to the disappearing tradesmen in Morocco, at least in the manner that they continue to work today, including zellig artists, masons, shepherds and more. Beikirch has a fascination for everyday people, those who are often photographed in the souks but never really honoured.
Rue des Vieux Marrakchis is host to one of the leading contemporary and urban art gallery David Bloch with immersive installations from international graffiti artists like REMED, Lek, Sowat, MIST.

In terms of Art festivals, since its creation in 2004 the Marrakech Biennale has grown amongst the top 20 biennales in the world, and Street Art being an inherent part of the cultural programme. In the rooftops of the souks in the Medina, Bahia Palace area, and the walls around Gueliz, the new part of Marrakech, a dozen of murals by international artists can be found wandering through the narrow colourful streets: Mad C (Germany), Dotmaster (UK), Giacomo RUN (Italy), Dag Insky (France), Kalamour (Morocco), Alexey Lucas (Russia), LX.ONE (France), Lucy McLauchlan (UK), Remi Rough (UK), Sickboy (UK) and Yesbee (UK).

Marrakech also feature the largest mural in Morocco by French artists POES and JO BER, a monumental 360 sqaure meters in the the college Tariq Ben Ziad, the largest mixed college with 2200 children. Both artists wanted to revisit the infamous board game “The game of Life”, designed to look like a video game. The Master of the game with robotic features invites the children through different seasons in a playful world, with joyful characters, and share a creative vision of life based on knowledge, sign of cultural openness and that the student aspirations and ambitions are supported regardless of their background or gender.

Last but not least the hidden gem of Marrakech is Jardin Rouge (from the Montresso Art Foundation), an artistic residency and private heaven for contemporary and street artists to experiment monumental works (with visits on appointment only).

All photos by Butterfly Art News

Paris

Paris: Elzo Durt – Colors & Glory

August 16, 2017 butterfly

With the 10th year anniversary of the music label Born Bad Records and the release of a monograph entitled “Complete Works”, Belgian graphic designer and illustrator Elzo Durt is showing 13 years of illustration in an exhibition called ‘Colors & Glory’ at the Gallery du Jour in Paris

With more than a hundred exhibitions to his credit, dozens of projects and album covers, Elzo Durt is one of the most prolific and recognizable illustrators. After a good decade spent imposing a heavy and abrasive style made of creepy and psyche collages within the punk and techno scenes of Brussels, he has, in a few years, colonized the imagination of the French rockers by becoming the main illustrator of Born Bad Records and creating his own label, Teenage Menopause.

The exhibition starts in a psychedelic kitchen from the 1950s, giving the visitor a feeling of drunkenness but also inviting him into a psychedelic universe to discover one hundred and thirty works (posters, record covers …) including 15 of its most iconic pieces as well as some previously unseen works and ends in a gothic-punk church of the future.

As the ultimate fan of underground music, Elzo, and his Parisian friend Francois Froos, launched their own music label Teenage Menopause Records in 2011, dedicated to punk and techno.
A monumental fresco of 1.80 meters by 4 meters bringing together forty small paintings into a futuristic pope is dedicated to his friend Froos.

But Elzo Durts’ universe does not resonate only with these two styles or movements, as he multiplies borrowings and winks, drawing from the world history of graphic design and posterism: from military propaganda of the twentieth century Sci-fi comics; Art Nouveau to Russian constructivism; or from the psychedelic art of the 1960s and 1970s to the flyers of the late 1980s announcing the first raves.