Tag Archives: aida wilde

Streets: Aida Wilde – Less Homes 4U

September 22, 2018 butterfly 2 Comments

London based artist AIDA WILDE continues her interventions denouncing the rapid gentrification of London’s iconic and creative areas like Hackney Wick.
Her powerful text based street interventions incorporate social media terminology as a tool for activism.

Earlier in September, during the Art on the Streets conference, she presented her work about the gentrification of Hackney Wick, the curation of the Lord Napier project for Hackney Wicked ( from Shithouse to Penthouse), and A Hackney Wick Funeral, uniting countless artists in homage to Hackney Wick’s vibrant artistic past.

Croydon, a borough located south of London, often nicknamed ‘Cronx’ due to its infamous and controversial reputation, from Kate Moss to the 2011 London Riots, has been undergoing a lot of real estate development and revitalisation in a bid to change its image and attract new crowds.

In the city center many of the local shops have now closed to give way to big brands and so on.

For the Croydon Rise Festival, a street art festival curated by Monoprixx, Wherethereswalls and Rise Gallery, aimed to become the largest free open air museum in Europe, Aida Wilde decided to create a bespoke shop front window namely apt ‘Less Homes 4U’.

Using her signature vibrant neon pink dotted wallpaper and black block text imagery, Aida Wilde continues to denounce the gentrification process.

Team Pic by @Wherethereswalls

Together with her glamorous assistants Aida pasted up bold messages on the shop window:

‘LESS HOMES 4 U’
‘IT’S OUT WITH THE HIPSTERS, IN WITH THE YUPSTERS’
‘ENOUGH IS ENOUGH’
‘LONG DRAMATIC PAUSE…’
‘AFFORDABLE HOUSING FOR NO ONE’

A sign next to the window indicates ‘WHERE ONLY THE 1% COUNT’, with the O being strategically stroked off.

In parallel in the Rise Gallery, the public is invited to add notes to Aida Wilde’s installation ‘My mother’s aspiration for me was…’

Art Fair

London: Print is Power with Sisters in Print

April 4, 2018 butterfly

During the Other Art Fair in London, Aida Wilde (covered) and Sisters in Print held a series of workshops to share their skills and passion for printmaking, from cutting like a Ninja, print like a Butterfly to Macho only workshops.

The workshops featured all the techniques from monoprint, stencils, collages, screenprints and tools of the trade and their secrets.

While the fierce ladies focussed on their techniques and prints with vibrant imagery and powerful slogans, men couldn’t help but cut a bold happy willy…
Expression in all its forms and good laughs were in order

Big up to the energetic Queen Printmaker Aida, Juliette Stuart and the Sisters in Print, as well as GFSmith papers, Great Art UK and Screentec for providing the prints!

Full set of pics HERE

Interviews/ Studio visits, London

London: Studio Visit with Aida Wilde

March 8, 2018 butterfly 1 Comment

We are happy to have a look inside the London studio of Queen printmaker and artivist Aida Wilde

‘Who’s afraid of Aida Wilde?’ says one of the signs in the studio, surrounded by a screaming cute neon pink dotted kitty with dark kiss make up. Screenprinting is her ‘Weapon of Choice‘, as ‘Print is Power’.

Born in Iran, Aida arrived in the UK in the mid 80’s as a political refugee. She has been a professional screen printer for the last twenty years and has been pushing boundaries of the screenprinting techniques and transforming this traditional art form into fine art.

Hailed by many as a screen-printing genius, her unique style expresses her ongoing battle to bring alternative elements together, the graphic and the classical, whether this is through neon pop colours ( pink preferably), texture (glitter, velvet…) or through image. Some examples include a flocking velvet effect on a leapoard print to make it feel and look like a fur rug, or the use of the screen as a mono-printing tool to develop her ‘Life: Still’ edition.

Her most famous works are her colourful slogan paste-ups that can be found in the streets of London, Berlin, New York, Malaga or Aberdeen, featuring light hearted topics as well as raising awareness on sensitive subjects like gentrification, education and women’s rights.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

In 2009 in response to the financial and economic crisis Aida created a pink, black and white spotty slogan ‘There’s A Credit Crunch Not A Creative Crunch’, which is being featured at the Victoria & Albert Museum since 2011.

Strong advocate of women’s rights, her work has been featured at The Women’s Art Library (see our coverage here). Her HASHTAG series of works was used for the Brandalism project (covered) and the global project Subvert The City, which saw the world’s first coordinated international ad takeover & over 60 creative actions in 38 cities in 18 countries around the world. Aida still continues with her facilitating role with various workshops and community projects through Print Is Power – Reclamation Nation & more currently, Sisters In Print (All female international print collective).

So to celebrate the 8th March 2018, Aida is releasing a special screenprint from her famous Hashtag series ‘ A HASHTAG MIGHT NOT SAVE THE WORLD BUT … WOMEN MIGHT’ for one day only.

Initially before the craze of social media, this print was also part of the Brandalism campaign in Paris in 2015 and the statement is more valid than ever.

So grab yours here