Tag Archives: Ostend

Interview: Colectivo Licuado

April 18, 2018 butterfly

We followed Florencia Durán and Camilo Nunez from Colectivo Licuado, Uruguay as they painted a monumental mural for the Crystal Ship in Belgium.

Mastering spray paint with a hyperrealistic style, their creations juxtaposes culture and local traditions based on the context and environment in which they are working, adding their own style and a touch of art nouveau: skin tones, drapes, lighting and shadows are surreal.

With their mural, Colectivo Licuado paid tribute to Ostend, the city by the Sea. With two two women, they wanted to illustrate a balance between the calm and the storm at Sea. The standing tall blond girl represents storms, with a lot of energy, drawing strings of winds, while the seated brunette is peaceful and having a protecting hand on the boat.

We asked both of them a few questions to find out more:

B: Can you tell us more about your background?

CL: We knew each other studying industrial design 10 years ago. We always made student projects together , so we learned how to work as a team. Both of us always had interests in the arts. So years later we started painting in the streets as a hobby, but it quickly became our passion and our work, and we started to work really hard on this.

B: What is the situation in Uruguay towards street art/graffiti ?

CL: Street art is really new, less than 10 years. We are few of us, but little by little growing in numbers (be aware that we are 3 million people in all the country). So we are painting and growing together just to represent our country, because we are all really close.
There are more graffiti writers, they are really active and are also really close together.
In our opinion we need more big walls and more festivals that help us all to grow.

B: Colectivo Licuado is an artistic duo, so how did it started and what is your creative process?

CL: We started 7 years ago, like a hobby, but after our trip of South America, we realized that we could live from this and travel. So we started to work harder.
Nowadays, we think of an idea or message that we want to make in the wall. Lots of times it is something in relation to the environment of where we are going to paint the wall, some story, character, mythology. Then we always take some photos with a friend photographer, we ask for some of our friends to be our models, with a specific clothes and objects. Later with the photo we think about colours variations.

B: What influenced you to start painting murals?

CL: We always drew or made something in relation to art, like photos and music. Once we started to paint in the public space it was really amazing to see people’s reaction. It is always a good excuse to share messages or our opinions and different people can see that, it is outside museums and galleries, it is for all and for the city, and it plays with the architecture. Also you always have a free canvas to practice and to show your work.

B: What do you like/enjoy about painting in public spaces?
CL: We enjoy the opportunity to talk with many people in the streets, we enjoy the city in another way. It is also a chance to know other artists and cities. Each wall is a challenge for yourself and test your patience because are always some kind of difficulty.

Colectivo Licuado
www.colectivolicuado.com

Festival, Ostend, Street, streets

Crystal Ship : New murals by Telmo & Miel (NL) in Belgium

April 15, 2018 butterfly

For this year’s edition of the Crystal Ship Festival Dutch duo Telmo Miel created two murals in Ostend, Belgium. Telmo Pieper and Miel Krutzmann are the names behind Telmo Miel artistic duo, based in Rotterdam.

We last saw them in London in October 2017 during their Thinkspace exhibition at Moniker Art Fair ( covered), so we were pleased to see them in the streets of Ostend.

Combining multiple elements in a single composition, they layer references to the human and animal worlds to create complex creatures and fantastic scenario.
For the festival Telmo Miel painted a matching series called ‘Welcome’. Playing with the curved architecture, they painted a girl with an umbrella with a little monkey on her shoulder. The first version is under the rain while the mirrored version is under the sun.

View the full set of pics here

Check our full coverage on the Crystal Ship here

Interviews/ Studio visits, Ostend

Interview : Matthew Dawn (BE)

April 12, 2018 butterfly

We caught up with Belgian artist Matthew Dawn as he participates to the Crystal Ship Festival in Ostend, Belgium and discussed about his background and projects.

B: Can you tell us more about your background?

MD: I have a bachelors degree in “Digital Arts and Entertainment” – 3D art, game-coding and game design in lament terms. So nothing really street-art or fine-art related. Growing up, art and creativity in general has always been a big part of my everyday activities. I enjoyed sketching as a kid and teenager and love toying around with several instruments like bass, guitar and piano. Throw in some computer skills and know-how of video or photo-editing software and you have the base of my skill sets.

B: You have also worked on commercial projects with big companies such as Nike and Citroen? What learnings did you get from that experience?

MD: Commercial projects are good for putting money in the bank, not so good for expressing your artistic intent. A major insight I gained from those and several other experiences is how much my perception of money differs from theirs, I might find €1000 to be a lot of money whereas they barely shrug at spending €100.000. It taught me that it’s a matter of perspective and I can use that to my advantage.

B: What influenced you to start painting murals?

MD: It wasn’t really a choice, more something I rolled into naturally. I was already heavily into fine art and street art before I even picked up a spray can at the age of 21. I became friends with a couple of bombers and they took me with them because they’d seen my sketches. It was like “Hey you can draw, you should come with us. -Oh, okay. Sure.”
All that paranoia and stress wasn’t for me so I stepped out of the shadows and when to the legal walls in my area. I wanted to do full pieces and detail them at my own pace and really put the work in. From there on out it just grew, people approached me in the street, offered me some jobs that payed well at the time and it just got bigger and better from there on out.

B: What do you like/enjoy about painting in public spaces?

MD: It’s outdoors, gets me out of my studio. People come up to you, admire the work, compliment you. If you’re lucky they bring you warm drinks and cookies, all good vibes 🙂

B: What / who are your sources of inspirations or favourite artists?

MD: I look at pinterest a lot, I have big collections on there and it comes from everywhere, blogs, reddit,… but to name one or more artists that stick out,… man. I can’t there’s so many elements that I love of so many artists. I love Jeremy Man’s work ethic and dedication to the craft, I love Shawn Barber’s style, Rene Margritte’s work, James jean’s colors,…

B: Can you tell us more about your creative process?

MD: I start which ever way is fastest, doesn’t really matter to me how. Usually it’s some rough sketches in a slutty sketchbook that loves to get abused. From there I take it digitally, edit the sketches in photoshop or find photo’s online that match my ideas and create a collage out of them or go outside and take my own photo’s with myself or someone else as model.

Most of my personal work is built from live-drawing or photo reference.

B:Is there a specific message you want to convey in your artworks?

MD: I’m currently exploring the concepts of ego, ignorance, censorship, fame and success in my works and am loving the journey so far. I can have a specific meaning behind every piece but when I ask other for their views they always come up with things I have never seen before myself or thought of so I don’t want to force my own view and just let the work do the explaining and let the people make up their own thoughts.

B: What are you creating for the Crystal Ship? Tell us more?
MD: I’m creating the third in my paper crown series which started after my promotional video of the TINYPINK went viral with +- 2M views.

B: What are your next projects as well?
MD: I’m planning a solo-show in the fall.

Matthew Dawn
http://www.matthewdawn.com

Festival

The Crystal Ship 2018 – Part I

April 7, 2018 butterfly 1 Comment

We have arrived on the city by the sea in Ostend, Belgium and participating artists to the third edition of the The Crystal Ship ( see line up here) are busy working on their murals and installations across the city.

So here is a first recap of the walls in progress and installations we have seen so far:

Ben Slow (UK)

Telmo & Miel (NL)

A Squid Called Sebastian (B)

Colectivo Licuado (URU)

Dourone (FR) (See our interview here)

Etam Cru (PL)

Gaia (US)

Icy & Sot (IR)

Jaune (B)

Joachim (B)

Matthew Dawn (B)

Milu Correch (AR)

Oak Oak (FR)

Wasp Elder (UK)

View all the locations of the Crystal Ship on a map of Ostend HERE

The official opening starts on 7 April at Monacoplein from 2pm
Come back again soon for further updates on the Festival

Festival, Ostend

The Crystal Ship 2018 in Ostend (BE)

April 2, 2018 butterfly 1 Comment

The Crystal Ship is a contemporary art festival bringing art to the seaside in Ostend, Belgium.
For its third edition over fifteen international artists will create large scale murals and art installations using the City by the Sea as their canvas. The new artworks will be added to the existing fifty murals and interventions visible through the city, making it the biggest mural festival in Europe.

The official opening will take place on 7th April 2018 in Monacoplein, Ostend

2018 Participating artists include:
A Squid Called Sebastian (B) – Ben Slow (UK) – Colectivo Licuado (URU) – Dourone (FR) – Etam Cru (PL) – Gaia (US) – Icy & Sot (IR) – Jaune (B) – Joachim (B) – Johannes Verschaeve (B) – Matthew Dawn (B) – Milu Correch (AR) – Oak Oak (FR) – Telmo & Miel (NL) – Wasp Elder (UK) – Zoer x Velvet (FR)

Here are some pics of the 2018 invited artists we’ve met across our travels:

Gaia