feralthings « Arrested Motion

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Streets – Upfest (2018) Bristol

Posted by feralthings, August 13, 2018

Upfest returned to celebrate its 10th anniversary recently with approximately 350 artists from across the globe leaving their mark on the streets of Bristol. A central theme across the whole weekend was the 100 years which have passed since some women first got the right to vote in the UK. For example, Jody Thomas‘ gold-masked figure takes the meek and victimized Little Red Riding Hood from Victorian fairytales and recasts her as someone who is both eminently capable and confidently self-assured. The festival also saw The London Police bring their […]

Showing: Cripta Djan – “In The Name Of Pixo” (Birmingham)

Posted by feralthings, July 21, 2018

The Brazilian artist and pixação painter Cripta Djan is currently showing an exhibition entitled ‘In The Name Of Pixo’ at The Tramshed in Birmingham, UK. The history of graffiti is often told as a simple linear narrative with its singular root in the wall-writing of Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood and North Philadelphia in the late 1960s. However, this simplification ignores the multifaceted origins of the various strands of the global graffiti movement; these include the Old-English influenced Cholo graffiti from L.A.’s barrios, the Dishu ground calligraphy performed […]

Interviews / Studio Visits: Sickboy

Posted by feralthings, July 18, 2018

Sickboy’s red and yellow temples have been adorning Bristol’s dumpsters since the turn of the millennium. Appearing like flowers blooming in the desert, their byzantine and seductive forms stand in stark contrast to the utilitarian and mundane objects on which they appear. The artist’s studio work has previously seen a broad array of cultural details filtered through a deeply surrealist imagination to create works which at one moment appear comforting and reassuring and at the next moment appear unnerving and unsettling. More recently, the canvases have seen […]

Showing: Dran – “Dessin du Jour/Londres”

Posted by feralthings, June 7, 2018

Dran opened a new pop-up exhibition in London over the weekend entitled Dessin du Jour. As the title suggests, the body of work is dominated by approximately 120 drawings which the artist has been executing on a daily basis in preparation for the show. The pieces individually distill down the small victories and defeats, dreams and doubts and joys and sorrows of everyday life. We see a man marooned on an island encircled and cut-off by gridlocked traffic which speaks to the isolation of modern urban life, […]

Showing: Sainer – ‘Chaotic Harmony’ @ Galerie Openspace

Posted by feralthings, January 15, 2018

Sainer’s second solo show at Galerie Openspace (previewed) in Paris will shortly be entering its final week after opening at the start of December. The title of the exhibition – Chaotic Harmony – emphasises the symbiotic relationship between these two different states of being and this idea runs like a unifying thread through the varied and extensive exhibition. The 29 year old painter makes use of the gallery’s multiple spaces to explore the varied elements which make up his work. The landscapes are a mixture of intimate plein […]

Streets: Upfest 2017 (Bristol)

Posted by feralthings, August 10, 2017

Last weekend saw 250 artists and an estimated 40,000 members of the public descend on Bristol’s Southville and Bedminster neighborhoods for Upfest. The event has grown into the largest annual painting festival in Europe since its inception in 2008 and this year’s installment included large-scale murals by Kobra, Eelus and Jody Thomas. Will Barras and Xenz collaborated on a new wall which is teeming with detail that draws the eye in and holds the viewer’s attention; utopian landscapes and opalescent butterflies are intertwined with timeless cosmonauts and […]

Openings: Festival Iminente (London)

Posted by feralthings, July 29, 2017

Festival Iminente (previewed) opened recently and will bring two days of art and music to London’s Brick Lane. The festival serves as both a celebration of Portuguese and pan-European culture and a warning of what may be lost as a result of the UK’s exit from the European Union. Vhil‘s cast concrete sculpture is based upon a sketch which he drew on a previous trip to the capital. The portrait is surrounded and interwoven with fragments of a city as viewed from above and the crevices created by the metropolis’ roads […]

Previews/Interviews: Vhils // Festival Iminente (London)

Posted by feralthings, July 14, 2017

Festival Iminente will be bringing a taste of Portuguese culture to East London at the end of the month. The event is being curated by Vhils and the Underdogs Gallery which he established in 2013. The festival debuted in Lisbon’s Oeiras district last autumn and this latest iteration carries a particularly contemporary theme with the subtitle Art Before Brexit. The participating artists’ individual contributions address some of the specific issues which dominated the public conversation around Brexit. For example, Mais Menos’ installation is concerned with […]

Openings: David Shillinglaw – ‘Tales of Ordinary Madness’ @ That Gallery

Posted by feralthings, June 16, 2017

David Shillinglaw (featured) opens his new exhibition entitled Tales of Ordinary Madness today at That Gallery in Bristol. The exhibition coincides with a time of change for the British artist as he moves out of the home and studio which has been his base for the last 12 years and on to new adventures. The works featured include a variety of medium such as paintings on found wood, appliqué, painted collage and a piece comprised of 400 individual sketches of people who he has sat […]

Interviews/Releases: Dale Marshall – ‘Vacant Hero’ Print

Posted by feralthings, May 18, 2017

Dale Marshall originally started painting graffiti under the name Vermin in the early 1990s and he was a founding member of Bristol’s Souls On Fire crew, who were known for their visceral and heretical style. However, as the decade was coming to an end, his life was spiraling increasingly out of control because of heavy drug use and a resulting mental breakdown which resulted in him being sectioned in a Cornish psychiatric hospital, all of which Marshall has been very open about. Since switching to producing […]