murals

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Art

A Pair of Vibrant, Color-Blocked Murals by Lakwena Transform Two Basketball Courts in Arkansas

Tucked into the verdant landscape of Martin Luther King Jr. Park in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, are two dramatically altered basketball courts primed for play. Commissioned by the women-led curators of Justkids (previously) and OZ Art, the public project was conceived by London-based artist Lakwena, who transformed the outdoor spot into a lively area with her trademark typographic murals.

Basketball jargon covers the patterned court with an arched “Make it rain” demarcating the three-point lines. Creating under a larger theme of unity, Lakwena also referenced iconic poet Maya Angelou, who lived in the state throughout her life. “Bury me down / still I rise” lines the perimeter of the court, with Lakwena’s title of the work, “I’ll bring you flowers,” spelled out on multi-color petals at the center circle.

This community-centered project is the artist’s second in Arkansas and follows a 2017 work at Sebastian County’s Juvenile Detention Center in Fort Smith. Lakwena writes that “I’ll bring you flowers” is an extension of that piece as it looks “at growth and blessing in spite of adversity.” She expands on the idea:

I was really excited to work in a place with a largely Black demographic. It was nice to make an artwork for people that I have a connection to in that respect, especially at what feels like a very significant time for the Black community. The piece is called “I’ll bring you flowers.” Flowers are often used as a way of greeting, paying respect and honor people, and I wanted to honor the community in Pine Bluff.

For more of Lakwena’s vibrant pieces, head to Instagram. Check out this opulent kintsugi court and another angular mural for similarly sports-centered artworks.

 

Art

Aachoo!! A Sneezing Pensioner Knocks Down a Row of Houses in New Banksy Work in Bristol

In what could be interpreted as a tongue-in-cheek warning about not wearing a mask during the times of COVID-19, residents of Totterdown, Bristol, awoke to a new mural by the elusive artist Banksy. The work depicts an older pensioner sneezing her dentures out while subsequently knocking down an entire row of houses—a staged photo shared by the artist includes a tumbling man being knocked asunder by the germy gust. A wide shot reveals the location as Vale Street, noted for being the steepest street in Britain at a 22-degree incline. The new piece comes a few months after another site-specific work in Nottingham featuring a girl using a disassembled bicycle wheel as a hula hoop.

 

Art

Celebrating the Late Tamara Djurovic, AKA Hyuro, and Her Sincere, Monumental Murals

Argentinian artist Tamara Djurovic, who worked under the name Hyuro, died Thursday at her home in Valencia. Known for imbuing her works with sincerity, the artist utilized her large-scale pieces to capture the complexity of human emotion. Her style was distinct and subdued, and her process was informed by her concerns and questions about the world, a process she spoke of at length previously on Colossal.

During her life, Djurovic made significant strides in the international mural community that is largely male-dominated. She completed projects across Europe, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, the United States, Morocco, and Tunisia, many of which you can see on her site and Instagram.

 

 

Art

An Anamorphic Mural Transforms a Montreal Street into Undulating Sand Dunes

Along the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, sandy drifts swell and surge in a massive mural by the Canadian architecture firm NÓS. Aptly named “Moving Dunes,” the anamorphic artwork is comprised of neutral-toned lines that undulate along the walkway, creating a deceptive path mimicking deserts and beaches. Chrome spheres sporadically appear along the street in order to reflect the surrounding architecture and rippling patterns on the ground.

The 2018 project coincided with the museum’s exhibition, From Africa to the Americas: Face-to-face Picasso, Past and Present, which prompted NÓS to evoke the perspective-bending approach of cubist painters. “Moving Dunes” was chosen after an annual call for proposals to install a large-scale artwork on the Avenue de Musée. Follow NÓS’s latest designs and illusory projects on Instagram. (via designboom)

 

Art

A Colorful Geometric Mural of a Cityscape Visualizes Humans’ Impact on Nature

Artist Vitaly Tsarenkov, who works under the moniker SY, depicts the threat of ecological catastrophe through a new mural featuring geometric flora, fauna, and objects typically found in bustling city centers. Created for the Urban Morphogenesis festival in Chelyabinsk, Russia, “Love of Nature” is a vertical rendering of the human impact on nature, with color-blocked trucks, road cones, and towering buildings near the top and a fire, flowers, and tufts of grass occupying space at the bottom.

Based in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Tsarenkov says the 50-meter-high mural conveys that each person has the agency to protect the planet’s resources. “It’s impossible to stop all harmful factories at once, but to make the first step towards the clean Earth is not difficult and within everybody’s power just by taking the trash away after recreation in nature,” he writes on Instagram.

 

Art

Multi-Story Murals Showcase Domesticity through Elegant Ceramic Tableware

Spanish street artist Manolo Mesa merges public and private spheres through large-scale murals that highlight simple domestic objects. The multiple-story artworks depict traditional dining scenes, from an elegant porcelain tea set to a lone jug with swirling flourishes to another vessel resting on a saucer.

To complete a recent tableau in Oviedo, Spain, for Parees Fest, Mesa explored the history of an abandoned pottery factory in San Claudio. Event organizers gathered tableware from local residents, a collection that informed the shapes and exterior motifs of his work. “I was able to see all the evolution of this earthenware in the houses of Oviedo. I found postwar pieces, which were inherited and preserved with great affection by collectors. We saw (the) tableware of a lifetime from the middle of the century,” he writes on Instagram. Showcasing a delicate collection of vessels, the resulting mural explores an otherwise hidden facet of local history.

Find Mesa on Instagram to view some works-in-progress and follow his ceramic-centric projects.