11. The Maltese Festival (Part-Three)

This is our third and final post on the street-art festival in Sliema, Malta. 

One of the goals of the festival was to elevate the profile of art created on non-traditional outdoor surfaces, like trucks, vans, phone booths, benches etc. We were a bit skeptical at first about the notion of art on vehicles. First, because it's not exactly a new idea - people have been painting vans since the first flower-child drew a petal on a VW in the 1960s. So what could be different today? And second, because metal can be a difficult surface on which to paint.

We were turned into believers, though, by the 3D murals of Bali-born, now Greek resident, WD (aka Wild Drawing):

 

 

Also "driving" home the point were Wesone:

Katka:

And Valencia's own Felipe Pantone:

 

Other objects to receive the street-art treatment included telephone booths by Sofles:

and Denmark's Claus Frederiksen:

 

This garbage can by an artist we've yet to identify:

And even the Sliema rock wall, which survived the Germans in World War II, was easily captured by the yarn-bombing Julia Riordan:

 

 

For this year's activities, July 24-26 2015, the Sliema festival will evolve into the Malta street art festival, relocating to the island's historic capital of Valleta. Let's hope that the art and artists are at least as good as they were in the first two years. They really rose to the challenge and delivered their best.

 

But let's also add a giant wish that the organizers can move their way up from the bush leagues to the big leagues. Would it really be that difficult to issue a schedule showing what's happening, when and where. Or to put up signs and maps pointing the way to the action areas for non-islanders. Most importantly, if the majority of painting takes place miles away from the city and not where it's supposed to be, could they maybe, oh..TELL PEOPLE ABOUT IT SO THEY DON'T MISS MOST OF THE BEST ART? We can only hope.

2. And So it Begins.....(Part II)

(This used to be the second post in our blog, but the knuckleheads at Google relocated it to after post #10, which made no sense. We suspended it for a while to see if the problem could be fixed, but apparently not. We thought the artwork was too good to be missed, so we're letting 'er rip. But please bear in mind that this was supposed to come after our very first post).

Let's pick up where we left off, looking at some of our favourite street artists and their work in Valencia. Only this time, let's stir in a little controversy. Vinz is a renowned Valencia artist who likes to paint naked human bodies topped by bird heads. 

Venus Striptease
Vinz (2013)
ORIGINAL VERSION

In his imaginary world, birds symbolize freedom - fighting for equality against anyone who stands in their way. But thanks to some Puritan who decided to take responsibility for the whole community's moral standards, the portrait now looks like this:

Venus Striptease

Vinz (2013)

CENSORED VERSION

As do many other of Vinz's artworks in Valencia. With it's generally liberal ways, you sometimes forget that Spain is a Catholic country. Other times you wish you could forget that it is a Catholic country.

Karas Urbanas is a professional stenciler who teaches at the Faculty of Architecture at the University National Autonoma de Mexico. He's enlivened Valencia's street scene by drawing on his cultural myths and symbols:

Karas Urbanas (2014)

Lolo Fonico was born in Seville, lives in Valencia and has been painting city streets for nearly 30 years. He seems to enjoy adding these unusual creatures to the Valencia landscape, both in his own work and in joint projects with other artists:

Lolo Fonico (2013)

This portrait by Gore was painted as part of a much larger mural by friends Doks and Suni of the Ojayo Players. They hail from Almansa, a small town south of Valencia:

Gore (2012)

La Nena Wapa Wapa - and we're going to go out on a limb here and guess it's not her real name - has distilled street art to its simplest elements. Her works often consist of two colours (black + another colour) and her images are largely of a woman from an earlier era, birds and a birdcage.

La Nena Wapa Wapa (2012)


Many internationally renowned street artists have chosen Valencia's buildings as their very large canvases. BLU, who is from Italy and studied in Valencia, rewarded the city with two massive works with unique twists. Moses' beard is yellow and made up of snakes:

Moses
BLU (2011)

And Buddha's mouth has been hyperextended to the point where it can span a gap in a building:




BLU (2011)

There is/are no signatures on one of Valencia's most beloved images, and there has been much speculation about its creator(s). Most of the smart money is on a collaboration between Julieta and Escif:

My Sweet End

Julieta and Escif (?)



It's not unusual that, despite the hours of effort put into creating their work, many superb street artists do not sign their name or even a pseudonym. That reason is quite simple: painting street art is still illegal - even in a city like Valencia, where the people and the police are quite supportive of it. Unfortunately, it means we have no idea who painted these works:

If you happen to know, please drop us a line at two.nomads319@gmail.com

10. The Maltese Festival (Part Two)

We're just back from our three-month romp through Southeast Asia. We took hundreds of pictures of street art (among other things) and will post the best once we've had a chance to sort through them.

In the meantime, we'd like to pick up where we left off before our trip, with another look at the annual Sliema Street Art Festival. Earlier, we presented the best of the 2013 festival. Now we're going to showcase some of our favourites from 2014.

Undoubtedly, the most powerful (and largest) work was by France's MTO. His wall mural, The Mediterranean Door, was a symbolic protest against European immigration policies that force illegal migrants to risk their lives at sea:

Also powerful (and also large) was Berlin's Die Dixons' spotlight on violence against children:

The beautiful sea around Malta once again inspired some artists, like local tattoo master Justink's (aka Justin Bonnici):

And provided a backdrop for others, like French artist Sone:

Many artists picked up on the nautical theme as well, like Kazakhstan-born Alex Maksiov, who whimsically welcomed those in attendance:

and equally light-hearted Danes, Sea Puppy, Prosimian:

and Skum:

Italian streetscape painter Vera Bugatti took the word "street" quite literally, adding colour directly onto Sliema's waterfront promenade: 

There was one mystery in Malta that we weren't quite able to solve. We saw a number of colourful portrait murals but couldn't figure out who painted them. They weren't signed; aren't on the Sliema 2014 Facebook page; and, don't appear on a Google search. If you can help enlighten us, please drop us a line at two.nomads@icloud.com

 

9. FLASH!!! The World has New DEIHs.

We interrupt our three-month hiatus to bring you a few new creations by our favourite street artist, Valencia, Spain's DEIH. He's clearly been busy while we've been travelling.

The masterful artwork below was created on the streets of Sant Antao Island, part of the Cape Verde Islands. According to DEIH, "I was working there on a new piece influenced by the megapowerful nature you can feel in that island."

 (All Photos courtesy of DEIH)

He also created this one, Octopus Rider, on Santiago, another Cape Verde Island.

 

 

Back home in Spain, El DEIH created this mural in Madrid along with friend and fellow artist, Laguna.

 

 

And this one with his friend HOPE:

 

 

This one is consistent with DEIH's urban street style, but it's actually a watercolour:

 

We'll leave you with this last one before we get back to our journey through Southeast Asia:

 



If there's one thing we love better than a great street artist, it's a great street artist whose very busy. We can't wait to get back to Valencia to see what else DEIH's been up to in our absence!

(Yes, we know the last picture is misaligned. You can thank the folks at blogger for that and most other layout problems in our blog.)

8. Southeast Asia: a Preview

We're off to Southeast Asia for three months, traipsing around Thailand, Cambodia and Malaysia. We'll be taking lots of shots of street art, architecture, local scenes - and, hopefully having a helluva lot of fun along the way.

While we're on the road, STREETsmART and our other blog WOWchitecture (http://WOWchitecture.blogspot.com) will be on hiatus: our cameras aren't on speaking terms with our tablets. Besides, we find that blogging while travelling cuts into our fun time.

We'll be back in mid-March and look forward to posting dozens of photos like these:

By Thai street artist Bon:

All Bon photos via The Bangkok Post

By his countryman Rukkit:

Rukkit photos via rukkit.wordpress.com

And by Cambodia's first female street artist Lisa Mam:

Lisa Mam photos via The Phnom Penh Post

In the meantime, if you haven't already done so, please have a look at our earlier posts on STREETsmART and WOWchitecture . We think you'll like them.

And last but not least, you won't be totally without us. We'll post photos every now and then on Google+, drawing on the stock we've already downloaded onto our tablets, or that we come across on the internet.

Seymour & Heather

7. The Maltese Festival(Part One)

A few months ago, we flew to Sliema, Malta for a three-day street-art festival. We should say up front that Malta is not exactly one of our favourite places. The beaches are the worst we've ever seen - a few grains of wind-blown sand on top of pock-holed rock. Transportation is terrible - traffic jams go on forever and buses may pass you by because they're already full-up. Restaurants are expensive and your reward for the extra cost is an inordinately long wait for service. Meanwhile, the island-nation is rapidly becoming a Russian enclave.

But, they say you have to suffer for your art. We guess that applies to art fans as well as artists. The festival, which was poorly organized and didn't really take off until the last day, at least featured some exceptionally good and unique street art. Also the blue sea lent a colourful backdrop to some of the artwork, as well as an unofficial theme to the festival: sea creatures and birds. Even better, the best murals from the inaugural festival in 2013 were preserved, so it was like seeing two-years of festivals in one.

This week we're going to focus on our favourites from 2013. Next post we'll look at the best of 2014.

Telmo Miel is the synthesized name of two Dutch street artists who usually paint together - Telmo Pieper and Miel Krutzmann. They like to paint big and they like to paint bold. And with two murals held over on the Sliema waterfront promenade, they're our kings of the 2013 festival.

Sea Puppy is the alter ego of street artist Christian de Sousa Jensen. He's originally from Denmark but now lives in Malta.

Widdershins, which translates to "in a direction different to the usual" is the name used by Malta's Nel Pace. As we've mentioned before, we like artists who aren't afraid to tackle social issues.

Another Maltese artist is Twitch. He's been practicing his craft for over 20 years and this is his take on Odysseus and the Cyclops. We like the way Odysseus' hand is about to crush a local resident.

Sofles from Australia and Mr. Dheo from Portugal combined on this artwork, so we're not sure if the unfortunate chap below is drowning in the Atlantic or being munched by a Great White down under.



Some artists seem to do equally well regardless of the size or type of canvas. Local Justink's (aka Justin Bonnici) is both a street artist and tattoo master.

We haven't been able yet to track down the name of the highly talented artist behind the colourful portrait below - but we're still looking.

Ditto for the artist behind this one:

That's it for Sliema, 2013. In our next post we'll hop into our time machine and leap forward to 2014.