Nuart Aberdeen Line Up Revealed

Its a pleasure to be heading back to Aberdeen for our third festival in the Granite City, a home from home and a city that’s quickly adopted previous years artworks as its own. In year one we tested the waters bringing a host of tried and tested Nuart Festival veterans to the table while year two saw us look a little closer at the Scottish scene, bringing original Aberdeen street artist Elki back to produce one of his largest pieces to date on the streets he once called home. So how do we follow up for year three?

Well we’re delighted to announce a stellar line up that brings some of the top artists in the field, along with a few break through names for this years festival. The first artist to be announced is Jan Vormaan whose LEGO brick street interventions caused waves across the internet a few years back.  Also announced we have stencil artists Anders Gjennestad aka Strøk, Nuart mainstay Dotmasters and Norwegian stencil mistress Hama Woods.

Along with these artist’s we welcome Nuart Festival alumni Axel Void to the mix. In the field of muralism, few bring a stronger set of visual aesthetics as evidenced by his piece for Banksy’s Dismaland theme park in 2015 and we’re excited to be bringing him to Scotland for the first time. Our next artist needs no introduction having helped kick start the UK street art scene, we give you Ben Eine! From the early days writing graffiti to his single piece letters in London and what was an emerging scene to having paintings in The White House, Eine and his distinctive play on words have travelled far and wide, sometimes to raise awareness of important social issues and sometimes just to poke fun.

After an exciting visit to Stavanger in 2018, we’re bringing Ememem for a bit of pothole busting. With the goal of helping us rediscover the city, Ememem will be transforming pot-holes and cracks in the pavement into puddles of colour through his unique interventions. And from walls to pot holes we move to electrical boxes and the insightful work of Evol. Whilst walking down the street, you might do a double take as one of these seemingly innocuous gray boxes takes on a new life as a mini block of high rise flats, home numerous unknown minature occupants. We’re big fans of Evol and you’ll find many a high rise on the streets of  our twin city, Stavanger.

Another new addition to the street of Stavanger comes from UK artist Helen Bur. Travelling far and wide painting in numerous countries, Helen’s practice see’s her taking a more traditional approach to her painting, whether in a make shift studio or painting on a gable end, its the people and their stories that interests Helen. We’re delighted to be working with Hush for his first Nuart Aberdeen visit. Hush aims to combine street art with more traditional art practices; fusing traditional Eastern art with Western traditions of action painting and graffiti. The results are truly stunning!

We’re delighted to introduce Julio Anaya Cabanding to the Nuart family with his traditional landscape paintings which appear in very untraditional settings. Preferring to take up residence in abandoned factories and spaces, Julio explores the relationships between place, painting and art history through his finely tuned painting style, at once at home in the gallery and the places your mum told you not to go! Rounding out this years festival we have two of the biggest names in street art and welcome Smug & VHILS to Nuart Aberdeen. Both artists who need no introduction are both portrait specialist although using very different techniques. We had the pleasure of working with Smug on two large scale pieces in Stavanger to raise awareness and to celebrate the fantastic work of colleagues at ATTENDE.

When we see street art become more and more recognised by big galleries and museums VHILS name is never far off. His arresting street portraits, literally carved into buildings and masonry leave the viewer in awe, both of his skill and the physical nature of the works. With so many rich stories, we look forward to exploring these works with the people of Aberdeen.

It’s an honour for us to be working with this incredible team of artists and we’re excited to be bringing them to Aberdeen, many for their first visit to Scotland and we’re sure they’ll receive a warm welcome. As with every festival, both in Aberdeen and in Stavanger, we’re afforded the opportunity to look at the current state of street art practice and we hope these artists will add something to the conversation both in Aberdeen and on the international stage. While some are well known we always look at emerging voices and artists as the boundary lines between street art, contemporary art and muralism become increasingly blurred.

But these actions become pointless unless the artists have something to say. We believe these artists do and some of them will be shouting their message from the rooftops of Marischal College and beyond. We can’t wait Aberdeen, see you in April!

For more information on each of the artists check out the ARTIST’s section here.