Magda_C is back with another NZ update – this time she’s grabbed a bunch of pics of all the latest work around Auckland, from KRoad (Karangahape Road, but everybody calls it K Road) and the inner city suburbs of Ponsonby and Newmarket.
Some great New Zealand street art talent including Component, Cut Collective, Dager, EnforceOne, Enzo & Nio, Misery and Sofia Mainsen who Magda tells us
"Sofia Minson is a fine artist – and I think this is her only outside piece. It is a paste up of a painting she did of NZ musician Tiki Taane, consisting of multiple pieces. it’s HUGE and must have been quite a mission to get done!"
We have another great new controbutor joining us this week, with Magda C sending us a bunch of great shots from over in NZ. Magda will be keeping us updated on what’s happening across the ditch – massive thanks and welcome! First , some of the finest New Zealand graffiti and street artists …
"The bulk of these pics were taken at Corban’s Estate Art Centre Open weekend in March when the TMD (The Most Dedicated) crew were hard at work in the outside graffiti area of the estate."
Artists painting the spot were Berst, Askew, Mark Henare, Haser, Deus, Dager, Benjamin Work and a bunch of others from the TMD crew (and friends).
Aucklands K Road is infamous for its street art, and this group show, gathering together some of NZs coolest and finest, looks like it’ll be a great showcase of work – live!
As part of the running First Thursdays events, Alfresco will be a “rad street art festival up and down K’Rd, 10+ walls being painted by 10+ street artists from all around the country. Come watch these artists do what they do best LIVE in person and watch K’Road be transformed with colour across our walls”
“Karangahape Road is a long time home to art and cultural activity that doesn’t fit amongst the typical mainstream vernacular. It abounds with mythical figures and local legend from across multiple generations.
It is an area of Auckland that is fighting to retain all that is good about grit and grime, to celebrate the eccentric and erroneous. All the while ensuring that it remains a relevant and vital creative community that is recognised for its value as a rich depository of cultural artefact and activity.
All Fresco is both a response to the traditions of Krd, and to the paucity of street art in the Krd district. The character of a community is reflected in many things including the evidence of an engaged and ongoing public dialogue. And in an area noted for it’s character, a distinct lack of sites hosting relevant and revolving street art is something to be addressed.
The value of this event isn’t just in the opportunity it provides to artists, or even
the spectacle and experience it offers spectators. It’s in reestablishing and re-affirming the qualities of a part of our city that makes it the most well know, most notorious and fabled strip in the country.”
Thats a lot of wall space to be painted up on one single night, K’Rd is going to look mad!The week before his solo show, even HaHA will also be in Auckland on the night doing some live art for the opening!
There will also be an exhibition on the 2nd May at Method & Manners studios. Head down and see it if you’re anywhere near the North Island!
Who: BMD, Eno, Erin Forsyth, Deus, Dagar, Mica Still, Wert159, Xoe Hall, HaHa, What: Alfresco street art festival (First Thursdays event) Where: Up and down K Road and Method and Manners studios, 6 Upper Queen Street, Auckland When: Exhibition opens at 6pm til 9pm on 2nd May, and the paiting goes on from the 3rd, 4th and 5th.
As you know, we do all the stuff here on the website without any real expectation in return, but there are costs associated with it all … so if you’ve ever wanted to directly help support us, now’s your chance!
First up is the classic Invurt T from Pierre Lloga – Pierre did this one for us prior to the Outpost Project up in Sydney, and its the shirt we have rocked the most over the past two years – big fans. Available in colours, as well as in both Pullover and Zip up hoodies.
Second up, is of course, our now logo from the man himself, Hancock (also check out @hancock_art on instagram). This is the same graphic from both here on the website, as well as on all of our stickers and other swag – we love this design! Also available in hoodies, yep!
The third shirt design, is from the hand of our friend Mikaela Jane (@mikaelajane on instagram) – we haven’t released this logo before and this sees its first outing! We love her custom type and we love our orange on purple (though there are other colours available also)! Yep, there’s hoodies available as well!
Lastly, I have actually gone through and put a whole bunch of my own personal artwork on a bunch of shirts as well – okay, so not Invurt related, but I hope you think there’s some cool designs of some creatures, nonetheless!
Anyways, head over to Redbubble to see them all and thanks to Hancock, Pierre and Mikaela Jane for their designs – and, again (regardless) to you – for reading and for all your continual support!
Dean Sunshine has been a pretty busy man of late, what with getting his book, Land Of Sunshine, ready to launch and all. We’ve missed his Top 10s over this busy period of his, but he’s back with his favourite work from around the Melbourne streets in the past month.
Check out Deans picks for what he thought was great around the ‘Burn during October, and keep an eye out for the book – Ive seen it, and held it in my hands, and it is fkn fantastic.
1. AWOL – North Melbourne 2. Heesco – Windsor 3. Eko Nugroho Hosier lane 4. Makatron – Fitzroy 5. Daf Cru NZ -Union lane CBD 6. El Seed – Hosier Lane 7. Kaff-eine – Prahran 8. ELK – Fitzroy 9. Calm – Prahran 10. Klara – Brunswick
We don’t often post too much news here on the website, so please excuse this break from our regular services.
We’ve been slightly remiss with some of our updates lately, due to the fact that we’ve been hell busy on a variety of different projects. We do apologise for this, as we haven’t had much time lately to get to everything we usually would – but, it’s all for the better! Amongst things here and elsewhere, we’ve also been helping Dean Sunshine out with his upcoming book launch, moving our studio and, wonderfully, we’ve just entered into some new territory with a great collaborative project with out friends over at Nothing To Nobody magazine … so, read on!!
We’re pretty excited about this one, and we’ve been looking forward to sharing it with you properly for a while now.
For some time, I’ve harboured a wish to begin a print magazine. I’ve been writing and editing about art, music and general creativity for well over ten years now in various forms and for various different avenues, and starting up a print project has always been the dream. Given that it’s a huge endeavour, I had never gotten much beyond the planning stages for the project I had in mind (which is still bubbling away!).
By a random chance catch-up conversation at Secret Walls in Melbourne, Jo Jette from Nothing to Nobody fame told me of a project she’d begun working on – it sounded great, we talked some more, and, long and short of it, I’m now the Editor for our new print venue – Damn It! Magazine.
"DAMN IT! is a triannual, 96 page, limited edition magazine, whose staff work for smiles, mainly as we can’t afford to pay them yet! Instead we put every cent we have into the publication, so that each issue will kick the can of the previous one.
We’re firm believers in the spoon full of sugar mantra, DAMN IT! magazine features juicy articles on super talented peeps – illustrators, photographers, typographers, painters, couture designers, writers, and other creative types as well as reporting on the more serious happenings in the world.
Each issue will also shine a Bat-signal on some of the amazingly selfless work done by caring peeps setting up and running not-for-profits all round the world. We’re not afraid to put our money where our damn big mouths are, and we pledge to donate $0.50 from each copy of DAMN IT! sold to the not-for-profit we feature in that issue.
The name DAMN IT! was chosen as the expression can have both positive and negative connotations. For example: “Damn it! That’s some good cider!” or “Damn it, I just trod in a pile of ginareinheart!”
We’d Love Your Help
Myself and Jo Jette have been working on various magazines, online publications and print magazines for over ten years. On our first foray together into our new project, we are looking for a little help to get us started with our own. We have started a campaign over at Indigogo, and we are looking for a few generous donations to kickstart the whole thing. This is a long term project for myself and Jo, and we’re really looking forward to it. Damn It!, like Invurt and Nothing To Nobody will be a labour of love, and any help thrown our way would be hugely appreciated and would mean a lot to us both!
DAMN IT! Will always remain limited edition so it’s special – a collector’s item if you will, and we also promise to limit the number of advertisements to 5 per issue – never more. By helping us raise the money to print DAMN IT! you’ll also be a part of making these great things happen – you’ll be part of the DAMN IT!! community and not just a ‘reader’. Plus you’ll have our never-ending thanks and undying love to keep you warm at night!
Of course, we don’t expect something for nothing, so incentives include a whole range of great swag – issues of Damn It! Magazine, toys, custom designed Damn It! t-shirts by prominent Melbourne artist Hancock and apparel from our good friends Boy Wolf are all up for grabs when you throw us your support.
After two years at our Prahran studio, we’ve packed up and headed over to Richmond to join the guys over at SafeHouse Studios. If you haven’t heard of Safehouse, well, chances are you probably actually have!
The crew at the studio have been responsible and had their hands amongst a huge range of shows and events across Melbourne since they all got together, and comprise some of Melbournes leading design, aerosol, printmaking and art project management talent. Dangerfork, It Stands Out, Graffix Creative, MT Design, MV Communication and DJW Creative all have homes at Safehouse, and now so do we …
"The SafeHouse is based in Richmond. We are a creative studio that specialises in design & art-based productions.
SafeHouse is not only a collective of artists & designers but also a mixed lolly bag of creative businesses. The Studio encompasses many traits and individual insignias of various art, design & production facets. All involved at the studio seek to benefit as a group from each others experience & knowledge as a whole. Through our mixed specialties we are able to hit the ground running with virtually any creative project or artwork at hand.
The individuals who work from the studio and/or operate their own creative businesses all come well trained in their respective fields. As a whole the SafeHouse is on the forefront of modern art & design. SafeHouse prides itself on strong design aesthetics & also professional project management, brillant production & outstanding results. We have a proven track record of getting what needs to be done, done… with the best possible outcome & in the timeline provided.
SafeHouse is a sanctuary for various urban designers & artists that have chosen to infuse their skillsets & work together for a greater creative community based calling.
The people that make up the SafeHouse team all come from different backgrounds and their skills include: Creative Management, Design, Web Design, Animation, Art Direction, Advertising, Campaigns, Strategy, Marketing, Guerilla Marketing, Branding, Brand Strategies, Photography, Fine Art, Illustration, Exhibitions, Product Launches, Product Promotions, Exhibition Curation, Furniture Design, Signage, Shop Fit-Outs, Fine Art Murals, Graffiti Murals, Graffiti Management, Printing, Fine Art Printing, Screen-Printing and the list goes on, and on, and on."
We can’t tell you how happy we are with our new home – we’re looking forward to our stay there, and looking forward to bringing you more news, events and other cool shit from our studio mates.
Great times ahead, all, thankyou for your continuing support!!!
Late last year, we heard about a great little humanitarian project put on by a group of artists – Little Lotus. Having attained their fundraising goal, the artist then headed over to the Thailand/Burmese border to teach art to a whole slew of children in need – the results of which were extraordinary, and touching.
That, however, wasn’t the end of it. Not only have they also produced a short documentary of the whole project, but the artists involved, and a bunch of their friends, are now putting on a show in Wellington at the New Zealand Portrait Gallery – read on for a whole heap of cool stuff about it …
"[Little Lotus exhibition was] largely inspired by our recent trip in the border of Thailand and Burma, where 13 artists from the US and NZ got together to be volunteer art teachers last December 2011. We painted murals and taught art classes to these beautiful kids, who work at the nearby rubbish dump, or had been orphaned by AIDS or rescued from trafficking.
Around 30 artists have contributed to the exhibit, including Askew, Misery, Peap, Flox, and Sofia Minson. Artists who took part in the 2011 project and will be part of the exhibit include international artists Sheryo, The Yok, Drypnz, Angry Woebots, Meghan Geliza and J-Rryu.
The Little Lotus Project documentary and EP will also be released on the night, as well as photography from Pat Shepherd, Cleo Barnett and James Bushell, and drawings by the Burmese kids themselves. All proceeds will go to the ongoing welfare of these kids.
Also, check out the newly released Little Lotus documentary below …
Also check out a few of the pics from the whole project and a little preview of Meghan Gelizas work for the show – love it.
Who: Askew, Misery, Peap, Flox, and Sofia Minson, Sheryo, The Yok, Drypnz, Angry Woebots, Meghan Geliza, J-Rryu & more. Photography from Pat Shepherd, Cleo Barnett and James Bushell, and drawings by the Burmese kids themselves. What: Little Lotus Exhibition Where: New Zealand Portrait Gallery (Shed 11), Wellington, NZ When: Exhibition opens Friday October 12th and runs until October 18th.
Check out the Little Lotus homepage for more information.
Rightio! We’re back with our weekly Transmissions video wrapup, and we’ve got some great ones for you this week – watch on!
This video takes our favourite for the week – 2Rise released this piece, and its a cracker. A nice little guide for anyone who needs a marker, stat – this is Will It Bomb?
Okay, so its art, and its out on the street, and there were street artists involved – if you’ve been in Melbourne you’ve seen all the elephants around … now, check out the video!
Here’s a bit of a blast from the past from Channel 31 – this little piece was done in the lead up to the Commonwealth games, and its just been posted to vimeo – featuring Pheelix talking about how shit it was that the city decided to buff over everything in the lead up to the games … as well as appearances from Nicholas Hansen from Rash talking about the film.
Sprinkles got together with Analog for an unlikely after party – this video is the result …
MTN Austraia is starting to bust out here in Australia, and they have a great little series starting – this first video is from Days One – awesome.
Speaking of Sprinkles, the man has been pretty damn busy! He also did this video with Ante Magazine. Mad.
Sidewayz 2012 is opening up tonight, and here’s a bit of a preview for the show!
Over in New Zealand, Shake and Stray got busy – a nice way to end our video wrapup for Australian and New Zealand street art and graffiti for this week, watch on, and see you next week!
We got news earlier today that NZ artist Random is having a show tomorrow night at Monster Valley Gallery, and it sounds like a lot of fun.
We actually did a pretty cool interview with the man before his solo show last year, and found his multidisciplinary, street art, graff derived work pretty damn intriguing. This next show will be something a bit different – Random is heading off overseas to Toronto next month, so he will be clearing out a whole heap of work before he leaves – and all the work will be under $100.
If you’re in NZ, head over to his show – absolute bargain prices for some great art, and, well, any extra dollars will surely help him in his travels to T-Dot, – where we’re certain he’ll be painting up a storm
Who: Random What: Loose Change solo show Where: Monster Valley Gallery, Level 1 236 Domain Rd, Entrance via Valley Rd, Mt Eden, Auckland, NZ When: Show opens Thursday 28th June from 6pm til 8pm
Last year we did an interview with Laura Chong, one of the two masterminds behind a cool and fresh new magazine, Six Years Later. At the time, they’d just been celebrating the release of issue #1 of the mag and they’d just done a call outs for submissions of artwork for their second issue, this time with the theme "Surface".
Several months down the track, and issue #2 is now available! Having had a good look through it, we can say that the wait was definitely worth it – this is a really limited edition magazine, chock full of amazing artwork and creative imagery.
To help celebrate their release, we have two copies of the new magazine to give away! All you have to do, is to be a little creative and take a photo of the words:
You can draw it, you can paint it, you can write it, you can stick it on the street or mark it on your hand. Take a photo of it, then just head to our fb page, post it on our wall and share it over at the Six Years Later page to show them some love from all of us! Alternatively, you can also enter by instagraming it and tag both @facter and @6ylmag.
The most innovative photo will win! See how ridiculously easy it is with this finely honed example we mocked up in two minutes on our lunch container …
Easy, right? The winner, will not only receive a copy of the latest issue of Six Years Later #2, but a very rare, now out of print copy of Issue #1 as well!Aalso in the pack, will be some stickers from several artists courtesy of our vault, both printed AND hand made just for you! But wait, there’s more! The runner up will get something too! A copy of Issue #2! Sweet! Plus, on top of all that, we’ll post up the winning entries and other images that we loved right here on the website.
Competition will run until Friday 8th of June when we’ll announce our favourite pics, and the winners of the giveaway!
Competition is open to anyone, anywhere! So get in there, and show the 6YL crew some Invurt love!!
Here at Invurt we like art of all shapes, forms and styles – as long as its meandering through new and uncharted territory, and pushing the boundaries of what we perceive as art, it’ll be on our radar.
Tiffany Singh is one such artist. Although not what you would traditionally call a "street artist", she does, however, create work that is often to be found there. With vibrant colour, and elements that directly invite the viewer to not only witness, but to interact with it, this New Zealand artists work has complimentary aspects of both beauty and function.
Our sometime NZ correspondant Cleo Barnett is currently here in Melbourne checking out a bunch of stuff for the Next Wave Festival. She spoke to Tiffany about her motives, explorations and got this great little interview for us. Read on, and be engaged …
Name, age, creative medium?
Tiffany Singh – 33 – Participatory Installation Based Artist.
Where are you based from? How has this impacted your art form?
I live in NZ but have spent years living in India. I am Samoan, Maori and Indian, and my ethnicity informs my work in relation to the sacred, ceremony and ritual. These conceptual elements are the basis of what my work is based on. My aesthetic is largely influenced by Eastern notions of offering and daily practice. The works materiality is often based around objects that are found at sacred sites or the everyday healing object such as spices, flowers, and holi powder. It engages audience participation and invites co-authorship by opening up the work for the viewer to realise.
In the case of Drums Between The Bells, the audience is asked to come and deconstruct my installation by removing a bell string from the ribbons and reinstalling the string of bells in their favourite sacred place in Melbourne. The audience is then requested to upload a picture or a video, and document the bells location onto Google maps so the bells can be traced and refound. If a bell is located it can be moved, in the hope of creating a living work of art.
Its a conversation about what sites are considered special, or sacred, in a contemporary society, and it also generates a dialogue around whether a work can actually live through audience participation, and be able to develop a life span and movement of its own – outside of the initial artists install and concept.
How would you describe your art to a stranger?
Colourful, natural and open for engagement – with the hope of becoming a live entity.
What are you doing over in Melbourne?
I am apart of Next Wave Festival,and very much looking forward to realising a work that depends so much on audience participation, this is my first opened ended work, so the life expectancy of the work is very experiential for me, and its exciting to not know how the work will be resolved. Generating this work in such a vibrant and savvy city will hopefully facilitate the work and promote the enjoyment of being involved.
I’m also here to experience a new place – and, of course, meet new people.
How can we get involved?
By getting involved with the bells … moving them around and giving them a life. They will live at the Elm Tree, cnr Swanson and Collins St – you can choose your bell , take it to your sacred place and reinstall it in its new location, you can then photograph or film the bell and email the image / video of its current location to drumsbetweenthebells@gmail.com
Then, if you come across the bells at in other places, you can remove the bell and start again. Whats really interesting is that other works may happen as result, people could decide to move the bells to one site, or various selected sites, or it could be very personal – its the unknown outcomes that I am really interested in.
So, what’s next?
Up next is the 2012 Sydney Biennial, which again is a participatory install involving 3000 bamboo wind chimes.
Once again, the work invites the audience to engage and activate the work. The pilgrimage this time takes a chime from Pier 2/3 at the wharves, then take it home to decorate it, then reinstall it at building 61 on Cockatoo Island. After Sydney I have an artist residency in Bangalore, India where I’ll be learning cottage industrial and local handicraft practice, as well as engaging in public installs with local materials.
Where can we see your work?
You can see the work installed on the Elm Tree in City Square for the Next Wave Festival and at Pier 2/3 and Cockatoo Island in Sydney alternatively you can see the work online at www.tiffanysingh.com, and look out for all the bells that will, hopefully, be all over Melbourne!
Welcome to our weekly roundup of Australian and New Zealand street art, urban and underground videos! We’re fairly light on this week, but what there is is pretty damn cool …
Next up, is this great five minute mini-documentary on Anthony Lister from Arrested Motion. This video looks at his multiple visits to New York over the past year.
It’s great to keep seeing Outpost project videos popping up still, we love it – it’s a nice bit of nostalgia and gets us pumped for this years! A great little recap.
WOW! Always love seeing art which is created from a totally new perspective. Bite Collective are hosting a Group show next week for NZ Music Month, and each of the artworks is actually inspired by NZ music. Lovely and interesting! Some familiar and some faces new to us will be showing their work, and there will be live music performances at the opening by Whitireia.
Artists included in the show are:
Marty Vreede – printmaker, paper pioneer, inspirational teacher
Sheyne Tuffery – visual artist, gallery owner, fine art tutor
Christine Imlay-McLean – jeweler and creator of ‘Black Agnes’
Spring Rees – jeweler
Reweti Arapere – mixed media
The Bite Collective – Fleur Ruth, Chloe Reweti and Rachael Gannaway –printmaking and 3D
This is going to be a show of amazing diverse talents, if you’re in the area, certainly worth a peep!
Who: Askew One, Basia Smolnicki, Fleur Ruth, Chloe Rewati, Christine Imlay-Mclean, Marty Vreede, Matthew McIntyre Wilson, Nestor Opetaia, Rachael Gannaway, Reweti Arapere, Sheyne Tuffery and Spring Rees What: Hear it, See it Group Exhibition Where: Bottle Creek Gallery, Pataka, Wellington, NZ When: Show opens Thursday April 19th from 6pm
A sunny day in Wellington seems to be a rarity, so they always call for a painting day when one comes along.
The Dowse Art Museum in Wellington had its first annual party last weekend, and celebration of Lower Hutt’s new civic square last weekend, and invited the Pie-Rats crew (Jon Drypnz, PNTR and Cast) to do some live-painting.
We’re a little late getting this one off the rank (we’re running behind a bit after There’s More!) but if you haven’t seen it yet thencheck out issue #2 of the fantastic Knock Knock Magazine below – oh, and check out Issue #1 if you haven’t seen it yet!
“Knock knock magazine profiles street level emerging and established Australian and international creatives doing their thing, and doing it well.”
We haven’t seen a show from the phenomenal New Zealand artist Askew for a while, but this one coming up looks like it’d be worth the wait (and a flight over if we could spare the time!).
Askew has to count as one of the most prominent, and in our eyes, influential modern graffiti artists practicing in New Zealand today. Multitalented and seemingly always on the go, Askew is highly prolific and always has his hand in one project or another – we read his blog on a regular basis, and so should you.
"Askew One is a multi-disciplinary artist mostly renowned for his graffiti art paintings. Widely regarded as one of the New Zealand graffiti scene’s driving forces he has managed to remain at the forefront of the movement whilst working tirelessly behind the scenes in a diverse array of projects.
Although working primarily in aerosol paint, Askew is versed in graphic design, illustration, photography, publishing, music and moving image. He also collated and co-authored a book about New Zealand graffiti, ‘In-Form’ which was a Montana Book Awards finalist in 2008."
He also just released this cool video short/interview – it’s a really great insight into his work.
We can’t wait to see what comes out of this show! So feels free, if you go along, to send us some pics from the opening – pretty please? ;)
Who: Askew What: Smoke Signals solo show Where: The Australis Room, Australis House, 36 – 38 Customs St, Britomart, Auckland When: Show opens Friday 16th March to the 22nd March
Invurt webzine provides information on AustralAsian street, urban, illustrative, graffiti and other genre defying, nu-contemporary art to readers around the world. It specialises in events and artists who are working, displaying and visiting Australasia – particularly with a focus on exhibitions, live art and other events the artists are partaking in.
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