Coffee to promote art and the local area at the fourth edition of Festiwall, the international street art festival.
It appears in front of everybody’s eyes. Sometimes, you get a glimpse of it through alleys. The most alert might understand its meaning, others its artistic beauty. We are talking about street art: maybe the most democratic and social contemporary art form of our times. It is not only used to regenerate an urban area, but also to promote new artistic expressions within everybody’s reach. A bit like coffee: a democratic drink, which is not denied to anybody, and which has become, throughout history, an opportunity to make or talk about art.
Moak has been doing it for years by promoting a good quality coffee and everything around it related to culture: literature, photography, music and visual arts. A key that encourages the company to support cultural initiatives, especially if they are represented in the local area, such as the FestiWall. From September 10th to 16th, the international festival of public art will turn the city of Ragusa into an open-air construction site for the fourth time. The protagonists will be the artists and some buildings of the northern part of the city.
We went to see them – in the hot sun of an unusual warm September – from Viale Europa to Via Archimede up to Viale dei Platani. In between some sips of coffee with the artists, we witnessed the extraordinary work in progress, which brings not only bystanders to conversations, but also makes the walls, the art is performed on, talk.
The artists
TELMO MIEL (Netherlands) is a Dutch duo created in 2012 by Telmo Pieper and Miel Krutzmann. The two started to do murals together, putting together single pieces of a unique work. Their works combine painting and spray art, surrealism and hyperrealism. They create complex creatures and imaginary sceneries – referring to the human and animal world – featuring positivity, humour and a touch of romanticism.
PASTEL (Argentina) is an Argentinian artist and architect. The basic element of his work is the flora, which acquires a strong symbolic character as it related to the place the artist is drawing. An expedient to explore social-political differences, to reflect on human nature and the environment you live. The connection to architecture can be seen as well: the perspective and the environment make his paintings become a source of inspiration for the places they are created in.
MOHAMED L’GHACHAM (Spain), painter of Matarò (Barcelona) born in Tangier (Morocco) in 1993. The main source of inspiration of this work is the reality surrounding him: he immortalizes daily life scenes in pictures and then puts them on canvas or walls. His brush strokes recall impressionism and contemporary figurative painting. Thanks to his diverse references and his complex painting technique, he is seen as one of the most interesting street artists of his generation.
HENSE (USA), alias Alex Brewer, is considered one of the most influential abstract painters of the US. He creates monumental composition, incorporating lines, forms and gestures in his works. Hence transforms the existing settings and surfaces dramatically, merging his work into the landscape. The use of geometric forms, non-modulated colours and rigid edges is in perfect combination with the creation of spontaneous, organic signs and vertiginous lies. The artist summarizes his formal research by means of the combination of techniques he learnt through writing and graffiti, and the typical formal language of abstract painting.
CLEMENS BEHER (Germany) The German artist created two site-specific installations for FestiWall, featuring old vent pipes doors turned into real art works as well as recycled materials taken from the Lanificio, headquarters of the FestiWall. The former textile factory from the sixties will have a tight event schedule over the whole week including concerts, dj sets, workshops and talks.
ALEX FAKSO (Italy) started his career in the early nineties as a graffiti photographer and skateboarder. One of his most famous projects is “Heavy Metal”, which tells about the feelings and difficult situations graffiti artist paintings on public transportation means had to face. The authentic and rough pictures tell about the lively atmosphere and impressions of a parallel world that breathes and moves through the darkest bends of the city and often remains hidden.
In “Unseen Places”, the personal exhibit designed for #FestiWall2018, the artist presents a series of original images taken between 2013 and today, which give the opportunity to explore places that are usually impossible to see.
This year’s 6 mural works are added to the 16 walls of the past editions.
