Nuart Aberdeen 2018 II

Nuart Aberdeen 2018 has just finished and this is the second part in our recap of an increasingly popular and successful event in the Granite city. The weather was definitely a big help in attracting the crowds to the opening event on Saturday with spring in full bloom with city bathed in sunshine.

Amongst the walking tours, b-boys and girls and live music there was the first viewings of the newly finished murals by Bordalo II, Bortusk Leer, Ernest Zacharevic, Nimi & RH74, Hyuro and the Globel Bros.

First up is the stunning work of Portuguese artist Bordalo III. Across just three days (which definitely caught me out) Bordalo created yet another 3D sculpture masterpiece made from trash and end of life materials. The piece of a unicorn, the Scottish national animal would you believe, reminding us all about the fate of endangered species and also how we treat the world and our resources in general.

Amsterdam resident Bortusk Leer was also in town covering the city with his playful paste-ups. Bortusk also created a large mural on the roof garden of a local shopping centre, the piece which was essentially his fun colourful monster characters drawn over newspapers and pasted over a heavily billboarded wall. The roof garden and brightly coloured wall was the perfect backdrop for his chalk don’t chalk workshop on the Sunday, allowing children and adults to go wild with chalk on the concrete walkways.

The duo of Nimi and RH74 were also in the city to create a huge mural (I was getting vertigo just looking at the scissor lift) of the green lady of Crathes Castle. There was a myth when I was a child of a green lady who stalked the grounds of Crathes castle and could find you through the bathroom sinks at your home or school. Let it be known that I never wanted to visit Crathes as a child.

Seagulls are pretty prominent in Aberdeen and the piece by Ernest Zacharevic featured Aberdeen’s feathered friends on an even larger scale than real life. The large scale mural depicts a child playing amongst two giant seagulls, not that uncommon in Aberdeen.

Argentinian artist Hyuro created a piece in the city’s green with two female figures who seem to be both embracing and fighting at the same time. As you can see the characters shirts are stuck together, the artists take on the relationship between Scotland and England.

Glasweigan duo the Globel Bros headed up north to do their first ever gable end mural. This piece definitely got the residents of Aberdeen talking and was a firm favourite amongst all the locals I spoke with. This mural also referenced the ever present Aberdeen Seagulls but this time in a very humours manner with the wall now a piece of advertising for a super scurry (scurry is local dialect for seagull) action figure who threatens to steal your chips… an all too common danger on nights out in Aberdeen believe me.