Garston does Culture
It was all happening at East Street Arts in Garston Last Friday
8 Artists.
8 short Hours.
80 meter square exhibition space.
The paint was squeezed to the very bottom of tubes, spray enamels were exhausted and creative sparks bounced off the walls of Liverpool’ newest Arts venue, one artist even taking up sticks and moving outside with her panels. The walls were transformed by an assortment of street artists putting the studio space, exhibition venue and performance space firmly on the map.
Kieran Gorman put in a fast and efficient performance, a veteran of street art his graffiti piece took shape quickly dominating the first vision of the new space. He gave us classic ‘Gorman’ use of a dark background with a mixture of lights and tones, dripping paints to produce an electrifying image. Originally from Edinburgh, Kieran founded Zap Graffiti in Liverpool in the mid-nineties. In this they promote graffiti as a positive art form, offering classes for all ages . Kieran has worked on many street art projects, he was one of 4 artists involved in the recent murals on the Littlewoods Buildings in addition to shutter art in the very same Garston. A delight to watch we had Liverpool’ answer to the almighty Banksy in the former supermarket.
Graham Smillie has been a prominent figure in the Liverpool Art World for a number of years. Now based at East Street Arts in Garston his practice compasses visual arts and photography. Pop culture is key to his art forms, photographing bands and exhibition at Arena for the 2014 Threshold festival are highlights from the last few years. His piece for comprises of an expression of his left wing views, using the iconic red star associated with communist ideology. In this, he raises issues around replacing trident, evicting families from housing schemes, nursing costs, tuition fees and he identifies key Political figures. His final statement:
If you can find the money to kill people
You can find the money to help people
Encapsulates his views on the current political party leadership in today’ Britain. A strong statement piece from an artist who can turn his attention to different aspects of visual arts practice.
Alison Little was here to present us with work of a new style. In this, she combined painterly techniques of fine arts practise to produce graphical works. She submerged the use of text with texturing methods and building up layers of transparencies to create the effect similar to that an old fashioned dot matrix home printer famed in the 1980’s. Pixelization, stencilling and random layout formed this retro graphics piece, the statement ‘Art, Culture, Garston, Now’ drawing our attention. The use of off centred lettering gave the text the impression of almost suspended in the Blue, murky background. Subject matter key to the piece, representing a vision for regeneration in Garston.
The Final Outcome: after one short day in this pop-up, but colossal exhibition space? A whale casually swimming out from the walls, bubbles sauntering from his blowhole. More sci-fi inspired graffiti one from a co-member at Zap Graffiti making sure there was still light in the dark. Post-Acropolictic rendering of a closed church, two bird-like figure and ‘Religion is a Plague’ great us from a far corner. A rather colourful seascape showing us that everything is alive deep in the ocean. Making the most of the move outside we had a quasi nature-inspired piece, fishing off with the magnificence of a tattoo-clad beauty staring directly at us.
A delight to inspire all, East Street Arts looks to bring Arts and Culture to Garston.
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