BSA is in Finland this week to see firsthand the work of UPEART, an expansive mural art festival in its third iteration. Unique for its geographical breadth as well as it’s curatorial depth, UPEART has quietly revealed its amazing strengths without being self-aggrandizing or showy, slowly transforming cities and towns across the entire country with consultation of the locals and an eye toward the incredible international. Come with us this week as we traverse the country with you.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1. Mantra in Hyvinkää
2. Isaac Cordal in Espoo
3. Sainer in Helsinki
4. Eero Lampinen in Helsinki
BSA Special Feature: Scenes from UPEART this Week
This week BSA had the privilege of touring the sites from the mural arts program called UPEART in Finland which continues to showcase the work of many artists from graffiti/Street Art culture, their work now often morphing into public art. While on the road from city to city in this Nordic country full of natural lakes, forests and sparkling clean cities during the advent of fall, we also caught some past and present murals as well as a few artists in action. Here are a few quick home-made videos to share with BSA readers what we found.
Mantra in Hyvinkää
French entomologist and former graffiti writer Mantra studies insects – here specifically butterflies and a large moth that are all found in this region of the world. We found him just as he was finishing his newest work for UPEART in Hyvinkää.
Isaac Cordal in Espoo
Spanish Street Artist and sculptor Isaac Cordal has begun his nearly surreptitious installations of his concrete figures here above Finnish heads. Often businessmen, they contemplate existentially as you walk by them a number of times during your daily travails – until one day you discover them.
Read more here: Eero Lampinen at UPEA Art Festival 2018 – Finland. Dispatch 2
Sainer in Helsinki
Polish artist Sainer completed a massive portrait here in Helsinki this week on the side of a multi-story building – yet he tells us that he is less concerned with the mystery woman in the center than his is with the planes and palette that back her.
Read more here: UPEA Art Festival 2018 – Finland. Dispatch 1 – Sainer
Eero Lampinen in Helsinki
Helsinki native, illustrator and graphic designer Eero Laminen is at work on his second large scale mural here behind a complex scaffolding. We walked with him during a break to see the characters that he is imagining for this neighborhood.
Read more here: Eero Lampinen at UPEA Art Festival 2018 – Finland. Dispatch 2
Other Articles You May Like from BSA:
It’s a "good news" day! A perfect sunny spring day to flip through the newspaper while sitting at the windowsill and enjoy the gentle breezes that will lead us to summer. Olek. Virginia MOCA. April...
Times are tough but so are you. Such a New York sentiment and at the heart of it we believe in our fellow New Yorkers and people in general to pull through this series of cavalcading catastrop...
Owen Dippie has been restless lately in Brooklyn, cooling his heels and trying to stay invisible like a ninja while he waits for his big opportunity to slaughter a wall. He’ll need 5 days of good weat...
As lines continue to blur in fields of art and technology (and everything else) it is easier to see Street Art as an online/on-street diary, a forum for speech making, a laboratory for testing ideas, ...
A young master painting in the Old Master vein, perhaps, this Spanish poet captures something between the past and the future. Sebas Velasco is not yet 6 years out from his Masters in painting, yet h...