Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.

Now screening :
1. RONE Wrecks a Mansion in Melbourne

2. Vegan Flava: The taste of fresh water

3. Vegan Flava: Foot prints in the snow

4. Nina Chanel Abney’s “Colorfully Seductive, Deceptively Simple” Art at ICA Boston

BSA Special Feature: RONE Wrecks a Mansion in Melbourne

You know that a Street Artist is heading toward serious consideration as a collectible artist, no, painter, when they begin invoking the imagery and trappings of European so-called classicism. Here Rone temperately unveils the sweeping view of an estate, the tinkling of grand ivories, the complex mourning of strings, the long veiled windows of the sitting room. It all serves as a set piece for a portrait of the light-skinned royal. This one takes the entire wall and has no gilded frame. But it does have drips, so you know we’re keeping it real, bro.

No candalabras, you ask? Hang in there, Whitaker, they’re coming.

A secret installation inside the Burnham Beeches mansion in Sherbrooke, Victoria, the artist has a velvet crush on the ghosts who may still live here. He sets the stage for their return, and invites you to tour the handsome estate just east of Mellbourne. Bring your gin and vermouth, darling, and enjoy the EMPIRE, while it lasts.

RONE “EMPIRE”

Fresh Water and Foot Prints from Vegan Flava

Switching hemispheres, we fly to lake Översjön in Stockholm and find Vegan Flava writing in the snow, contemplating existence.  First he sets the pristine stage of this two chapter story. Or rather nature does. 

Then he defiles the crystalline palette with aerosol (biodegradeable black chalk), smudging matter together like a charcoal portraitist. As the camera pulls away we see the portrait, or relic in the snow.

“How we produce food, consume, and the burning of fossil fuels leaves the footprints of collapsed ecosystems,” he says, “melting the worlds glaciers, dead ocean floors, logged and burned forests, dirty air and waters.”

Vegan Flava: The taste of fresh water

Vegan Flava: Foot prints in the snow

Nina Chanel Abney’s “Colorfully Seductive, Deceptively Simple” Art

Sometimes the most impactful art is the kind that begins the conversation with you and can go deeper with you if you would like it to, but can stay on the surface if that is all you can countenance on that particular day.

Perhaps the rapid romance that fans have had with muralist Nina Chanel Abney is her self-described approach of creating “deceptively simple investigations of contemporary cultural issues.” Currently on exhibition at ICA Boston, her work is described by the organizer as “Deeply invested in creating imagery that is legible and accessible, Nina Chanel Abney (b. 1982, Chicago) is known for weaving colorful geometric shapes, cartoons, language, and symbols into chaotic and energetic compositions.”

Also; systemic racism, police violence, unjust incarceration, white privilege.

When you are ready to go there, she will too. Ready? Let’s go!