DALeast Reprise: Borås, Sweden Calls Him to Repaint His “Sky Dancer”

There are a few walls you remember over the years, and this one in Borås, Sweden stays fresh in our minds from our trip there in 2015 for the NoLimit Festival (@nolimitboras), originated by the fantastic Shai Dahan, an artist who brought street artists from around the world to this beautiful city and established it as a destination for art. That year we were blown away by the multipaneled wingspan of a wildly rendered “sky dancer” as described by artist DALeast – poetic, stunning, and fearsome all at once, its ferocity was made nearly kinetic by the chopping of panels that separated the canvas into separate slices of sky.

DALeast. Artscape Festival 2020. Borås, Sweden. (photo courtesy of Artscape)

Today we have images of a newly revisited image painted by DALeast on the very same slotted visage. “As far as I can remember, this could be the first time I painted the same wall twice,” he says about the new rendition on the city’s university library. So loved was his original, the city asked for him to come back and as part of the currently running Artscape Festival, the artist created a brand new version. He says that the new version of the mythic bird in flight has changed, perhaps reflecting his own personal changes.

“I decided to create a continuing version of the same sky dancer that’s soaring up and transforming through two stills,” he says. “The image changes through time as well as the artist. Although it appears that I haven’t done as much external work in recent years, I sense that by not doing much, I am actually doing a lot for change. At least the old habit is peeling off. While this new piece continues to call for the openness that sparked a decade ago, the gap between subject and object is becoming softer and blurrier; edges are merging into one another. The elements keep transforming and dancing through the space, becoming the space.”

DALeast. Artscape Festival 2020. Borås, Sweden. (photo courtesy of Artscape)
DALeast. Artscape Festival 2020. Borås, Sweden. (photo courtesy of Artscape)
Daleast’s original mural shot during NoLimit Festival in 2015 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Daleast’s original mural shot during NoLimit Festival in 2015 (photo © Jaime Rojo)
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