Mural festivals still look a little different this year. Always thoughtful but also always pushing the envelope, Nuart Festival leads efforts in restoring normalcy with mindfulness in Scotland, where Nuart Aberdeen recently concluded its latest edition. Where better than “The Granite City” to begin rebuilding on a foundation sturdy as stone? To account for continued the safety of festival staff, artists, and enthusiasts, Nuart Aberdeen shifted its model from its standard extravaganza to an intimate series of small residencies where artists visited Aberdeen to embark upon a range of new artworks reconnecting the city’s hibernating spirit with buoyancy and depth.
Given street art’s scale and revolutionary undertones, gained in part from the art form’s close association with graffiti, the medium might always evoke a marked vigor. But street art as we know it in Wynwood and Bushwick and Stavanger, Norway has matured significantly since Nuart Festival started up in 2001. Nuart stands apart, using experience to seek deeper authenticity rather than settling for one final, hard-won insight. Time can go in many different directions—it can calcify habits, or it can build knowledge.
This year, Nuart leaned into the quietude of its modifications, focusing on the theme of “Re-Connecting.” As such, the festival has invited several artists back for return trips to Aberdeen, “a literal attempt to connect artists back to Aberdeen but also to connect citizens back to a post pandemic public space,” as a press release from the festival states. Their roster includes SNIK, KMG, Henrik Uldalen, Fanakapan, and Helen Bur.
SNIK made their second trip to Aberdeen since 2018. Nuart explains that SNIK’s latest mural for the city lives on a bridge that “connects Union Street, the city’s main high street, to Aberdeen Market, a much maligned building that is now scheduled for demolition and redevelopment.” The facade’s ephemerality speaks to recent themes in SNIK’s own output. Rendered in soft, striated shadows, this mortal cherubim’s downward gaze haunts viewers as if through providence’s own mist, ephemerality personified and painted, poignantly placed on a structure that embodies connection itself.
Native Aberdonian KMG inaugurated the artist in residence series, sneaking around the city for a week to create little scenes of whimsical mischief. The artist’s “tightly stylised personalities, presented in often-raw, borderline-chaotic compositions” crawl and jump and grin from all seven of their smiling eyeballs in clean compositions bursting with activity. The archetypal interactions present throughout her characters’ activity do more than delight—they also spark dialogue.
In another area of the aesthetic spectrum, self-taught artist Henrik Uldalen made a rare return from his studio practice to the public sphere, gracing the streets of Aberdeen with a new mural. “Henrik explores the dark sides of life, nihilism, existentialism, longing and loneliness, juxtaposed with fragile beauty,” the press release from Nuart explains, noting that the artist eschews narratives for singular nuanced emotional states. Hypnotic and dark, his rock formation figure establishes comfort with enigmatic sensations.
Dorset-born, London-based painter Fanakapan spent his micro-residency bringing two decisive smiles to the city, plastered on the artist’s signature balloons and featuring a psychedelic 3-D effect that defies the viewer’s natural eye. Pulling Faces adorns the Frederick Street Clinic, an NHS building, “a fitting goodwill message for the city and its health service.” Painted freehand, this addition provides both technical and visual thrills.
UK-based Helen Bur concluded the artist in residence series with a mural that defies the bounds of her existing practice—a modern day genre painting of strong family bonds in the earthy, very human setting of a sturdy kitchen with dark walls and stocked countertops. This momentous mural follows two previously demolished works Bur painted of the same couple, Alice and Hugo, for Nuart years back—this time featuring their family’s latest addition. “This painting is a tribute to them, their endless kindness, a homage to gentle power and taking up space with softness and femininity,” Bur wrote on Instagram, also noting the mural’s focus on the unabashed grace of motherhood celebrates National Breastfeeding Week. The detail, the shadows, and the richness of the colors all make this massive undertaking a feat worth marveling.
In the spirit of pushing the envelope and fostering real “Re-Connection,” Nuart opened up the festivities beyond its esteemed headlining artists. Nuart’s Stuck Up initiative invited artists from around the world to mail artwork to Aberdeen. While heavy hitters like Aida Wilde, Jeremy Deller, Bahia Shehab, and Sam Durant anchor the endeavor, Nuart fielded envelopes and postal tubes from all over the globe, pledging to paste up every artwork (pending necessary politeness) on the 1500 foot wall they’d secured for the project. Stuck Up does even more than promoting accessible opportunities—the project also pays homage to the full array of scales street art can take.
Maybe Nuart’s kept their proprietary installations and partying on pause for the time being, but in the spirit of exploration, they’ve still crafted an edition in Aberdeen worth remembering. Their secret lies not only in conceptual agility and commitment to core principles, but the pursuit of community. It can feel like an anti-climactic conclusion to the scintillating search for coolness, but still community perseveres. Just one year ago, so many throughout society made promises to keep this insight front of mind. The doors are opening—it’s time to pony up. After all, time can go in many different directions—it can calcify habits, or it can build knowledge.
