Visitors to SPECTRUM 2016 will go on a journey from one exhibition space to the next, exploring street and graffiti art from its raw beginnings in the early 1970s, to the cutting edge of what today’s best artists are delivering. We have a mind-blowing line-up of local and international artists, whose identities will initially be kept under wraps, then revealed as part of our marketing campaign.
It’s not just in literature that the pen wins out – street artists have, from the outset, utilised these chisel tipped, mark making wonders to produce the working drawings that inspire their masterpieces. Here we celebrate the humble paint and marker pen, the fundamental tool of the trade.
As you weave your way through a series of huge sheets of clear plastic you will encounter imagery painted on them by international graffiti art legend Sofles. Each sheet is a work of art in its own right but when seen from one angle will build, with the others, to form one united picture.
Selina Miles is a videographer with a serious passion for graffiti and street art, she is also the technical expertise behind Sofles’s “Limitless” video. Here she is exploring the genre from every perspective and feeding it to us through over 100 channels covering the exhibition space floor to ceiling.
Experience how graffiti art can transform a dilapidated alleyway into a place of gritty beauty. Produced by Christchurch’s foremost graffiti artists, including Jacob Yikes, Ikarus and Wongi, visitors will roam through buildings and laneways to explore their interpretation of ramshackle urban splendour
Flox, from Auckland, creates elegant and delicate representations of Kiwi flora and fauna, here her interpretation of a backcountry scene, complete with native forest, rundown old bach and bush land soundscape, is the perfect counterpoint to the urban jungle that you emerge into this room from.
A crack team of local detectives have been analysing how, in just four decades, the graffiti and street art movement has developed from simple tags through, wild style lettering, then character based artworks, to the amazing, massive murals like Owen Dippie’s Ballerina here in Christchurch.
A light at the end of a tunnel leads into our main exhibition space where huge gold frames wrap around massive artworks that run along the length of a 24 metre long, 6 metre high wall.
Beyond producing the artworks on the wall, we have also positioned 4 of our giant spray cans against each end wall and asked this year’s 8 headline artists to take on the task of decorating one.
Head out onto the streets of Christchurch to see what this year’s artists have produced for us on big walls across the city.
