4th through to Sunday 5th June between the hours of 9am-11pm. A major exhibition from some of the worlds top artists will open it's door at the View Art Gallery in Hotwells as part of the festival.
Sietske Hoekstra
Europe’s largest free urban paint festival; Upfest, is now in its fourth www. year and is preparing to take over its cultural home Bristol by welcoming www.facebook.com over 250 artists and DJs to the event www.twitter.com this summer between 4th and 5th June 2011. ‘The Urban Paint Festival’ is now firmly established as the main event for graffiti in Europe. The two day explosion of events attracts urban artists from all over the world who flock to The Tobacco Factory - the festival’s birthplace, as well as a number of locations across the city.
After a year at a temporary home in the St Pauls area of Bristol, Upfest opened the Upfest Gallery in October 2010 just up the road from the festival site, the first six months has seen individual and group shows from all Upfest Artists and Ian Phenna, Matti, Data, Louis Michel aka Masai, Nigel Oddy, Goin, K74, SPQR & Stickee. The gallery progresses with every show, the Upfest Garden and Studios open shortly and will host weekly live painting sessions. Big shows with the likes of Indigo, Lilliwenn, Julian Kimmings and Lee Ellis amongst others are planned for later in the year, it's truley going to be a crazy 2011.
Big names in national graffiti culture Don, Inkie and Spqr set up their temporary home alongside home grown talents Cheo, Jody and Lokey. Inkie, who emerged onto the UK graffiti scene, originating from Bristol, has painted alongside 3D and Banksy. He came 2nd in the 1989 World Street Art Championships and was famously arrested as the head of 72 other writers in the UK's largest ever Graffiti bust, Operation Anderson. He has since moved on to design for SEGA, Xbox and is currently an in house designer for Jade Jagger. Upfest partner Stephen Hayles explains why this has become such an integral part of the UK graffiti scene: “Bristol is established as the home of graffiti in the UK; the whole country and now even the world has attributed this to the City. We are proud to be a part of this movement and will continue to provide a platform for brand new artists to break onto the UK urban art scene. The fact that it’s free just makes it even more exciting.” Upfest takes place around the Tobacco Factory on Raleigh Road, Southville, Bristol on Saturday June
URBAN & CONTEMPORARY GALLERY
198 NORTH STREET . BRISTOL . BS3 1JF
UPFEST 11 4TH & 5TH JUNE BRISTOL, UK WWW.UPFEST.CO.UK