Ardú Street Art is back in Cork — here are the artists taking park
The Ardú team pictured at one of Cork’s murals at St. Finbarr’s Road by Sligo-born artist Friz, created as part of Ardú Street Project 2021. Picture: Jed Niezgoda
Cork city is about to get three new fantastic murals as the Ardú Street Art Project prepares to make a welcome return with some very exciting artists taking on the challenge to create inspiring art.
The street project was born during lockdown in 2020, originally bringing seven of Ireland’s most respected and renowned street artists — Deirdre Breen, Maser, James Earley, Peter Martin, Shane O’Driscoll, Aches, and Garreth Joyce — together to create murals at different Cork city centre locations.
Following the success, the project continued into 2021. One of the memorable murals from last year was by Asbestos on South Main Street in Cork’s city centre. The striking mural depicts a man with a cardboard house over his head and challenges passers-by to think about ‘What is Home?’
This year, three new murals will be created by some of the most exciting names on the international scene with Claire Prouvost, Kitsune Jolene, and VENTS137 taking to Cork city’s streets and alleyways for another collection of large-scale artworks.
When curating the festival each year, the goal is to achieve a balance of all styles, according to co-organiser Paul Gleeson.
“This year we are excited to have three new artists, all offering a different style of mural and all from very different artistic backgrounds,” he says.
“Last year's murals were a huge success and helped breathe new life into old walls, leading on from this we have been lucky to have the opportunity to add to the public art space in Cork city again this year.”
You can take to the city’s streets from 18 to 30 September, and watch these impressive works come to life for yourself.
A French visual artist based in Dublin, Claire Prouvost uses colourful, bold and minimal style and draws inspiration from the Cubists. She loves to diversify her practice and her work explores the complexity of relationships and human interactions through deconstructed figures, intuitive lines and colourful shapes.
Kitsune Jolene (Jolien De Waele, 1992) is from Ghent, Belgium and is known for her colourful and emotive works which typically centre around creating human atmospheres that make space for the observer to recognise elements of themselves. She is also well known for her dreamy depictions, drawing inspiration from personal life stories or mythology and folklore.
Born to a Cork family and now based out of Bristol, Vents137 has been writing Graffiti since 1999. This is seen in his work which typically follows traditional graffiti methods with his mural work is created freehand with just an aerosol.
Vents reckons he is too young to be old school and too old to be new school. “I’m basically treading water somewhere in the middle trying to juggle a mix of 70s and 80s cartoons with a base of 1970s New York graffiti,” he says.
