In 2019, Scotland’s third-largest city launched its third annual Nuart Street Art Festival, taking a positive approach towards creating a public platform for local artists whilst celebrating international street artists. The festival took place over an Easter weekend of installations, murals, tours, talks and events. Although the 2020 festival has been postponed, the street art continues.
Much of the street art from previous years still exists around the city centre. The artworks can be sought out in one day with some good planning.
There is a concentration of murals on Union Row, a little backstreet which runs parallel to the main street of Union Street. Here’s what you can find by ducking down this small, unassuming cobbled lane behind Union Street. You’ll immediately find yourself gripped in the midst of a mini-trail of large-scale murals. Look for Pret a Manger at the east end of Union Street and take it from there 😉 …
This mural from Lithuanian-born artist Ernest Zacharevic was one of the show-stoppers at the festival in 2018. A scene from the artist’s life is blown up to larger-than-life proportions and to arresting effect. The scale of the piece takes your breath away as you turn onto Union Row. A small boy climbs the office building perhaps to chase the seagulls.
Public art is my passion in life, it allows me to reach the audience undefined by it’s social background. It can be seen by everyone who passes by and is not confined to a narrow audience who visits galleries
Ernest Zacharevic
Walking a little further on Union Row, this unicorn 3D recycled waste mural from 2018 is from Lisbon artist Bordalo II and part of his international Big Trash Animals series. This is also on a grand scale and dominates the little car park around the back of Rustico restaurant. Powerfully saturated colours jump out from the recycled items of industrial plastic and other waste materials.
Now, look to your left on Union Row, Argentinean grafitti artist Milu Correch. She placed one of two murals here in 2018, now part of the landscape of city back streets with added poignancy to an aesthetically neglected part of town. Después del Aquelarre (After the Coven) shows two masked women, reclining yet supporting each other. Masks and face coverings are a recurring feature in the artist’s work and she is interested in the imagery and mythology of the power of witches.
Aberdeen is twinned with Stavanger in Norway, where the original Nuart annual festival takes place since 2001. The idea was to encourage local street artists to create more work. In 2017 Nuart came to Aberdeen to launch the satellite festival to inject colour and hope into a difficult economic downturn for the city following a drop in oil revenues. Stavanger originally launched the festival for the same reasons. International street artists were invited to decorate nominated walls around the city centre. Many of the city’s historical buildings are made from local granite. However, the artists are not permitted to use walls made with granite – not such an easy task in what’s known as The Granite City.
As in Stavanger, Aberdeen locals have taken the street murals to their hearts and are curious to see the pops of colour and interesting narratives of the artworks. All ages are showing an interest too, growing an idea from seed to a blooming local street art scene . This is a city not of grey buildings but of beautiful architecture draped in a hardy granite that quietly shimmers silver when there is a glimmer of sunshine. Aberdeen doesn’t make a song and dance about itself and the street art seems to complement this.
