Exploring Ghent with Chris Dyer

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Bue the Warrior and Chris Dyer

In early spring, I had the chance to meet up with Chris Dyer in Ghent, Belgium, while he was visiting the family of his wife, the lovely Valerie. As he regularly spends time in this part of Europe, and in order to avoid getting bored and to take advantage of this time away from Montreal, his home city, he met with the local street artists and ended up collaborating on a bunch of projects. And because Chris is so generous and positive, he naturally became friends with many of them.

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Chris Dyer, Bue the Warrior, and Scarpulla

For me, it was an opportunity to explore the city with Chris, to get his take on Ghent and see what he’d painted there. Actually, as he said to me, Ghent should be re-named Bue the Warrior City! When you enter Ghent, you see Bue’s art everywhere. Whether it’s illegal or legal pieces, his art covers a multitude of walls and doors… All of it painted in a joyful spirit, yet always controlled.

While we were walking through the city, looking for some cool spots where he used to paint, Chris explained to me how he improved his bombing technique each time he worked with Bue. It’s the same gratitude you can feel when he speaks about his beginnings in Montreal, where he was invited, in the early 2000’s, to join an exhibition organized by the best of the best,Troy Lovegates and Labrona, after he moved from Peru for study illustration in Canada. What a lesson of humility, when you can hear the admiration and respect for his peers by an artist like Dyer! He also told me about his early life in Lima, Peru, where he began tagging as a teenager while he was part of a street gang.

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Chris Dyer
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Chris Dyer

Ghent is a small town compared to bigger neighbors like Brussels, but it appears to be an incredible canvas for Belgium street artists and graffiti writers. ROA is the most well-known among them, as are Dzia, A squid called sebastian, Resto, Bisser, Scarpulla, and of course Bue the warrior, just for named a few.

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Dzia
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A squid called sebastian
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Bue the Warrior and Dawn
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Graffiti Factory
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Graffiti Factory
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Bisser, Bue the Warrior, and Chris Dyer
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ROA
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Bue the Warrior

Thank you very much Chris!

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Chris Dyer behind the Graslei, the historical center of Ghent.

Positive Creations in Belgium (Artventures Webpisode #8) from Chris Dyer`s Positive Creations on Vimeo.

Photos by Aline Mairet

Doel, somewhere between paradise and hell

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ROA, Santos, Resto

The most spellbinding urban exploration I ever experienced in an doomed place…walking down the streets of this town, the heavy silence all around you, and all the amazing art everywhere on the walls trying to bring back to life the so desperately abandoned and empty houses… Doel is a small town close to Antwerp, in Belgium. Despite a rich history build over several centuries, the government decided in the 1970’s to erase Doel from the map in order to make way for the extension and widening of Antwerp’s port. Despite decades of protests, the residents had no choice but to leave their homes. Some residents proudly continue to resist, but you can presume that the game is over. It’s this mix between human tragedy and beauty of art that made this place so attractive to me. I had a vague idea of the art I would find in the streets, Doel is now an urban art legend, but I never expected to be affected like this! And even if the most of the art has suffered from the passage of time and vandalism, it has been a blast! Here is the work of ROA, Santos, Resto, Psoman, Rotti, Koekoes, Asep, Lastplak, Jiem, 0331c, Show, Bue, Amigo, Reab, Topo, Steaz, Wacks. And more from Doel here.

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Artist unknown
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ROA
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Psoman
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Rotti, Koekoes, Asep
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ROA, Resto, OX- Lastplak

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The Walls Project in London

Chase

The Walls Project is a series of legal spots organized by the folks behind Global Street Art. To date, they’ve organized over fifty of spots in London for local and international artists to paint. A lot of the spots they find are the roll-down shutters for shops in East London. It’s great to know that there are a couple of friendly guys in London who are simply interested in helping artists find more spots to paint and making their daily commutes a bit more interesting. You can see more of the walls and a map here.

A side note: Global Street Art are currently working on releasing their first book through Unbound, a sort of Kickstarter for books.

Here are a few of my favorites shutter pieces from The Walls Project:

2Rise and Gris
Ador
Roma

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Weekend link-o-rama

A wall in Munich

Sorry this is coming a day late, but Thanksgiving and related activities took priority. Here’s what I missed posting about this week:

Photo by Luna Park

Big Up… Bue the Warrior!

This is Belgium’s Bue the Warrior. Recently he’s been collaborating with Billy and Low Bros in Berlin on some fantastic walls and shutters, pictures of which I posted last week. I rather like his style, (maybe because it’s similar to a few other artists I like), so here a few of his other pieces from all around the world. Enjoy.

Pointdextr, Pest, Roa, Bue and Resto (2009)
Resto and Bue (2009)
Roa and Bue (2009)
Dextr and Bue (Gent, Belgium 2008)
Topo, Resto, Zosen and Bue (Gent, Belgium 2011)
Pest, MR Fixit and Bue (Zomergem, Belgium 2011)
Bue (2010)
Pez and Bue (Barcelona 2007)
Bue and Pixel Pancho (Paris 2009)
Dhear, Bue, Smithe, Stnk and News (Mexico City 2010)

For more pictures of Bue’s work check out his flickr here.

All photos by Bue.