Various locations @ Aliwal Arts Centre
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Aliwal Urban Art Festival 2023
Festival Guide
Festival Highlights
Exhibition
FLIPSIDE
Curated by RSCLS
12 – 15 Jan 2023 | 12pm – 10pm | Music Studio | Free
12 artists from the urban art scene take to a new canvas (quite literally) in the form of tabula scalata, where they are challenged to create two paintings within a singular canvas. Audiences would have to move in the space to get the entirety of the work, inviting conversations about different perspectives shifting, coexisting and interacting in an evolving environment.
FEATURED ARTISTS
ANTZ
One of Singapore’s pioneer street artists, Anthony Chen, also known as ANTZ, is one of the Singapore urban art scene’s mainstay talents. From mythology to dialect and identity, he references Chinese culture and vernacular stories to create a “juxtaposed mash” of contemporary urban styles with ethnic and traditional Chinese visual language and influences. Co-founder of RSCLS, an urban art collective, ANTZ has continuously mentored and engaged youth through design, street art and graffiti. As an artist, ANTZ has been involved in renowned projects internationally (Southeast Asia, China, North America and Europe) and brands such as ADIDAS, NIKE, IdN, Converse, Taggerbags, Tiger Translate, and many more.
BONY
After taking some time away from art, BONY recently returned to graffiti, working at home, with the new goal of not wanting to be “just another graffiti artist”. Raswadi Bin Rahmat, also known as BONY, channels innovation into works, striving to breathe new life into his inspirations—wildstyle graffiti, bushido and nature—through his works. He fuses together his passions for graffiti and natural hardscape in his latest series of works. His favours the use of aerosol paint, expanding foam, acrylic-based markers and preserved reindeer moss.
Demster
Graphic designer and urban artist Adam Wang, also known as Demster, is a member of the RSCLS, an urban art collective in Singapore; a representative of TAC (Titan Aerosol Crew), a local graffiti crew; and concurrently runs DIVISION HQ., an independent art & design studio that specialises in brand identity designs and murals. His art navigates the emotional, physical and spiritual plane to make sense of one’s being in a perturbed existence and is a collective showcase of his various experiences and skill sets. In his 11 years of experience, his professional design work has expanded to include commissions for events, exhibitions and club establishments, and workshops he conducts to share his craft.
Stranger
Nur Iman (b. 1990), also known as “Stranger,” started in the Singapore graffiti scene in 2005, impressively winning a graffiti competition that same year. Graduating in 2012, he studied fine arts, majoring in Western Painting at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA). In 2019, he dabbled in art management and curation, representing 11 artists in the Tatinis art fair under the name of his own art gallery, The Common Space. In addition to graffiti, he extends his creative passion through education, teaching adult art classes, college art electives, secondary and primary school art workshops, and most recently, preschool art excursions.
KILAS
Zahir Sanosi, also known as KILAS, has works stretching across multiple platforms. Works of sometimes controversial and contradictory themes, KILAS’s illustrations and designs can be found on skateboards, T-shirts, screen prints, posters, canvases and walls. His works detail the struggle between personal beliefs and public issues, as well as the passion and heartbeat of underground counterculture. He has worked with brands like Tiger Beer, Earache Records (UK), and Santa Cruz Skateboards (USA), to name a few.
NOEZ23
A member of ZNC or Zincnitecrew—a graffiti collective with 75 members worldwide—Ayid Razak, also known as NOEZ23 (pronounced “noise”), was a late starter in the graffiti scene, being an avid fan first before dabbling in the art form without formal training. He apprenticed at The Blackbook Studio, working in exchange for knowledge on the craft and practicing whenever he could. Today, Ayid has ties with various graffiti writers and artists across the world, mostly from Southeast Asia, and participates actively in local and regional urban art events.
SKL0
Sam Lo, also known as SKL0, is a visual artist whose work offers social commentary fuelled by observations of their surroundings and research into the socio-political climate. Their early forays into street art sparked a local debate on Singapore’s definitions of art and vandalism, earning them the moniker "Sticker Lady" and making them a household name. Today, Lo’s work spans installations, large-scale murals and digital designs that aim to deepen our understanding the world around us and how our actions are interdependent.
SPAZ
The two-time recipient of the LASALLE Scholarship, and the first Southeast Asian artist to win the Takifuji International Art Award in 2013, Laurie Maravilla, also known as SPAZ, is a Singapore-based urban artist and researcher from Manila, Philippines who expresses her personal experiences of motherhood, politics of gender and self-determination in her radically political works and writings. She co-founded The Solidarity Movement, an initiative that seeks to research, establish and document graffiti and street art as a culture and art discipline in Southeast Asia. She also founded REBEL DAUGHTERS, a movement aimed empower of women through graffiti and urban art, and address issues affecting working class women and women in male-dominated industries. She is currently part of Tambisan sa Sining, a labour-oriented cultural mass organization based in the Philippines.
SPEAK CRYPTIC
Farizwan Fajari, professionally known as Speak Cryptic, currently working and living in Singapore, primarily explores the constructions, conditions and tensions of identity. Through intricately rendered patterns and figures that populate his compositions, sometimes accompanied by texts and phrases extracted from punk lyrics, his drawings, paintings and installations are investigate the phenomena and experiences of ancestral migration, ethnic dislocation, gentrification, alternative subcultures and diaspora.
He has exhibited at the Koganecho Art bazaar (Yokohama, Japan, 2018), The 1st Kuala Lumpur Biennale (2017), Secret Archipelago (Paris, France, 2015), The Singapore Biennale (2013) and Future Proof (2012).
TraseOne
His practice starting in 1999, Sufian Hamri, also known as TraseOne, is highly regarded as one of the leading pioneers in pushing boundaries and developing the street art scene in Singapore. His works focus on sparking dialogue on socio-cultural behaviour and current affairs through tact handling of subject matter to engage viewers. A self-taught graffiti artist, he was awarded the inaugural Goh Chok Tong Youth Promise, SSF Star Youth Leader Award and LASALLE Degree Scholarship in 2005, which allowed him to then pursue a BA(Hons) in Fine Arts at LASALLE College of the Arts. He has been the art director for the Singapore Street Festival (SSF) since 2002, and worked with brands like OCBC Bank, Facebook, Paypal and Spotify, exhibiting in numerous shows globally, including in Indonesia, Hong Kong, and Germany.
TUYULOVEME
Based in Yogyakarta, Widyatmiko, also known as TUYULOVEME, developed his artistic practice as a graffiti artist. He started with graffiti lettering before the introduction of distinct figures and characters in his works which frequently appear in 2009. These figures are visual representation of his alter ego—an alternate self that hardly gets exposed in everyday life and lives vicariously through the artist’s creative journey. TUYULOVEME is internationally recognized with works in Indonesia, Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Russia, Philippines and The United States as well as solo exhibitions in 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018. Working in many mediums, he is an active advocate of graffiti as an artistic discipline.
Boon Baked
A graffiti and visual artist from Singapore, Muhammad Taufiq bin Rosle, also known as Boon Baked, started exploring with spray paint in 2012. His first wall was painted during the Meeting of Styles graffiti festival in Kuala Lumpur in 2016. Since then, he has been emblazoning walls around Southeast Asia with a distinctive lettering style and compositions. Drawing inspiration from his imagination, his illustrations and paintings feature funky characters and his cartoon alter ego, Matakuyu Man.
Programmes
12pm – 6pm | #02-04
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2pm – 5pm | Online for Concert Livestream & #03-02 for Open Studio
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2.30pm & 4pm | Courtyard A & Side Alley
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1pm & 2pm | #02-09
1pm – 3pm | The Nook Studio #02-05
11am – 12pm | #03-08
12pm – 6pm | #02-04
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2pm – 5pm | Online for Concert Livestream & #03-02 for Open Studio
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