If you leave it up to the Marie Kondos of the world, soon we will all be living in white, empty cubes. If, on the other hand, you leave it up to Portuguese street artist Add Fuel, those crazy patterns that used to be on every bathroom and kitchen floor are making a major comeback. The artist has a background in graphic design, which probably explains why he has an eye for ingenious tile designs. But he also does exceptionally clever things with them.
Berlin-based collective Mentalgassi claims it wants to make people laugh … by photographing crazy faces, printing them on gigantic sheets of paper, and pasting them on poles, fences, glass containers, and other urban objects. Their work often also contains a bit of activism, but their primary aspiration is a mischievous mix of humour and anarchism.
Roberto Ciredz is, you could say, a contemporary landscape painter. He uses urban canvases to paint often abstract, but always breath-taking landscapes that are frequently influenced by the sea. No surprise there: Ciredz hails from Sardinia. His work also revolves around the relationship we have (or should have) with the nature that surrounds us.
With Medianeras, nothing is what it seems. The two artists want to change our perception of the world – our perception of cities and buildings and people and relationships. As a rule, they depict androgynous characters, while the dazzlingly clever optical illusions they create can also cause some confusion. Or not, because isn’t it also an illusion to think that the world can be broken down into just a few boxes?
Undeniably a maverick in the street art world. Jacoba Niepoort uses not only paint for her impressive murals but also markers and pens. Everything to make her work more rugged and less polished, but with that also more intimate and noticeably more layered. The Danish artist is all about human connection, and through this unique way of sketching, you feel more connected to her work.
Covid stopped the cameras so in the meantime Matthias Schoenaerts returned to his old passion. The star actor, who previously painted a stylized “Think Outside The Box” for The Crystal Ship, started working again with paint spray cans in Ostend under the name Zenith.
He found inspiration in the cracks and problems in our society, but also in the Belgian colonial past and King Leopold II. These cracks are also reflected in his other work in Antwerp and Paris. Did you know that Matthias Schoenaerts already painted walls as a teenager? It took him all the way to Paris and New York.
At the beginning of 2020 it became known that Ostend rock icon Arno was suffering from pancreatic cancer. We were all hard hit by this news. In response to this tragedy, British Helen Bur, known for her dreamy art, paid a fitting tribute to the singer on a wall of the Ostend City Hall. The image simply breathes emotion, with which Arno certainly agreed: ‘It gives me a mental erection.’ Arno unfortunately died in 2022.
DFace is a living legend on the street art scene and among the Top 5, without a doubt. Every year, The Crystal Ship makes an effort to snare him – and this year he took the bait, even travelling to Ostend from London by motorbike! Punk, skate, Roy Lichtenstein: all these movements are reflected in his work, just as in the gigantic kissing mermaid he painted in Ostend. The iconic colours, the amazing creativity and craftsmanship prove that DFace is one of the best in his field.
Not to be confused with Marina Capdevila, who painted a work in Ostend some time ago. Elisa paints impressionist murals with an uncanny resemblance to the Flemish Masters. She took fellow artist Alba with her and painted a gigantic sleeping baby on the wall of Bluebridge, an incubator that stimulates businesses in the blue economy. The themes this young Spanish woman always incorporates into her work are childhood, nostalgia and family. Pocket-sized artists, oversized murals.
Case Maclaim is no stranger to Ostend. He had already left Ostend a beautiful portrait, so now he unleashed his creativity on the wall of a doctor and physiotherapist’s practice. In his typical realistic style, he painted a woman washing a white substance from her hands. The Black Lives Matter movement is something that moves him deeply. Hands are a recurring subject, which is something the owners of the practice are particularly happy about. The poem by their mother, who is no longer living, is also about hands.
