Upfest is an event to showcase the best in up-and-coming talented painters, showing us that an awful lot more can be done with paints than the chocolate-box country cottage watercolour. An event that was a 24 hours of painting across Bristol, I went to the big event at the Tobacco Factory. Walking into the achingly cool café the artwork is shown on industrial metal grid work – a perfect way to remind us of its less glamorous origins.
Upstairs the artwork was on Canvas, Postcards, T-shirts and Old Vinyl records. But the pieces that caught my eye were done on cardboard, a great canvas for the artwork, and a bargain at roughly a tenner, a big old two fingers to the establishment and showing that urban art will always belong to the people.
There was also a wealth of live painting to watch whilst sipping on a coffee, from the collective of artists working in the main café to Popbang by artist Ian Cook. He was painting using radio control cars, car tyres and toy wheels and had his audience of hushed 5-8 yr olds kneeling as close as they can to the action. Something tells me there will be a lot of paint-covered kids having a lot fun with their own toy cars this weekend…
Article first published in Bristol Design Festival blog: 06/06/2009
http://www.upfest.co.uk/
http://www.tobaccofactory.com/
http://bristoldesignfest.wordpress.com/
http://bristoldesignfestival.com/
