“O Cavalo Preto” (2020) by Alex Senna. All images couretesy of Void Projects, shared with permission
Similar to other muralists, Copenhagen-based artist Jacoba Niepoort was preparing for a busy period full of travel and public projects when COVID-19 canceled all of her plans. “I had been dreaming of methods for connecting individual, like-minded creatives who share common dreams within this multi-layered/directional world of art in the public space,” she tells Colossal. “When quarantine hit, I wanted to use the spaces we were in to create parallel individual works.”
Niepoort connected with Axel Void (previously), a Miami-based artist who leads a cultural platform designed to bring art out of conventional spaces. The pair and the Void Projects’ creative team curated Home MuralFest, a collective initiative that inspired 67 quarantined artists around the world to paint their latest artworks on blank walls in their living rooms, studios, and garden sheds. Each worked simultaneously throughout April to create pieces that range from monochromatic birds inked on windows to vibrant geometric expanses.
By bringing them out of the public sphere, Home MuralFest subverts how viewers typically engage with these artworks. “What interests me about this project is the new unexpected connections across time and space—using this digital world in some potentially more productive way, letting it grow, seeing what unexpectedness comes out of this,” says Niepoort, whose contribution is shown below.
Because only the residents inside the building have the opportunity to view each mural, technology and social media serve as integral and sincere methods of connection. “Being cooped up has presented an opportunity to come together in new ways, both as coordinators and as artists,” Niepoort says. “To share visuals of the space and time we’re standing in now, created in solitude, but with the solidarity and simultaneousness being an important value-factor.”
See the full Home MuralFest collection and process videos on Void Projects’ site, and watch for the 35 murals being rendered throughout May on Instagram.
“New Horizons” (2020), Chinese ink on window and shutter of a house in Montevideo, by David de la Mano
“New Horizons” (2020), Chinese ink on window and shutter of a house in Montevideo, by David de la Mano
“Indoors” (2020), Helen Bur and Erin Holly
by Quintessenz
by Axel Void
“Loading” (2020) by Icy and Sot
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2020/05/home-muralfest/