Event

The Big Picture Fest
Newcastle 2022

30 September - 2 October 2022

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Image gallery
Deams Rosie Woods Claire Foxton Damien Mitchell Michael Black Georgia Hill Goya Torres Sean Thomas Bell James R Ellis

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9 NEW LARGE-SCALE MURALS IN 2022

An artist-run independent 3 day street art festival and ongoing outdoor exhibition of large-scale public murals in Mulubinba/Newcastle city centre on the land of Awabakal and Worimi people.

Spread across 20 prominent sites, featuring 11 new murals, a massive launch party at Playstate Gallery, Jam’s Karaoke & Rogue Scholar. We celebrated the incredible local street art community with a BPF Artists’ group exhibition, live Scribble Slam, DJs and open mic by National Young Writers Festival.

We collaborated with Up & Up Inspirations on a graffiti jam tribute to “Spray Alley”, with Queer & Now on the CROSSPOINT mentor program for local emerging artists and behind-the-scenes walking tours by Newcastle Afoot.

This year’s festival is made possible by the support of the City of Newcastle, Hunter and Central Coast Development Corporation (HCCDC), University of Newcastle, Destination NSW, Business Improvement Association (BIA), and is a part of NSW Government’s ‘The Festival of Place’.

You can grab a map from Newcastle Visitor Information Centre and hit the streets to enjoy these amazing works at any time of the year – free and accessible to all.

Download Festival Map here

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Deams

Deams

VIC

Painter and designer Taj ‘Deams’ Alexander was born 1986 in Hobart, Tasmania. He now lives and works in Melbourne, Victoria.  Although his creative practice is broad, his current focus and specialisation is painting, sculpture and large-scale mural work. His intuitive approach to abstraction draws from over fifteen years of experimentation and development in non-objective painting. This refinement in process allows for an introspective exploration of both visual language and relationship to environment. The overarching themes in Taj’s work all connect to the nature of the human experience or ‘human condition’ with an emphasis on the exploration of philosophy, consciousness and perception.

Through his emotionally charged visual language Taj’s work seeks to both seduce and confound the viewer whilst maintaining a deep sense of awareness and value. At the centre of each body (of work) is a poetic yet broadly accessible concept that connects the work to either a philosophical, social or psychological inquiry or concern.

Taj’s understanding and investigation of materiality in the field of painting is extensive and playfully unconventional. While deeply influenced by classical movements such as minimalism, abstract impressionism and Optical Art, he maintains an open and progressive approach to image making. This approach sees influences from a multitude of creative fields including digital art, analogue photography, architecture and music.

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Rosie Woods

Rosie Woods

NSW

Rosie is an international street and studio artist from London now living in Noosa Australia.

“I often wonder what my soul would look like if it manifested itself as an object, I could see and touch on this earth…”

Rosie has painted enormous walls across the world. Her dramatic murals and paintings have been produced at many international art festivals, public art projects and for high-end brands, including L’oreal, Alexander McQueen and Augustinus Bader. Her work has been featured in books, publications and news outlets such as the BBC, The Independent and thisiscollosal.com.

Raised in the suburbs of London and now living on Australia’s Sunshine Coast, Rosie has a love for both the creativity and diversity of urban landscapes and the peace of nature. After 8 years of working almost exclusively outside, Rosie has begun to focus more intently on her studio practice as she continues to create work that is both original in concept and content.

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Claire Foxton

Claire Foxton

Wollongong

Claire Foxton is a Wollongong-based artist and designer who is most known for her large body of public art found across Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

With a distinctive mix of abstract and realistic techniques, Claire’s painted mural works explore a site specific narrative often concerned with the connectedness of people and place.

Through considered colour palettes & acute attention to textural details, Claire’s work draws the viewer into a deeper conversation responding to land, story & identity.

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Damien Mitchell

Damien Mitchell

NSW

Damien Mitchell is a graffiti artist and muralist originally from Wagga Wagga, NSW. He has recently relocated from New York to Sydney and has painted and exhibited work around the world in more than 30 countries. He has also provided artwork for the Global Mural Conference, Mi Sangre Foundation, MTV Music Video Awards, Doctors Without Borders, MLB All Star Game, Michelle Obama, among numerous others.

His work, often realistic, portrays characters and scenes taken from the world around him.

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Michael Black

Michael Black

Sydney

Michael Black is a Sydney-based artist, who creates original art. His murals, prints, and private commissions allow him to capture moments in time, inspired by discovered landscapes, encountered people and personal experiences. He responds to subjects in a dynamic and expressive manner, with an aim to capture the raw essence and beauty of a moment. The warmth and movement of Michael’s work provides viewers with the opportunity to experience newfound meaning in response to moments in their own lives. Through his practice, Michael aims to bring others into a greater sense of fulfilment and purpose in their own lives.

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Georgia Hill

Georgia Hill

Sydney

Georgia Hill is an Australian artist and muralist, specialising in type based artworks and installations.

Hill’s constant pursuit of unique structures, new environments and emotive language is demonstrated further in her focus to deliver high impact works of art. Her clear and poetic take on phrasing, combined with our physical spaces, serves to highlight our dialogue with ourselves and nature, in order to celebrate the cycles that exist around us each day.

Hill has proved herself to be one of Australia’s leading street artists with a contemporary and conscious touch to her materials, surrounds and conceptual approaches. Her works have spanned galleries and inner-city walls to 400ft abandoned buildings, painted across Canada, New Zealand, Iceland, Jordan, India, The United States, Japan and Indonesia, as well as working prolifically across Australia’s states.

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Goya Torres

Goya Torres

Mexico

Goya Torres is a visual/street-artist and muralist originally born in Mexico, now based in Lake Macquarie. Her expression travels through painting, public art, mural work and printmaking. With 25 murals under her belt and counting, Goya has been involved in group exhibitions, live-painting events, street-art festivals, mural and public art projects in Australia, Mexico, Latino-America, USA, United Kingdom and Europe.

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Sean Thomas Bell

Sean Thomas Bell

NSW

Sean’s art practice is about how our minds capture moments in time, and our memories betray these thoughts in unusual ways sometimes. Straying from the truth of how these sceneries may have actually occurred.

The work is an insight into one’s thought process in how an individual may interpret their relationship with the outside world. In particular, their intake of natural elements, and the large mass of different terrains it holds within itself.

With all of Sean’s abstract graphical work, he wants the audience to use their own imagination to interpret what they see within the art. As different people see different things because of their own past memories of the lives they have lived.

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James R Ellis

James R Ellis

Brisbane

Originally hailing from Brisbane, James traverses the country in search of eye-catching locations to paint, and, after engagement with local communities, leaves a trail of spectacular public artworks in his wake.

His trademark style features motifs of everyday life, taking things that we experience daily –– people, cars, animals, landscapes –– and translating them into large-scale contemporary realistic artworks that provoke thought about our relationships with one another, with nature, and with the objects we use in our day-to-day lives.

James’ work can be found adorning the walls of country towns throughout Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria, as well as being featured prominently in cities along the east and south coast.

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Proudly sponsored by

City of NewcastleHunter and Central Coast Development CorporationPicture ThisArt ThinkingDestination NSWFeel New South WalesNSW GovtBusiness Improvement AssociationThe University of Newcastle AustraliaPainting by JoshMTN by Montana ColorsNight QuillHaynes Paint ShopAccess Hire AustraliaUP & UPPlaystateQuest NewcastleGrainfed Brewing CompanyJam'sRogue Scholar Brewing