Arting shot: Stoush inspires new work
A graffiti artist who found himself embroiled in a street art stoush with acclaimed Palmerston North sculptor Paul Dibble has used the situation to inspire his latest work.
A street art mural painted by Auckland’s Kairau ‘‘Haser’’ Bradley during the Beats and Brushes festival in Palmerston North last year was boarded up when a pop-up sculpture by Dibble, titled The Garden, was installed in the same space.
The coverup sparked debate about street art within the community that Bradley said was never intentional.
His new exhibition, Haser by Haser, at the Safe As Gallery on The Square is his acknowledgement of the situation and his ‘‘solution’’.
‘‘People were afraid of the fact that something was taken away, so I thought why don’t I give something back to them. It’s the least I can do and it’s what we as artists should do. We should respond.’’
He said the exhibition, the first in Safe As Gallery’s new space at the corner of the Regent Arcade and Broadway Ave, carried his signature aesthetic of a ‘‘graffiti illustrative concept using gestural markings’’.
Bradley said the journey of translating his street art into what he is presenting in this exhibition had been a long one.
‘‘It’s more contextual than it is stylistic and there is more meaning in it. I’m so used to inserting so much detail into my works but I feel so much more at ease with the more simple I get.
‘‘I feel like I can tell a better story this way.’’
Bradley said he had no bad feelings about the boarding-up of his work and said he thought the Dibbles were ‘‘offended before they got to think about the situation’’.
‘‘I appreciate that people got on board with what happened, but I would much rather take a passive approach. I don’t want to go to war with another artist – he personally didn’t do anything to me; it just happened.’’
‘‘I think part of it is that no longer are we restricted to just seeing what we want to see. It’s more in your face now, so it seems like a bigger issue. People are forced to see it and so they are engaging with it more and people have opinions when they might not have before.’’
The Haser mural, in the civic administration building courtyard on Main St, has now been uncovered and shares space with Dibble’s sculpture. Bradley said he thought they complemented each other.
‘‘They have the same sort of curves.’’
❚ Haser by Haser opens today and will run until March 25.