Saturday 6th June 2009 @ Tobacco Factory, Grain Barge, The Garage, Bridewell Island, Try Again Pub, View Art Gallery and everywhere in between, Bristol

When you first arrive at the Tobacco Factory (UpFest’s main and focus venue) and make your way outside to the beer garden and car park, the first thing that hits you is the sheer amount of stuff going on. There were so so so so so many artists all together there, all in their element going at the walls, boards, floors, cars, canvas and hexagon towers ‘hammer and tong’ (or is that ‘can and brush’) you had trouble trying to take it all in! UpFest ‘09 was a true celebration of everything urban art.

A downpour Friday night put the fright into everyone though, fretting whether anyone would come to a soggy festival but I think the celebrating masses showed it will take more than a spot of bad weather to put off graffiti fans.

Last year’s, and the first, Urban Paint Festival was such an across-the-board success the organisers wanted to go all out to make this one even bigger and better. 2008 had about 50 artists at the Tobacco Factory but this year saw over 150 artists (including 30 odd that had travelled from Europe and North America especially) at a range of venues that stretched across the whole of Bristol in the creation of the biggest festival of ‘live’ urban art in the UK. There was just a staggering amount of stuff going on be it beatboxing, exploding paint installations, hip/hop dancing, graffiti stalls, kids areas and DJs, all underpinned by live painting literally everywhere and anywhere you looked.

What really overwhelmed you was the knowledge that this intense focus of urban art culture was happening not just here, but it venues all over Bristol. A quick trip down North Street to The Garage revealed another building absolutely bursting with stencils, cans, paint and large blokes with larger digital SLRs snapping everything in sight. It was almost too much!

The range of techniques employed by the artists was equally impressive and easily sustained everyone’s interest for the entire day; from mind-bogglingly detailed stencilers like DON and T3, to classic point and spray artists like Cheo, Cheba and SEPR, to intricate illustrators like Andy Council through to purer artist like DOC, as well as a few more eccentric artists like Ian Cook who only puts paint to canvas using remote control cars – his style was a little bit gimmicky and I’m not sure if the pieces he created gained anything from being painted with tyres but it was interesting to watch nonetheless.

The sheer amount of art on show though did have its drawbacks. There were so many artists exhibiting at UpFest that to fit them all in, pieces had to be piled up next to and on top of each other, often overlapping. In moderation, this can look fantastic with two or three works combining and complimenting each other really well but when you’ve got twenty or even thirty artists all in your view, thirty artists each with very distinct styles, colours and techniques, each trying to be as bold and eye catching as possible, it becomes too much and instead of flattering each other, they serve to highlight each others faults and less accomplished artists really do stick out like paint splattered, sore thumbs. On their own in a Bristol back-alley, each of these works would look fabulous and in a way, it’s a shame when so many of them are bunched together like this and some of their impact is inevitably lost, but hey that’s the point – this is a festival after all!!!

www.upfest.co.uk

Matt Whittle
Photos by www.ianbradleyphotography.com

In Pictures - UpFest ‘09