Project Five – Volume 7

Project Five is bringing Sydneysiders together these school holidays, highlighting the vibrant and unpredictable nature of street art. As part of Art and About 2015, Project Five is returning for its seventh instalment – Volume 7, showcasing the work of internationally acclaimed graffiti and street artists as well as local up-and-comers.

This year, the exhibition will include a three-day live painting spectacle which is kicking off on opening night, Sept 18.  Headlining this event is self-taught graffiti artist Vans the Omega, whose letterform has earned him international acclaim. Joining him is newcomer Fintan Magee, who also has achieved global recognition for his fusion of traditional painting techniques and the explosive scale of his public works.

During Project Five Volume 7, the artists’ works will be on display in amBUSH Gallery and Darling Quarter’s outdoor exhibition space. Not only will the finished work created in the live painting display be an attraction, but the works of Gemma O’Brian (a prolific and most sought-out Typographer) and George Hambrov (aka Apeseven, a self-proclaimed Pop-surrealist) are also included in this year’s line-up.

For Apeseven, street art allows him to place his artworks in a public space, bypassing traditional paradigms of art galleries, censorship and bias. Through his large-scale murals and paintings, Apeseven explores complex notions of bio-feedback driven loops inspired by Charles Darwin and The Theory of Evolution.

“I’m kind of just using nature references to just provide that. Obviously the bone structures [represent] the old…And they’re now becoming the homes or houses or the landscapes for new life,” he said. “There’s definitely that notion of destroy/rebuild, life/death kind of cycles involved in that.”

As part of the Project Five exhibition, Apeseven has produced four enormous artworks which explore the ideas of Darwinism and the complex notions of life.

“So two of the painting are ‘habitats’, if you want to call them that,” said Apeseven. “It’s kind of like little bio-feedback driven loops based on the bone being the house of the landscape… The bird being the predator and the insects being the pray.

“Essentially what I am hoping for people to get is just the cycles – things that flow from life in terms of one life providing for the other, that [those things] are inherently linked,” he explained. “The geometrical aspects of the painting kind of create the notion that all these systems are so co-intrinsically linked, that if one were to go then…the painting would look crap, because it wouldn’t fulfil its potential, and therefore by extension, if one of those aspects was missing in our lives, then our potentials aren’t fulfilled.”

At the end of the exhibition, the artworks created at the live painting event are auctioned off, with the proceeds donated to a nominated charity. Through the years, Project Five has raised more than $80,000 for charities supporting youth outreach and creative education programs.

Throughout the duration of Project Five, Kids Urban Art Workshops (entitled Project Five and a Half) will be returning just in time for the school holidays. In the workshops, budding artists can learn the techniques used extensively in urban and contemporary art, and create their own works to take home and display for themselves. (NB)

Sep 18–Oct 17. Darling Quarter, 1-25 Harbour Street, Sydney. Free Event. Info: www.project5.com.au

BY NYSSA BOOTH