18th – 30th September 2022
Presenting three new large scale murals by
CLAIRE PROUVOST :: KITSUNE JOLENE :: VENTS137
Taking to Cork city’s streets and alleyways, Ardú Street Art Project is set to return this month for its third annual outing.
Ardú was born in Leeside during lockdown of October 2020, originally bringing seven of Ireland’s most respected and renowned street artists – Deirdre Breen, Maser, James Earley, Peter Martin, Shane O’Driscoll, Aches, and Garreth Joyce – to create large scale murals at key city-centre locations.
Thanks to phenomenal community engagement and support, the event returned in 2021 with four more walls unveiled by Shane O’Malley, Friz, Conor Harrington, and Asbestos.
These inspiring pieces of work dotted across the city add greatly to the cultural landscape of the city centre. They’ve spurred conversations on the ground, shared widely across online platforms, and been praised internationally in the likes of Travel US Magazine, and Brooklyn Street Art.
The 2022 edition will present three new large scale murals by some of the most exciting names on the international scene – Claire Prouvost, Kitsune Jolene, and VENTS137.
- Claire Prouvost
Claire Prouvost is a French visual artist based in Dublin. Her colourful, bold and minimal style draws inspiration from the Cubists. She loves to diversify her practice and work on a variety of mediums, from digital illustration, acrylic painting to large-scale murals and street art. Her work explores the complexity of relationships and human interactions through deconstructed figures, intuitive lines and expressive colourful shapes.
Instagram >> https://www.instagram.com/claire.prouvost
- Kitsune Jolene
Kitsune Jolene (Jolien De Waele, 1992) is a female artist hailing from Ghent, Belgium. Her colourful and emotive works centre around creating human atmospheres that make space for the observer to recognise pieces of themselves. Best known for her dreamy depictions, these universes of emotions and storytelling are always tied together by her recognisable colour palette. Her choice of inspiration is usually connected to either personal life stories or mythology, folklore or locally sourced stories.
Instagram >> https://www.instagram.com/kitsunejolene
- Vents137
Vents137 was born to a Corkonian family and is now based out of Bristol U.K. He’s been writing Graffiti since 1999 and geeking out on trains since the mid 80s. Vents’ work follows traditional graffiti methods, hand-drawn illustrations made with alcohol or xylene markers. His mural work is created freehand solely with aerosol.
Vents is too young to be old school and too old to be new school.” I’m basically treading water somewhere in the middle trying to juggle a mix of 70s and 80s cartoons with a base of 1970s New York graffiti. I represent TUFF crew, a likeminded family of my peers and mentors.” Elsewhere he can be found studying the works of Jay Ward, Ralph Bakshi, Vaughn Bodé, Jack Kirby, and Robert Crumb, alongside writing pioneers such as Cliff159, Billy167, Boots119, Tracy168 and Lee Quinones to name but a few.
Instagram >> https://www.instagram.com/vents137
Ardú Street Art Project is the brainchild of visual artist and designer Shane O’Driscoll, muralist, stained-glass artist and secondary school teacher Peter Martin, and organiser of the annual Cork Graffiti Jam, Paul Gleeson. Project managed by Rose-Anne Kidney of Goldiefish Events and made possible with generous support from Cork City Council and Creative Ireland.
Speaking about their return, co-organiser Paul says:
“When curating our festival each year we always strive to achieve a balance of all styles and this year we are excited to have 3 new artists, all offering a different style of mural and all from very different artistic backgrounds.“
Last year’s murals were a huge success and helped breathe new life into old walls, leading on from this we have been lucky to have the opportunity to add to the public art space in Cork city again this year.
“Ardú has continued to shine a light on the love Corkonians have for murals and public art, we are still blown away by the engagement and support we receive from the public.”
Members of the public are encouraged to take to the city’s streets from 18th – 30th September, and watch these impressive works come to life.
Further details, including each mural location and fringe events, will be announced soon.
Keep up to date with the process by following Ardú on social media: Twitter @ArduStreetArt / https://twitter.com/ArduStreetArt | Instagram: @ArduStreetArt | www.arducork.ie
Ardú Street Art Project is made possible with generous support from Cork City Council and the Creative Ireland Programme – an all-of-government five-year initiative, from 2017 to 2022, which places creativity at the centre of public policy. Further information from creativeireland.gov.ie
