Our friends at Moosey Art Gallery, in the 'Lanes' district of Norwich (UK), are on a mission to "Get Walls" as part of an ongoing project to brighten up the walls of the city, be it in partnership with business owners or the barren empty spaces that have been forgotten about.
The video above documents a recent project featuring local artist Anmar Mirza, who has painted Norwich's largest mural as part of this on going project. The passion and dedication to make a fine city finer from Frazer Bailey the galleries founder, is infectious. Working in collaboration with Creative Giants Design Agency and Bar Tapas, they have produced this vibrant piece over 4 days. Below you'll get an idea of what they hope to achieve in their own words.
Moosey Art
Moosey Art is an Urban/Contemporary art gallery based in Norwich, UK. Bringing you limited-edition prints, sort-after original works and exhibitions all from some of the world's leading artists.
Started in Norwich, UK in 2013. Moosey Art's aim being to curate pop up exhibitions bringing in the worlds greatest street artists as well as introducing people to fresh, up and coming talent. After every exhibition Moosey's reach became bigger and eventually they were in a position to open up their own gallery in 2015. Moosey Art's approach to artists is simple. They find artists they love and then ask to work with them. This approach has been the building block of their existence.
Ever on the look out for new artists Moosey have worked with a long list of up and coming talent. Whether that be getting them in as a group showing, putting their work up in a pub/restaurant, finding them walls to paint on. Literally, just finding them anything to paint on.
Moosey Art has worked with:
The London Police / Will Barras / Mr Penfold / Boxhead / David Shillinglaw / Malarky / The Toasters / Pure Evil / Vinnie Nylon / Anmar Mirza / Millo / Pali ERZ / Muretz / Henry Boon / Gnasher / Dave The Chimp / Carl Cashman / Arrex / The Doodle Man / Myne And Yours / Obit / Mass / Skribs / Otto Schade
Get Walls
“Get Walls” is a collaborative project involving Moosey Art and the SHhhh Collective, and the idea is simple. Get walls to paint on. The aim is to gain approved permission to paint on residential and commercial properties in Norwich, working with local and international artists in order to decorate and brighten up the city.
"Get Walls" wish to (legally) liven up the city, and contribute to its culture, while also giving artists the opportunity to showcase their art to a wider audience (and inspire others). We believe that a city with a lot of public art acts as a tourist attraction and generates interest in a city. You see it in the continent with Berlin and Amsterdam, and in Britain with cities such as Brighton and Bristol having reputations as having bright, vibrant and youthful art scenes with a large amount of visible (and legal) street art.
What is special about "Get Walls" is that the target audience is the general public. Essentially, each piece of work is there to brighten up a wall in the public domain for the enjoyment of the public. "Get Walls" goes beyond just brightening up a wall for the general public. Seeing a large piece of street art/mural encourages and inspires young artists in the city. It is also our hope that by decorating large walls legally throughout Norwich, we can discourage ‘taggers’ from illegal graffiti and encourage them to actually work along side us and develop as artists. As a side note we also hope that through carrying out this work in the city, we can cover up existing acts of vandalism like this and make it into something appealing to everyone.
We work very hard in promoting and distributing any such events and artwork on all forms of social media. As more and more walls in Norwich are painted, the more the art world will take note. Norwich has always prided itself on being a city of culture. Local, unique businesses and points of interest have helped to support this, bringing in trade and tourism and it is our belief that the "Get walls" project fits into this category. Since painting Barrack Street (see below) alone the positive feedback and response has been beyond our expectations and we can only anticipate that the more walls we gain as part of this project the greater the reaction.
To conclude, the "Get walls" project is an exciting opportunity to add to the distinctive, vibrant feel of Norwich and we believe that with the right funding and by working along side the council we can only improve our city through this project.
"Art Everywhere"
If you're interested in having a wall painted or would like a commissioned piece done in your home, restaurant, office space then please don't hesitate to get in contact with us at frazer@mooseyart.co.uk or pop in to the Moosey Art Gallery and have a chat.
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Words: Matt Strutt and Moosey Art
Images: Moosey Art
Contributors: Aaron Darveniza
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