bastardilla at fame festival 2010

28-year old street artist bastardilla has created a number of pieces for this year’s fame festival in the south of italy. hailing from bogota, colombia, the artist is known for her bold black lines and bright use of colour which are present in both her paint and paste-up works.

for the festival in grottaglie, she has incorporated glitter with her colours to paint images that are often dark and sorrowful in mood. the resulting sparkling pieces of wall art play up this contrast in a narrative manner.

the glitter is in the white ‘petals’

…which start as tears

bastardilla at work on a large piece

finished

‘untitled’ by bastardilla

a recent paste-up in london:

… and in madrid:

FAME (eng)
the state or quality of being widely honored
and acclaimed, favorable public reputation (ita = fama
successo)

FAME (ita)
bisogno molesto di mangiare, carestia, grande miseria, grande desiderio
(eng = starvation, hunger)

fame festival refers to the ironic difference in the meaning of the word ‘fame’ between the italian and english language. in italian, ‘fame’ means ‘hunger’, while in english it is understood as ‘an honour and status of success’. ‘fame festival’ is a meeting of a dozen international artists in the small italian city of grottaglie. famous for its ancient ceramics tradition, there is a whole area exclusively dealing with ceramics production. fame wants to promote a new point of view on the original structure of the city. while local politicians and institutions ‘only care about their personal interests‘, the organizers would like to re-asset the city’s original context and call for proper recognition. the idea is to host a few artists for variable lengths of time (from 1 to 4 weeks) and to offer them the cooperation of local artisans for the production of pottery works and limited edition prints. furthermore, the artists have at their disposal several ‘canvas’ walls around the city in order to ‘upgrade a few areas which are aesthetically depressed‘. at the end of their stay, when everything is created (including new original artworks, screenprints and ceramic pieces), a final group show will be organized.

participants of the 2010 edition of fame festival: JR – france; ERICA IL CANE – italy; NUNCA – brasil; SAM3 – spain; BLU – italy; OS GEMEOS – brasil; ESCIF – spain; 108 – italy; SLINKACHU – uk; DALEK – usa; NICOLA TOFFOLINI – italia; LUCY MCLAUCHLAN – uk; SWOON – usa; CYOP E KAF – italy; DAVID ELLIS – usa; VHILS – portugal; BEN WOLF – usa; WORD TO MOTHER – uk; MOMO – usa; BASTARDILLA – colombia.