Streetart Festival, Brugge: Nature

Portrait in Reds.
Kitsune Jolene

Although I did prefer the Legendz images in the Brugge Streetart Festival, one from the Nature section which truly impresses is Portrait in Reds by Kitsune Jolene in Hooiestraat. For my taste, perhaps a little too dazzling in colour but it is an incredibly accomplished portrait on a grand scale, and the artist attributes her huge masterpiece to having been inspired by an extract from a Longfellow poem, The Belfry of Bruges, written in 1845.

The Belfort rising majestically in 
Brugge Markt.

The Belfry of Bruges

At my feet, the city slumbered. From its chimneys here and there

Wreaths of snow white smoke ascending,

vanished, ghost-like into air.

Not a sound came from the city at that early morning hour

But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower.

From their nests beneath the rafters, sang the swallows, wild and high;

And the world beneath me sleeping

Seemed more distant than the sky.

Kitsune Jolene [Jolien de Waele] is inspired by emotions, nature and myths. She is from Ghent and always paints in a realistic, representational way using intense and hard colours for her portraits, flora and fauna. She recorded her appreciation of the Streetart Festival: ”Thank you for everything, Wietse, an artist and good friend from Bruges who organised the festival completely by himself. And thanks Mayli Sterkendries, a photographer, for letting me paint you”

Part of Wietse's mural of a
cartoonish duck.

Wietse, the Bruggean founder of this festival, contributes a splendid wall painting on a high gable at the junction of Rodestraat and Predikherenrei. He also paints in a realistic way but his work is more to the cartoon end of murals and he always uses black and white, mostly adding touches of one extra colour. He finds his inspiration in his travels, and in nature and history, always repeating himself. As organiser, it was Wietse who chose the two sections: Legendz and Nature. There are three more wall paintings in the Nature section outside the Egg: two in Assebroek and one in Sint Pieters.

In an extraordinary coincidence as I was writing the above, a friend drew my attention to The Crystal Ship, a street art festival soon to take place [19/12/20 to 3/1/21] in Oostende when a series of murals will delineate a new night-time walking route. I had no idea that the famous film actor, Matthias Schoenaerts, has been an accomplished street artist known as Zenith since he was 14, working mainly in his home town of Antwerp. He has just spent two days spraying his contribution to The Crystal Ship, on a high wall in Cardijnplein where he has depicted a headless version of King Leopold 11 on his horse. Schoenaerts feels his mural serves as an alternative to recent beheadings of Leopold statues in Belgium, in concert with the destruction or removal of Confederate statues in the Southern States of America, and similar anti-slavery moves in the U.K. In Belgium there has been the beginning of a confrontation of the horrors carried out during Leopold’s reign in the Congo Free State, and Zenith’s mural seeks to focus that conversation within the Oostende community about that traumatic time in Belgium’s colonial past.

Zenith's headless Leopold in Cardijnplein.

This mural is of special significance for the town of Oostende which benefitted greatly from the largesse of Leopold who made finance available for the foundation of Maria Hendrikapark; the building of St Peter and St Paul Church; the Wellington Racecourse and the Royal Galleries, all four of which remain big local attractions. The capital for these prestigious projects will undoubtedly have come from the Congo. The Mayor, Bart Tommelein, suggests that this mural demonstrates the stains on the character of Leopold and sharpens the debate on his legacy.

Matthias Schoenaerts,
Zenith.

One of the many splendid works of art gracing large buildings
in Oostende. By Strook, he of Bruges' fame who
constructs his portraits from reclaimed old wood.