the street is our gallery

Nuart’s strategy to reduce the gap between art and everyday life continues apace with the installation of two new art billboards, featuring work by world-renowned artist Ian Strange.

During the week that Stavanger’s Mayor Christine Sagen Helgø opened her New Year speech with support and reference to Nuart’s recent Social Inclusion Through Street Art project, Nuart has been busy inducting its latest public art project in the form of two new art billboards.

Located at the corner of Dalabrekkå & Østre Ring in the east part of the city, the billboards are installed on the same site where two commercial billboards stood for many years before being decommissioned in late 2016.

The project is a self-funded initiative and part of Nuart’s on-going ‘Art City’ program that aims to find convergence points between Street Art and the region’s city development plans; the intent being to develop the region as an international ‘hub’ and destination for Street Art culture.

The two billboards display separate works by the internationally renowned multidisciplinary artist Ian Strange, who first visited Stavanger in September 2017 to participate in Nuart Festival. The images are taken from Strange’s ‘Target’ series of original artworks on found vintage photographs, which explores the cultural and social impact of Home in various cultures.

Nuart is part of an international network of artists and activists that seek to raise awareness about outdoor advertising. Nuart’s ‘art billboard’ project (there are now three in Stavanger) supplements various Nuart initiatives including artist residencies, workshops and events exploring key themes of art and public space.

Photos by Brian Tallman.

Short video interview with Ian Strange:

About the artist

Ian Strange is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores architecture, space and the home, alongside broader themes of disenfranchisement within the urban environment. His practice includes large-scale multifaceted projects resulting in; photography, sculpture, installation, site-specific interventions, film works, documentary works and exhibitions. His studio practice includes painting and drawing, as well as on-going research and archiving projects.

Strange has held solo exhibitions at the National Gallery of Victoria, [‘Suburban’, 2011-2013], The Canterbury Museum [‘Final Act’, 2013] and participated in the 2014 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia with ‘LANDED’ a commissioned sculptural installation on the forecourt of the gallery.

Between 2015-16 he created ‘SHADOW’ a large scale project incorporating suburban homes, documented in film and photography; and ‘ZŁOTY’, a site-specific intervention onto the exterior an historical building commissioned by the Intytucja Kultury, Katowice, Poland [2015].

In June 2016 he held a solo exhibition of his ‘SUBURBAN’ body of work in New York with NYC based arts organisation Standard Practice.

In 2017 Strange released ‘ISLAND’ (2015-17) a series of new works, exhibitions and an editioned publication based around interventions undertaken through Ohio’s rust-belt region and in New York. The work premiered in a solo exhibition at FAC (Fremantle Art Centre) before exhibiting in New York with Standard Practice in November, 2017.

In 2017 ABCTV released ‘Home : The Art of Ian Strange’ a 6-part documentary series looking at his career and work to date.

Strange has been featured in publications including; OSMOS Magazine, Art World, Dazed and Confused, The Atlantic, Art Monthly, Nowness, Imagine Architecture, ArtAlmanac, Artlink, Art Market, Artist Profile, Vault Magazine, Oyster Magazine and The Financial Review.

His work sits in private and public collections including; the National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of South Australia, Art Gallery of Western Australia and the Canterbury Museum.

Strange currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

www.ianstrange.com