After years of passing by the closed gates, being teased by seeing the artists creating their ‘works in progress’ (during Kingsday) and multiple delays, STRAAT Museum has opened its doors less than one year ago. During a both cold and sunny september morning, team Capturing Creativity was wandering around the NDSM Wharf, before entering the enormous museum. As there is so much to discover, we’ve selected our favourite artworks, so you’ll still have a lot to discover by yourself!
The current exhibition spaces display more than 150 artworks by 130 artists. The artworks were created on-site and most of these mind blowing visual experiences are as big as outdoor murals. As a museum, STRAAT claims to provide added value of context and information to the artworks. Although this added context is only present in a minimalistic way, it works perfectly. For example, there are small but useful installations that discuss the history of both Graffiti and Street Art in general, and the NDSM Wharf in its specific. By keeping further information limited (all the works basically include some info about the artists themselves), it keeps the aspect of interpretation as open as possible.
STRAAT displays a wide variety of artists. From upcoming talents to household names, from graffiti to street art an everything in between: the collection is displayed with much care and knowledge. To give you a little teaser, here are our favourite works (in complete random order):
NASCA 1 is a painter, illustrator and character designer living currently in Berlin, Germany. His interest and love in drawing began from the age as a toddler. Inspired and amazed early on by powerful comic styles such as Don Rosa’s style in the Disney comics and Akira Toriyamas ‘Dragon Ball’, he started developing his very own characteristic style. Later on when he discovered the work from big Graffiti icons from his home town Munich, he also stepped up to the graffiti path of life. This is when he also chose to pick his name “Nasca”, which got inspired by his ancestral roots to Peru in South America where there’s a certain archeological site with this name. Nowadays, Nasca work concentrates mainly on paintings, illustrations, Graffiti and mural work in classic traditional way or digital.
The thematics in his paintings are frequently containing elements from the ancient and current times of mankind, deities and animals and people from all around the world. His aim is to visualize the universal bond between all living creatures in our world, their rituals, our ancestry and the universal balance.
ROYYAL DOG is a graffiti writer and graffiti artist from Seoul, Korea. He is best known for his photorealistic murals of African American women in traditional Korean hanbok dresses and iconic rappers. His paintings carry a message of global harmony and have been recognized for multiculturalism. His work can be seen around the world.
Fascinated by Asian beauty, the work of FIN DAC has no political message and only focuses on beauty and aesthetics. His depictions are women in ethnic clothes are mainly stencil-based, with a predominence of black and white and they all wear a mysterious mask painted with bright colour splashes. All of them are heavily influenced by Asian art, with inspiration in traditional and ceremonial dressing, and most of them are based on women the artist has met. As a self-taught and non-conformist artist, his influences range from dark graphic novels through to the works of Francis Bacon and Aubrey Beardsley.
Through his work Fin DAC explores themes related to female emancipation and empowerment, while revealing their sensuality and sensitivity at the same time. The artist’s artwork aims to tackle racial and sexual stereotypes that surround women while readjusting the male gaze and former colonialist attitudes surrounding the Eastern experience.
BEN SLOW is an artist who emerged through the UK street art scene of the late 2000s. Having created large scale murals across the UK and internationally, Ben’s background in street art visibly informs his fine art studio practice. Born from the early days of throwing paint-filled balloons at walls, he combines an abstract ‘drip based’ aesthetic with refined portraiture, navigating the space between order and chaos. Stating that there is nothing scarier than a blank canvas, Ben uses an array of different materials and techniques to create his unique style; deconstructing, destructing and blurring boundaries to strike a balance between figurative and abstract.
Internationally-acclaimed artists SNIK combine the creation of hand-cut, multilayered stencils with haunting, ethereal portraiture, born from a male/female dual perspective. This traditional-craft, progressive-ethos approach has seen the duo commissioned on walls the world over.
Away from city streets, the pair have become revered by urban-contemporary art collectors in recent years, thanks to rare releases of editions that can take up to a year to produce – the smaller scale and intricacy of layered stencil work requires incredibly precise cuts and careful compositional thought.
TYMON DE LAAT is a visual artist and muralist working and living in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. After graduating from the Willem de Kooning Academy de Laat decided to travel to Latin America. It turned out to be a year-long journey living on a relatively sparse travel budget, this made him realize he didn’t actually need much funds to feel fulfilled. When he eventually came back to Rotterdam, he could do little else but pay tribute to Latin America, the part of the world that gave him so many insights about how he saw himself, the world at large, and the art wanted to create. De Laat started painting murals and canvases, often based on his own photographs of the people he met during his travels. He exaggerates the natural lines in their faces, and fills the spaces that appear between those swirling lines with swaths of vivid color. The linework and color palette he applies in that way, are a means of translating his memories of Latin America to visual imagery.
DALE GRIMSHAW was born in Lancashire, in the North of England. During a difficult childhood, his drawing and painting became extremely important to him. He developed his skills at college, firstly with an Art Foundation course at Blackburn College and later he studied fine art to degree level at Middlesex University in London. More recently he has been devoting time to street murals and has been widely recognised as one of the most powerful and talented of street artists on that scene. Dale’s work is boldly figurative and is inspired by his strongly held humanitarian beliefs. However this political message is always achieved by an emphasis on powerful direct emotions and a deep empathy for his subjects.
For more info: STRAAT MUSEUM
Text: Mike Warrink / Capturing Creativity
Photo: Henk Warrink / NCO Photography
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