Australian visual artist and muralist Fintan Magee is one of the 11 artists that recently participated in Nuart Aberdeen an event brought to Aberdeen by the team behind Stavanger’s internationally renowned Nuart Festival, bringing a splash of colour to the so-called Granite City or Grey City during last Easter.
The festival took place and was developed in collaboration with Aberdeen Inspired and Aberdeen City Council, providing a platform for local, national and international artists to showcase their work through a series of site-specific murals, installations, interventions, and temporary exhibitions.
One of those murals was ‘The Broken Wall’ by Fintan Magee. Painted in the Aberdeen city centre, the mural depicts three locals standing on top of a broken wall. The wall was according to the artist, painted in the context of the Trump Presidency, Brexit and the rise of Le pen and other far right figures in Europe, being a piece that acts as a protest against Trumpism and those who wish to build walls and divide us.
Contextual background: “In 2008 the Scottish government approved a Donald Trump Golf Course in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The Development has been a disaster, destroying hundreds of acres of sand dunes and pristine natural coastline while forcing locals off their land and delivering only 98 of the 6000 jobs Trump promised to the local economy. Trump also ended up in a public battle with a number of the local farmers who refused to sell their land, claiming the farmer’s homes were ‘slum like’ and would spoil the view from his hotel he regularly cut off their water and electricity and eventually built and wall and row trees around the homes blocking their views. People in Aberdeen now fly Mexican flags around the golf course to protest trump and his actions.”
Images by Brian Tallman and Ian Cox
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Author: Fran
Founder and editor of Urbanite. Street Art lover who after the finishing her MA thesis on the Mexican and Norwegian muralist movement in the 1920-50s, developed a fascination for street art and graffiti that eventually led to collaborations with different art blogs, including the creation of this one.
