Bringing the street inside

COLLABORATIVE and experimental street art exhibition, Colorum, is currently on display at The Old Butcher’s Shop Gallery in Soldiers Hill.

On show until 28 March, people can stroll by day and night and witness the large-scale graffiti style mural decorated with lights, sculpture and photographs throughout the space.

The exhibition is a product from the Rat Art Project, as convened by Dionko Pasilan who also had creating some of the displayed works.

“I organised this exhibition with two artists who normally work in street art, doing graffiti, and I suggested instead doing it in a gallery instead,” he said.

“They usually do lots of works underground so the idea was to utilise cardboard and do works on that instead and put them up on the walls.

“This project started before COVID, we were planning to go to the Philippines to do a project with the community over there, some street art in the slums but when COVID arrived, we cancelled and thought, why not do it in a gallery instead?”

In addition to the mural graffiti piece on the main wall, artists Bacondrum and Spottymob also created a variety of smaller scale, vibrant street art pieces throughout the gallery.

Sitting alongside these graffiti-style works, Pasilan said he created a series of sculptures from old milk bottles, rice boxes and

photographs with a series of lights to add dimension to the exhibit.

“In the boxes are pictures of places where we were meant to do the projects, in the slum in the Philippines, I took the photos myself and included boxes that were traditionally used to measure out rice at markets in the area,” he said.

“I like the idea of bringing one place with the boxes as a container to contrast between the two different places.

“With the bottles, I’ve been working with plastic as a material for quite a long time, doing this sort of distort the shape of the milk bottles by blowing bubbles in it, then I add lights to them and put them on at night.”

Working alongside artists who typically utilise street scapes and drains as their canvas, Pasilan said it was interesting to see them work to the galleries boundaries and meet the challenge of adapting their work to the space.

“I gave them the measurements of the wall and said to them that they had to collaborate together and talk about the work,” he said.

“The name Colorum comes from the Philippines word which has to do with when something’s illegal, like a public transport car with no license, or a squatter, that would be called Colorum.

“This idea reflects with the street art as that is considered illegal vandalism in some cases, that’s why the artists have their alias’ and why I even came up with one for myself, D Stryker.”

Although the trio have totally different approaches to making art, Pasilian said this is a good way to start blending the two and that he hopes to do more in the future.

Walk by the exhibit anytime or pop inside and see for yourself on Fridays from 5pm to 7pm or Saturdays and Sundays from 12pm to 4pm.