Translating street art into a gallery setting

A new exhibition spearheaded by a Torquay-born art movement is adorning the walls at the Geelong Arts Centre.

The Vivid Colour exhibition – which features three male street artists – was inspired by curator Belinda White’s ambition to showcase elusive creatives who often use urban landscapes as a platform for their mediums.

Sourced and organised by Bells Fine Art, Belinda said the chosen artists were eager to experience a transitory move from city laneways to a traditional gallery space.

“This is a totally new and different exhibition, and each artist is thematically connected through the central theme of ‘Vivid Colour’,” she said.

“We found that these street artists were incredibly talented, but they weren’t getting the recognition that they deserved.”

Presenting Silly Sullys, Brian Connolly and Luke Elphick, Vivid Colour sees each artist explore their style of art through the lens of their life experiences.

And while there are no female artists featured in the exhibition, Belinda (who is also Bell Fine Arts’ studio director) said the unintentional outcome was driven by her objective to expose artists who had discovered art through hardship.

“We’re all for promoting female artists, and I was very much interested in finding as many female artists in that realm; it was coincidental that they were all male.

“Silly Sullys had a very difficult upbringing. He lived on the streets, had a very difficult childhood and learnt his craft by living on the streets… he had no other way to express himself.

“He’s almost like a tortured artist – all of his work is symptomatic of his childhood difficulties, and he used art as a way of healing those wounds.”

Vivid Colour is a free exhibition that will be on display at the Geelong Arts Centre until December 13. It will then make its way to Torquay from December 27 to January 26 and be exhibited beneath Happy Spaces on Gilbert Street.

All artworks (original and reproduced on paper by Bells Fine Art Printing) are available for sale.

For more information, head to bellsfineart.com.au.