July 2015

by Derek Pickup

From 24th to 26th July in Bristol  we had the annual Urban Paint Festival UPFEST where over three hundred street artists painted their socks off. Bacha's (Dr. Love) work was universally liked and to pay for his visit he is painting five canvas's which we are going to sell for £100 each. He hasn't started painting them yet and he has already sold three of them, one has been bought by the Mayor, George Ferguson. We have noticed that the work he painted is prominent on social media and getting a lot of interest. Here is a photograph of his art piece (left Dr Love and right Mayor Ferguson).

The tree is made out of real moss and he has used organic glue which means that the moss will continue to grow and flourish. The theme of the picture was to fit in with Bristol being European Green Capital. Bacha is holding an exhibition in Tbilisi sometime around December. Check out Dr Love's Facebook page for more images. In fact last week he completed the largest piece of street art in Georgia in Batumi, over 25 metres high and 35mtres wide. Bacha's visit has been a big hit and we hope he will come again next year.

http://www.bristol247.com/channel/culture/art/street-art/upfests-best-pieces

 CROWDS LOVE GEORGIAN ART

Thousands of visitors to UPFest crowded around Dr Love's piece in the sunshine on Saturday. Some hailed him as "the Banksy of Georgia" while others living in the street offered to water his moss regularly. Members of the BTA handed out postcards and information about the twinning and spoke with hundreds of excited urban art lovers. The twitter sphere went into overload with images of Dr Love's piece suitably fitting the European Green Capital theme.

A letter from the BTA chairman - Derek Pickup

Dear BTA Members,

Last weekend there was the Bristol Upfest festival in South Bristol and thanks to the BTA and BITA we managed to get the top Georgian street artist Bacha Koperia more commonly known as Dr Love to come and participate. Over 250 artists took part in Upfest and the picture painted by Bacha was regarded as one of the best. For those of you who want to see it, go to the corner of North Street and Greville Road in Southville. The picture is next to the Hen and Chicken pub, it is well worth the visit:

The Mayor was so impressed that be joined BTA members for lunch at the Tobacco Factory. To fund Bacha's visit Bacha painted seven pictures which I managed to sell to BTA members and others for £600' well done everyone. Even the Mayor bought a picture.

The visit was so successful that Bacha will hopefully be back next year. Many thanks for the BTA for buying his paints, Alix for getting Bacha to Bristol, Esther and I for putting him up and all those who bought his pictures. Bacha also painted a picture for UPfest which was sold the day it went on display and he painted a picture for the Tbilisi Flood Appeal which sold for £180, I think. This was a real success, we looked at one social media site that his picture was on and by Monday it had had over 10,000 hits, not bad. Keep up the good work everyone. https://twitter.com/hashtag/DrLove?src=hash

 

 

 

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