Berlin Art Week : STROKE Urban Art Fair

Just when you thought you’d had enough of art fairs with the end of Berlin Art Week, along comes STROKE Urban Art Fair. Taking place from Thursday 3rd until Sunday 6th October at industrial setting Alte Mnze, STROKE is not your average art fair, and this was immediately clear upon entering the event, Dolly’s classic ‘Jolene’ blasting from a pair of speakers.

Inside the exhibition was spread over a maze of buildings, meeting at a central open courtyard where artists were working on large scale 2D pieces, attracting avid audiences watching every pen or brush stroke.

Unlike other contemporary art fairs, STROKE aims to champion all types of art, including fields others wouldn’t such as illustration, graffiti, street art, graphic deisgn and comic art as well as more traditional painting, fine art and sculpture.

Personal highlights included the collage work of Stuttgart based artist Daniel Geiger (link to his website here http://www.mongomania.com) shown here below

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and the prints and illustrations of fellow Stuttgart based artist Julia Humpfer, who was busy illustrating a found wooden fragment with intricate shapes and patterns  when we visited yesterday afternoon.

Also impressive was the work of Atta Crew, a collaboration between artists Adam Klodecki (or Theosone – https://www.facebook.com/artoftheosone ) and Anna Taut (link to https://www.facebook.com/vandertaut) resulting in beautiful drawings surrounded by ornate calligraphy – below you can see Anna in action. Beetles/scarabs seemed to be a recurring theme in the fair, the works of sculptur Tim David Trillsam (http://www.trillsam.com) and Dimitris Ntokos (http://dmsntok.tumblr.com) also featuring the animal.

The atmosphere at the fair was refreshing, a laid back crowd with a distinct lack of pretension, filled with visitors enjoying the artwork and engaging with artists what art should be.

(If you publish it today include this: The fair finishes today at 6pm, for more info visit STROKE’s website here: http://www.stroke-artfair.com)