Photo: David Multicapture
Artist Audrey Kawasaki has brought her ethereal figures and floral beauty to the outdoors in Bristol, England. The work, which combines her signature soft rendering with graphic elements, completely covers a 30-foot wall and was created during Upfest, Europe’s largest mural festival. It took Kawaskai six days to complete the three-story-tall painting alongside “lots of sunscreen.”
Kawasaki is known for her work on wood paneling, and while that wasn’t a possibility for this mural, she employed a similarly warm-colored background. From there, a woman’s portrait emerges from the base of the building, looking at the viewer with a confident, knowing expression. Surrounding her are twisting branches, and a blue flower partially obscured by her head. It is shedding its petals, helping lead our eye through the composition.
“The piece revisits a 2013 painting of mine called Ponderer,” Kawasaki tells My Modern Met. “She used to be a woman looking away, turning inward—quiet, contemplative, passive. In this new version, she’s not so soft anymore. She’s gone through life’s challenges and come out the other side: direct, assertive, unapologetic, yet grounded and present. She respects herself and knows her self-worth. She’s done being small for other people or waiting for permission. She’s chosen herself, and she’s moving forward.”
Street art allows people to encounter a work not just once, but to make it part of their everyday life—especially if it’s on a route they often travel. They internalize the work in ways they wouldn’t normally with a piece hanging idly on the wall. “Murals are such a different process from my studio work,” Kawasaki says. “Painting at that scale, in public, in real time, changes the relationship between the piece and the people who encounter it.”
Scroll down to see the mural come to life, and then visit Audrey Kawasaki’s Instagram to see what the artist is working on next.
Artist Audrey Kawasaki has brought her ethereal figures and floral beauty to the outdoors in Bristol, England.
Photo: David Multicapture
The work, which combines her signature soft rendering with graphic elements, completely covers a 30-foot wall and was created during Upfest, Europe’s largest mural festival.
Photo: David Multicapture
It took Kawaskai six days to complete the three-story-tall painting alongside “lots of sunscreen.”
Photo: David Multicapture
“The piece revisits a 2013 painting of mine called Ponderer,” Kawasaki tells My Modern Met. “She used to be a woman looking away, turning inward—quiet, contemplative, passive. In this new version, she’s not so soft anymore.”
Photo: David Multicapture
“She’s gone through life’s challenges and come out the other side: direct, assertive, unapologetic, yet grounded and present.”
Photo: David Multicapture
Photo: David Multicapture
“Murals are such a different process from my studio work,” Kawasaki says.
Photo: David Multicapture
Photo: David Multicapture
“Painting at that scale, in public, in real time, changes the relationship between the piece and the people who encounter it.”
Photo: David Multicapture
Photo: David Multicapture
Photo: David Multicapture
Photo: David Multicapture
Photo: David Multicapture
Photo: David Multicapture
Photo: David Multicapture
