Teetering on the edge

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“Teetering on the edge” by Ekta Ekta
White Post Lane, Hackney Wick
London, September 2014

“Glaring out from the brick wall of an old sweet factory on the edge of the Olympic site in east London, a furious face throws a toothy snarl across the canal. Half monkey, half skull, with a golden clothes peg for a nose, the creature has every reason to be angry. It is the work of local street art collective, the Burning Candy Crew, whose psychedelic scenes defined this industrial stretch of the River Lea Navigation, until they were mostly painted over in preparation for the 2012 Games. Now, on those very walls, the Olympic legacy's public art body has unveiled a series of new artworks – with not a local artist in sight. ‘It was a very deliberate decision,’ says Sarah Weir, former head of arts and cultural strategy for the Olympics, who now heads up the Legacy List charity that commissioned the work. ‘We unashamedly wanted to showcase the best international artists and transform this part of the canal into a destination for street art. We want it to have the same energy as somewhere like Camden – I hope people will come on boat tours to see the work.’ The four new works, which occupy prominent stretches of wall along both sides of the water, are by artists invited from Brazil and Sweden, Italy, Scotland and the Netherlands. On one building, a graphic black-and-white mural by Swedish artist Ekta Ekta climbs up to the eaves, a tangled pile of odds and ends that form a teetering Heath Robinson contraption. Beneath a bridge, a blue form by Brazilian painter Zezão unfurls like a tribal marking, recalling the looping shapes of cursive sanskrit script.” (Olympic legacy murals met with outrage by London street artists, The Guardian)