
Street art piece in Tilburg named best in the world for 2022
A mural on Centaurusweg in Tilburg was named the best street art in the world for 2022 by Street Art Cities. Artists Niels van Swaemen and Kaspar van Leek, united in Studio Giftig, will receive the Golden Brik award soon, Street Art Cities said.
The artwork in question is titled Trashure, a play on the words “treasure” and “trash.” CVB Ecologistics commissioned Studio Giftig to create a mural about what the company stands for - sustainability, circularity and seeing waste as raw materials.
“Towards a circular society, we need to be more creative regarding waste. A woman at first sight dressed in gracious clothing appears to be made up of trash. The woman moves surrounded by a dark colored environment, towards a luminous globe made up of waste materials, as a reference to recycling as an answer in times of a changing environment/climate,” Studio Giftig said about the mural on Instagram.
“The idea behind it is that every [piece of] trash can be reused again,” artist Van Leek said to Street Art Cities. “The trash can have a purpose for a new life. That’s what we liked to show with this painting.”
He added that the appreciation for the piece and the attention given to it globally is “the biggest compliment we’ve ever gotten.”
Aside from winning Street Art Cities’ Golden Brick award, the two artists from Studio Giftig also scored an invitation to the Hit the North Festival in Belfast, which brings together some of the world’s best street artists. They have also been invited to participate in a presentation with the local political leaders in Tilburg.
Street Art Cities stressed that while the Studio Giftig mural in Tilburg won the Best Of award, urban artists everywhere are winners. “The media picked up this colorful news in times of uncertainty, stigmas about street art are broken, dialogues starting, doors are opening for artists everywhere,” the organization said. “The white cube elite are starting to understand that this art in the streets has its rightful place in art history.”
