After I had the chance to visit Indonesia for the first time last December it definitely had a place in my heart and I knew I wanted to come back soon. I really enjoyed the country and its people. A couple of week ago I´ve received a rather spontaneous invitation to this years TROPICA FESTIVAL in Bali and I was more than thrilled about it. The festival is organized by Julien and his ALLCAPS STORE – a graffiti shop with a gallery – which is located in the hipster and surfer community of Canggu. For one week everything was going to be about Graffiti and Streetart. The lineup included artists from 8 different countries from all over the world and the whole team put sweat and tears into it to make our stay a memorable one. Just behind the ALLCAPS STORE the TROPICA PARK is located – a huge but easy to access area with tons of walls in different sizes which have all been painted during the festival. I had the honor to paint the biggest wall of 25×6 meters with the guys EWOK MSK (USA), GUS (Australia), KENJI (Malaysia) and CHES (Russia). And let me tell you – for a Middle European guy like me it was quite hot, especially for painting. But we all got used to it and even though EWOK caught a bad flue right away, we managed to kill the beast, helping each other out and were all really happy with the final result. What a great feeling.
But this festival was not just about painting that big wall. It was also about the amazing food in all those bars and local warungs in Canggu, the great sunsets at Echo Beach, meeting all those amazing and interesting human beings, riding around our motorbikes in crazy anarchistic traffic, getting to know Bali and spontaneous graff sessions with talented people from all over the world. We painted walls located next to rice fields, we painted shutters, we painted right next to the beach and in the city. What a great experience! And everything was so chill – the easy living on Bali. Loved it!
There is one little story I want you to know: When the festival had just started this young gun named YOPE from a city not far away from Jakarta came to talk to me. He was quite shy and his friend asked me if it was possible for him to paint my portrait on a huge wall. I said yes right away – it´s always an honor. So he got his phone, took a couple of pictures and got started. The result was a f*cking awesome wall painted with Pylox cans which here in Europe you wouldn´t even wanna paint the fence of your backyard with. Check out YOPEs Instagram, this guy´s got some skills and this is just the beginning.
Before leaving you with the pictures I want to say “Terima Kasih Banyak” to my man Julien Thorax and his soon to be wife Geysha for the best time and the fantastic organization of the TROPICA FESTIVAL. You made us feel at home and welcome and took great care of us. A high five goes out to the hardworking TIGER of ALLCAPS STORE for his endless help. And definitely a shout out to the whole Bali Crew of ALLCAPS – thank you for everything. You made it all happen! I hope I´ll be able to be back soon … Selamat Tinggal!
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