This year, the international Satka Street Art Fest sets records: in terms of number of the participants and created works, its length and unusual formats. The other good news is that artists come back again and enjoy creating new works for the town. 

Ronald van der Voet (ZEDZ), an artist from the Netherlands, is back to Satka. This year, he has created several art objects both in the downtown and in Magnezit group territory. In addition to "50-50" project created last year on the two transformer houses next to Magnezit Cultural Center, ZEDZ delivered his unique style of the abstract typography to their new “neighbor”. Now the garage that was constructed here in spring merges harmonically with the colorful trio. Besides, the artist’s creativity transformed another locomotive in Magnezit railway shop floor (if you remember, the first one “tried on” the bright outfit by Nebay, the French artist), with the security guard robots drawn on the gates of the train shed.

Robots calling?

– I am glad to have been invited to Satka again. I was here the last year, and I have very pleasant memories, – ZEDZ shares. – Your town is different from the cities I spend much time in. It has its own beauty, it is interesting and unusual. There is so much space around Satka, mountains, forests… In the place where I come from everything is very compact. The Netherlands are the country of apartments, and houses standing very close to each other. And I like that your town is divided in three parts, it’s very unusual as well: every part lives its own life. I enjoy the feeling I have of this town, its small, low houses where people have their own vegetable gardens, little streets the special atmosphere, coziness.  

– I thought you would tell that your robots called you back to Satka. Do they or other works call you back?

– I am looking forward to seeing them! But there is one thing: I leave, and the robots stand where they are. And it’s the same with all my works: I come to the place, paint, and leave, and they stay where I painted them…

– But you had to come back to "50-50" project next to Magnezit Cultural Center.

– I came back to add a small supplement to the transformer houses I painted the last year. I like the fact that I’ve created this work in the public space, and people can see it passing by. This is a great story, much better when the work is enclosed in the confined space and you have to go there on purpose to see it. While here, the work of mine that is associated with architecture actually lives in the urban environment, among buildings, it lives among people.

15 / 85 

We had the conversation in the Railway Shop Floor, when ZEDZ merely began his new work bringing the sketch with the locomotive fresco to life adhering to his style but using Magnezit Group corporate colors.

It seems to me these colors are a perfect match even beyond the company. And the locomotive story will go on, it will have its own way. Because this work is not static, it will move. And at the same time it will not be in contrast with the environment, it will fit everything around it, – the author thinks.

– Will it continue "50-50" project?

– I’d say, this is 15/85 (the artist kept 15% of the previous metal surface of the locomotive – editor’s note). I would like to keep these fragments – this is what I incorporate in my work. I don’t leave it the way it is, but overlay the locomotive story and the story of the new creative idea. And this authentic state the train was in will only enrich my work. Because I want the train to carry art, and to be not only forwarder of the art, but its symbol as well. And if I had fully covered it by my painting, we would have lost the train as such, it would be only the work.

That’s why I will not touch the windows, elements with the text – they all will contribute to the overall result. And I don’t need an ideal surface, otherwise I would paint the picture to be framed and hung on the wall.

– Is this the first train in your creative story? 

– I’ve made the work for the French forwarder company. But this was an entirely different story – that of the passenger train. I had to paint 25 – 28 meters in 3 hours 45 minutes, with the train leaving afterwards, so I didn’t have much time. And of course, I completed plenty of illegal works on the trains.

The Opinion:

Aleksandr Klepalsky, rolling stock repairman of the Railway Shop Floor:

– We have already got used to foreigners coming to our shop floor. A new foreign artist every week. I like ZEDZ’s work more than that of his French colleague. In my opinion, this abstraction, with geometry and straighter forms, suits the equipment better. If I were to decide, I’d give the entire rolling stock to the artists.

Ronald van der Voet known as ZEDZ was born in Leiden (the Netherlands) in 1971. After graduating the high school, he was painting in public spaces for several years. Then he entered the world-known Gerrit Rietveld Academie, a Dutch academy for fine arts and design in Amsterdam,   choosing Graphic Design as his major, which he graduated in 1998. Since then, he has been working as a free-lance artist and designer.

ZEDZ is one of the pioneers of European graffiti:  he starting putting his pen-name in the walls in the end of the 1980-ies and still says that his love for word as image and creativity as a whole are still closely related with this subculture.

In his works, he tries to combine graffiti, printed content, architectural forms, elements of graphic and industrial design. He is actively experimenting with different materials and techniques and exhibits his works in many countries worldwide.

During the last-year Satka Street Art Fest, ZEDZ created 50-50 work – he painted two transformer houses next to Magnezit Cultural Center. The mural contains direct references to the transformer houses architecture. By reinterpreting and reconstructing these elements – right angles of the décor, its relief – in color, the artist has left half of buildings unpainted. 50-50.

He implemented the second project in the territory of Angar art site. It is on the lateral façade of Angar that ZEDZ settled down his robots. Three armed robots – three graffiti made of ZEDZ letters in Magnezit Group corporate colors. This is the largest series of robots out of his personal creative project, Triple trouble. He has been drawing these graffiti for long ago – letters of his pen-name smoothly make up modules of the robot “bodies”. Trouble series is a visual story of adventures of the artist. Besides, ZEDZ suggested several color solutions to mark the territory around Angar. According to his project, the lighting tower near the entrance to the building, the industrial reels used to divide the site for open-air events and the ex oxygen house that became a small art street gallery were turned into art objects. 

Source: Magnezitovets.

Photo by: Anna Filippova, Valeria Tsoy, Denis Shakirov.