Dear Readers,
This past weekend a group of friends and I decided to go check out Art Battle at the Sanctuary Theatre! For those of you who aren’t familiar with Art Battle. “Art Battle is the global live art tournament. Artists compete live – transforming blank canvas to finished works, as audiences experience the spectacle and individual creations. The audience decides their winners each round, with votes cast for their chosen artist.”
The Art Battle Tournaments have been going on since 2009, and started in Toronto. Tournaments now happen alllllll over the world! This year there will be over 250 art battles around the world, with the world championship being held in Tokyo.
The Art Battle was consisted of three rounds, with twelve competing artist! The artists are divided in half for the first two rounds, with each round lasting twenty minutes. At the end of each round, you get a text asking you which artist you’d like to vote for, then the top two from each round moves onto the third and final round. During the rounds while artists are painting the audience walks around counter clockwise to check out the painting going on.
In the third round the top four competitors paint for 25 minutes, before all the attendees vote again.
Each painting that was created was incredible, there was so much talent in one room. One of the artist used spray paint instead of acrylic! Once each painting was completed it was put up for silent auction, so all the paintings go home with someone from the event.
It was neat to see such a variety of artists, from styles to ages competing and showing their love of art! The winner of this battle was a grade ten student, which I think is so impressive, and shows how talented young people can be.
I am definitely going to keep an eye out for the next Art Battle happening in Saint John!
Photography: The Lovely Allie Ruigrok
Check out more from Allie below:
Portfolio: https://allieruigrok.myportfolio.com/projects
Instagram: @allieruigrok