5009. Greenbank (70)

This bright piece from Gosia Wadada both delights and frustrates me. Firstly, it is great to see that this artist made the most of her time in Bristol, painting both here and in Cumberland Basin, however, her choice of panel to paint on, was not great, because she painted over a one third of a very fresh and magnificent portrait piece by Rozalita.

I was once told by an artist that it is a bit disrespectful to partially obscure somebody else’s work, you should either leave it or go over the whole thing, and sometimes you can tag the artist in your new replacement as an acknowledgement. But as I am frequently told, there are no rules and it is a jungle out there. In fairness, I’m not sure that Gosia Wadada would have known that the Rozlita piece was only a few days old.

Gosia Wadada has visited Bristol before (thank you, Paul H, for your Instagram post) and I will dig the piece out and post it some time soon. In this ‘swapsies’ piece, Gosia Wadada has painted two of her trademark mouths, but switched the colour combinations, to create opposites, although you might spot the small inconsistency in her approach. The mouths work well on the carefully constructed red backdrop, and overall this is a refreshing and fun piece. I would love to see more of her work in Bristol.