Since returning to Melbourne after spending some time up in Brisbane and overseas, Shida has been killing it. His street work is looking super fresh. I’m loving the bright colours and his sharp lines which are his signature style. Shida’s latest show “Ecstasy in the Abyss” is opening on Friday the 19th of April and running until May 5th at Backwoods Gallery, Collingwood. Make sure you get to this.

From the press release –

“The inherent desire for order over chaos – for categories and labels – is rife in the art world, and as a result, street art is often condensed into subgenres. Shida’s art is testament to the fact that you cannot and should not categorise street art – his vibrant, fractal-based work is part of an ever-evolving mythos that flows continuously across manifold mediums.

Deities emerge from fathomless depths in a climax of luminous colour, as Shida summons the spirits of a parallel dimension. He weaves an epic visual mythology through his art, as the towering incarnations that he paints across city walls envelop onlookers. The exact nature of Shida’s work is hard to define; yet his imagery is unwaveringly distinct, poetic and evocative. His anamorphic creatures, like nature itself, are tempestuous and unpredictable, evoking feelings of vulnerability, sexuality and perhaps even utopia.

When viewed from the street, the sheer scale of Shida’s art places emphasis on bodily presence. These larger-than-life, otherworldly beings reflect the dynamics of intimacy and physicality in their gestures. Shida’s name is eponymous with meticulous line-work, rapid movement and extreme colour contrasts, and he draws on these techniques to foreground socio-sexual aspects of the body. Painted across water towers and multi-storey buildings, his creatures laugh ecstatically as they embrace, their vast, naked limbs spread wide in ecstasy or carefully intertwined in acts of affection and lust.

Ecstasy in the Abyss is a showcase of the pivotal influence that Shida has had over the Australian street art scene. At twenty-three years of age, Shida has established himself as an ambitious innovator, returning to Melbourne after a world tour that spanned four continents. Shida participated in the Galeria Urban Forms large format street project in Łódź, Poland in 2012, where he painted a five-storey mural over twelve days. He has also been involved in multi-storey mural projects in Phuket, Chicago, Berlin, Vienna, Brisbane, Melbourne and the Gold Coast – Chloe Sugden”.

Ecstasy in the Abyss from Shida ZRF on Vimeo.

Check out some of his latest street work and some previews of the show below.

Who: Shida
What: Ecstasy in the Abyss
Where: Backwoods Gallery – 25 Easey St, Collingwood.
When: Opening Friday April 19th from 6-9pm and runs until the 5th of May.

Facebook event page here.