Belgian street artist Bart Smeets (Smates) has created the largest public art mural in Cape Town for the International Public Art Festival (IPAF).

Bart Smeets (Smates) in Cape Town

The public art mural (400m2) is now brightening up a previously uninteresting site in Harrington Street.  The mural will effectively act as an extension of – and billboard for – the third International Public Art Festival which takes place in Salt River between 9 and 17 February 2018.

Infamous Belgian street artist Bart Smeets (better known as Smates) started his epic work on Monday 5 November 2018 and visitors watched the mural develop until its completion on 11 November. BAZ-ART, the NGO that runs the International Public Art Festival (IPAF) collaborated with the Flanders Embassy in Pretoria and with Flanders State-of-the-Art in Belgium to bring Bart Smeets to Cape Town to create this massive public artwork.  The mural reflects the IPAF 2019 theme of ‘Generation Next’, which will feature a child, a dog and ‘aviation’, and Baz-Art is working towards bringing Bart Smeets back to Cape Town again so that he may create a subsequent masterpiece for IPAF in Salt River next February.

BAZ-Art and more than 70 local and international artists have transformed the streets of Salt River and Woodstock into an open-air national art gallery, featuring over 100 public artworks through IPAF over the past two years.

About Bart Smeets (Smates)

Bart Smeets (Smates) is a Belgian street artist who was born 1978 in Asse (close to Brussels). He studied graphic design at Sint-Lukas Brussels and graduated as a graphic designer. Bart has always been a fan of realistic drawings and paintings, so after graduating he followed painting classes for about two years and that helped him to become the artist he is today.  At the age of 17 Smates started with graffiti and since September 2013 he has been a full-time street artist.

What: International Public Art Festival 2019

Where and when: Salt River, Cape Town from 9 to 17 February 2019

WS