Art / Street Art
EXCLUSIVE: Mystery yellow scaffold pole artist revealed
The mystery artist behind a series of sculptures that have appeared across Bristol in recent weeks can be exclusively revealed by Bristol24/7 as Duncan McKellar.
Working in secret, McKellar installs his yellow pieces of street art in prominent locations from Queen Square to Park Street, leaving passers-by guessing who is behind the project and what it all means.
Speaking for the first time about his unique work, the artist told Bristol24/7 that he has a strong environmental ethos and finds beauty in things he finds on the streets – but his main aim is simply to make people smile.
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“I put a lot of work into documentation and it’s enjoyable looking at people smiling and appreciating the crazy, yellow thing on the street,” McKellar said.
“When they first go up, I will try and do it on a sunny day and get a lot of documentation of people’s reactions before they disappear. You can hear people passing by talking about them. It’s good fun.”
Originally from Wales, McKellar, 36, who also leads walking tours of Bristol, studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, but spent his four years there creating sculpture and performance pieces, feeling more comfortable with three-dimensional work than painting.
His most well-known work in Bristol before his latest pieces was a Kinder Surprise mountain seemingly erupting from College Green in 2015.
McKellar said that his most recent favoured material of the yellow foam tubes that cover scaffolding poles came about after he asked the builders removing the tubes from his building whether he could have some.
The first time he used them was at the Create Centre where he exhibited for three months last year, and later in the Edwardian Cloakroom on Park Row after which he was left with some 400 spare tubes.
“After the show, I thought I would do more in the street,” McKellar explained. “The first sculpture was just a bit of fun and then they evolved. I put the first one on Queen Square and some kids actually set that one on fire.”
The sculpture on the statue of Neptune in the centre went up on day of the Winter Solstice. The sun is something McKellar says that he enjoy working with, and he is planning some street pieces soon which are mirrors that capture the sun.
“I like making work that puts a smile on people’s faces. It’s something unexpected that you can find on the street that will put a smile on your face.
“Bristol is obviously great for doing things like this and there are no other places the art in Queen Square would stay up for three weeks. Bristol has encouraged me more to work on the street.
“Galleries are great, but on the street it’s really good fun and reaches more people. And you get an honest reaction which is why I like listening in. In galleries, people tend to be too scared to say anything.
“I do like the air of mystery and I like the sculptures just appearing and people not quite knowing what they are about. The Banksy-like anonymity is quite fun, but not very useful.”
Read more: Kinder mountain on College Green