Street Art in VR — Malaysia
Julia Volchkova and “The Goldsmith” in KL
How do you become a street artist when you grow up? What’re the odds? What’s the path, the Banksy path?
Julia Volchkova didn’t grow up spraying grafitti and running around the boroughs of New York like Lady Pink in the 1980s. She was born in 1987 and grew up in a world that already had a few famous street artists, except she was in Nizhnevartovsk, Siberia (Russia).
Maybe you win all the Art and Design awards at the State University, move to Saint Petersburg and draw. A few commissions come your way and you’re doing everything right but it’s still hand to mouth. Celebrity gigs help — featuring Julia painting something live on the spot. People see her in action. She gets invited to festivals.
In 2014, Julia Volchkova was invited to draw murals in the International Festival in Penang, Malaysia. After presenting 15 ideas and sketches, she waited for months to get the proper approvals from the government.
“I rented a room without air-conditioning, a window or even a bed. I slept on the floor. And I did the murals for free,” she reminisced in an interview with Buletin Mutiara in March, 2023.
“At that time, I believed that it was my chance to prove myself. Life was not easy for me. That was my experience. But at the same time, I believe in art, and I choose to make money from art.”
Her first work in Penang was the Indian Boatman. The Festival went very well. She stayed.
Her first work in Kuala Lumpur came two years later in 2016. The Goldsmith featured a local man in a white t-shirt hammering a nail into something. It took her four days.
Tourism is important to Malaysia. Tourists tend to like attractions. Julia Volchkova’s work is big and expressive, but not a cartoon. She captures the humanity of people and that’s what draws your attention and holds it.
Her work instantly became a destination, listed on Lonely Planet and TimeOut as a top attraction.
Now The Goldsmith is gone. Whitewashed over in July, 2024.
“I’m in Kuala Lumpur, I was walking around and look at that. It’s so sad… they covered my painting. We are crying,” she said in a video.
She had an agreement with the previous owners. New owners may not have felt bound by it.
In the U.S., the Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA) of 1990 protects the rights of visual artists, including street artists — in theory, and for sure not in Malaysia.
Julia Volchkova is now 36 and while not an established super star is hopefully not sleeping on the floor any more.
Her Instagram Post
First, everyone is asking why, why, why. I don’t really know. I also want to know the reason. If anyone knows the real reason, please tell me.
Second, people ask how I feel about it. Of course, it’s painful because my art is my children. It’s a part of me. Creating this work was very difficult, in unbearable conditions. I spent my time, my knowledge, my health on it. I have health problems after creating such heavy works. Well, if we don’t talk about me, it’s quite a strange phenomenon to remove this mural because this work is an indicator of Malaysia’s cultural level Worldwide, not just in only Malaysia.
Many street artists face this. I realized this when I started painting on the streets 20 years ago when my works were painted over. I understand if they are of poor quality. But here it is a fairly good work that all of Malaysia loved. And it was a very important landmark, a tourist point where people came. Of course, I know the kind of rules of street art. If you paint on the street, be prepared for your work to be painted over.
What do you think? Everyone is welcome to express their opinion. We can start a discussion and discuss it in the comments. Thank you.
Follow me for more info..#streetart #art #volchkovaart #juliavolchkova #volchkova #mural #kualalumpur #malaysia #penang #painting #history #culture
Tom Nickel writes about new media technologies and other topics he has little if any standing to write about. His work has not appeared in The New York Times, New Yorker Magazine, The New Republic, or the New England Journal of Medicine.
Tom holds a Black Belt in Learning and is a founding Board Member of the African VR Campus & Centre and a long-time supporter of the Khmer Magic Music Bus.
You can join a small but growing number of people like you who subscribe to his little gumballs of text for free on Sub-Stack.