Airdate: Work of Art: The Next Great Artist.

On Saturday, Arts channel STUDIO transformed a Sydney billboard as street artists Beastman and Jumbo faced off five storeys above Kings Cross.

Beginning at sunrise on Saturday the two scaled the building armed with paints, to create two original artworks that will sit above the ‘Art Wall’ building in Kings Cross for the next two weeks.

The billboard takeover was to promote US reality show Work of Art, produced by Sarah Jessica Parker.

“It’s quite rare to get an opportunity to paint a billboard, especially a billboard in such a high profile location as William Street in Kings Cross. So I jumped at the chance to be part of this project,” said artist Beastman. “I have known Jumbo for a couple of years now, but we’ve never had an opportunity to create some work together. We decided to keep our very different styles and simply link the two together by using the same colours.”

Produced by Sarah Jessica Parker, Work of Art pits 14 up-and-coming artists against each other to win a solo exhibition at the prestigious Brooklyn Museum and $100,000. The show has been both a critical and a ratings success in the US on the Bravo network, and STUDIO is thrilled to bring it to Australia for the first time.

The billboard takeover was devised by STUDIO Channel with activation by experiential agency PLAY Communication.
Both Beastman and Jumbo were featured at the 2011 Outpost Festival, and their work can be found on walls and in galleries around the world. Beastman has spoken at Semi-Permanent Festival, was named Best Artist at the 2010 Sydney Music, Arts & Culture Awards and has had countless international exhibitions of his nature-inspired work.

“It was good fun being up high painting the billboard. I would do it all over again any day,” continued Beastman. “It’s tricky to paint something so large and not be able to easily step back to see how it looks from a distance. You just need to trust in your sketch and hope it looks right when you get down and look at it from across the road.”

Jumbo is a Sydney-based artist whose work has been shown in the National Gallery of Australia, while having collaborated with fashion houses such as Therese Rawsthorne and most recently created a commissioned mural in Brooklyn, NY. This billboard takeover marks the two artists’ first collaboration together.

8.30pm Wednesday 14 March STUDIO.