Leicester's most ambitious street art festival yet

For anyone in Rutland looking for a culture fix this weekend, this year's Bring The Paint festival in Leicester is the most ambitious yet.

Over 70 artists from all over the globe have flown in to work on 48 large-scale painting projects being created on the side of buildings, walls and in cultural hotspots in the city.

Organised by BID Leicester and Graffwerk, and supported by a host of sponsors, the festival aims to throw a blanket of colour over the more bleak buildings in town.

BID Director, Simon Jenner said: 'people expect more from cities, they want a richer experience, they want to see some colour, some vibrancy - they want to see some life in a place and this event is bigger and better than a lot of other events in its time.'

Nuno, who flew in from Portugal to work on one painting, said: 'As an artist, this is the most interesting part of my career, I would say. This is when you get together with your colleagues and share and meet and grow your networks. It's extremely important for our scene to have these sort of events.'

'I've just walked around (Leicester) very little, I've been busy working, but from what I've seen it's a nice city.'

James is from the LCB Creative Hub, where one of the 48 pieces is being completed: 'It's part of the city narrative and we need people like Graffwerks and Bring The Paint to expand that narrative, so that we become known from that as well as Richard III and Premiership wins - and these guys are doing a brilliant job, and visiting international artists can only be good thing.'

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• Street Art
• Painting
• leicester
• Festival
• culture