Nuart Aberdeen returned after a two year hiatus with ‘Poetry is in the Streets‘. A celebration of the written word in public space and something that the event has experimented with in the past. It’s also believed to be the first ever street art festival all centred around poetry and text.
As usual the event was supported by the Nuart Plus Symposium. A two day event combining the art with a series of academic talks. This time taking place at both the university and the art gallery. Walking tours brought the work on the streets to life and once again were hosted by ourselves at Inspiring City.
Poetry is in the Streets
Martyn Reed the festival director described ‘Poetry is in the Streets’ as a philosophy. One that challenges traditional boundaries between art, academia and everyday life. The three things converging in Aberdeen over the duration of the festival.
Mural Map of Aberdeen
NUART 2026 ARTISTS
For the 2026 edition 13 different artists created a range of new artworks across the city. A mix of permanent murals with more subtle interventions across the city.
Alisa Oleva @alisaoleva
Walking as a Form of Art
Nuart has always encouraged people to look differently at the city around them. Usually through the lens of murals, installations and interventions fixed within the urban landscape. In 2026 however, the festival introduced something entirely different. Presented through the work of Alisa Oleva, the act of walking itself became the artwork.
Across the City
A London based performance artist, Oleva’s practice explores the relationship between people and the spaces they inhabit. Her work considers the politics of public space, the ways in which cities move us and how, in turn, we move through them. It is a practice rooted in observation and interaction, paying attention to the traces, surfaces, borders and unnoticed intervals that shape everyday urban life.
Slowing Down
Rather than creating a single permanent piece, Oleva’s contribution to Nuart Aberdeen existed through participation and experience. Audiences were encouraged to slow down and engage differently with the streets around them. In a city often navigated with purpose and routine, her work invited moments of pause, reflection and curiosity. Familiar routes became choreographed encounters, while overlooked corners and passages took on new meaning.
Heightening Awareness
Her wider body of work spans collective performances, walking scores, intimate one-to-one encounters, soundwalks, audiowalks and what she describes as “soft parkour sessions”. Each seeks to heighten awareness of the city as something layered, responsive and alive. At Nuart Aberdeen, that approach offered a reminder that street art does not always need to exist on walls. Sometimes the most powerful intervention can simply be a change in how we experience the street itself.
Ciaran Globel @ciaranglobel
Anatomy Rooms & Justice Mill Lane
Justice Mill Lane and the nearby Anatomy Rooms became home to two typographic interventions from Glasgow artist Ciarán Glöbel during Nuart Aberdeen 2026. Drawing inspiration from Americana signwriting, commercial advertising and hand-painted lettering traditions, the works transformed fragments of poetry and personal reflection into public text-based artworks within the street.
Briggflatts
Glöbel created two separate works for the festival. These included a piece on the side of the Anatomy Rooms from the “Coda” section of Basil Bunting’s long autobiographical poem Briggflatts (1966). An important text within the field of British modernism, the poem was reinterpreted through Glöbel’s sign-painted lettering style. The words, “Night Float Us / Ask the Sea / What Horn Sunk / Offshore Wind Shout / What’s What’s Lost Left / What Crown Adrift”, were arranged in a format reminiscent of vintage commercial signage. Combining literary modernism with the visual language of the street.
Money’s a Trap
Nearby on Justice Mill Lane, Glöbel also painted a text-based banner work reading: “Money’s a Trap / Everything Costs / Staring at Maps / Everything’s Lost”. Direct and conversational, the piece reflected on uncertainty and modern life whilst using a similarly retro-inspired visual approach associated with advertising and public signage.
Signwriting
A signpainter and designer from Glasgow, Glöbel works with traditional lettering techniques using enamel and aerosol paint on reclaimed polyvinyl. He has painted murals and signs internationally for more than fifteen years and in 2025 co-founded Grateful. An independent Glasgow gallery dedicated to graffiti, mural culture and design alongside Conzo Throb and OhPandah.
Dr. D aka Subvertiser @thedr.d
Spring Garden (North East Scotland College)
London artist dr.d aka Subvertiser brought a number of interventions to Nuart Aberdeen 2026. Continuing a practice rooted in altering and reworking familiar elements of the urban environment. Known for subverting recognised street furniture, signage and advertising infrastructure. His works often resemble official public messaging whilst presenting something unexpected or quietly disruptive.
Verify You Are Human
Alongside a number of smaller interventions across the city, dr.d also created a larger piece on the doors of the North East Scotland College building on Spring Garden. The work read “Verify You Are Human”, referencing the familiar online security prompt often encountered when registering for websites and digital services. Transplanted into the physical environment of the street, the phrase took on a different meaning, reflecting on surveillance, automation and the increasingly blurred relationship between digital and public space.
Playing with Perception
The installation also played with perception and attention. Beneath the text sat two entrance doors and a section of wall. However the wall was painted to mirror the appearance of the doors themselves. From a distance, it could be difficult to distinguish between what was functional and what was painted. The effect introduced a subtle uncertainty into the work. Indeed you would need to actively ‘Verify you are Human’ to choose the right door.
Subvertising
A veteran street artist and “subvertiser” based in London, dr.d uses a cut-and-paste technique developed within the fly-posting industry of the 1990s. Altering everything from billboards to bus stops. By mimicking the scale and visual language of advertising, his work questions who has the authority to communicate messages within the city. The act of subvertising has long been associated with social commentary and protest within street art culture. dr.d’s interventions continue that tradition through works that respond to contemporary media, politics and public life.
Hicks @ed_hicks
Summer Street & The Green
London artist HICKS created two murals for Poetry is in the Streets. One on the side of Merkur Casino on Summer Street and another overlooking Denburn Road at the corner of East Green where the route passes through an underpass. Both works continued his exploration of landscape painting within the context of contemporary muralism and public space.
The Sublime
The Summer Street mural drew heavily from the tradition of sublime landscape painting commonly associated with British Romanticism. Set against an expansive landscape scene, the work incorporated a series of fragmented words and phrases layered across the image. The text introduced an element of interruption and contrast, placed over imagery more commonly associated with permanence, scale and contemplation. Positioned high above the surrounding street, the mural brought together romantic painting traditions with the temporary and public nature of street art.
List of Accepted Murals
The second work overlooking Denburn Road was divided into twelve individual sections. Each featuring variations of the same atmospheric landscape style alongside short phrases describing familiar types of public mural. Among them were statements such as “A Footballer”, “Stencil of a Celebrity” and “Lichenstein Pop Art Reproduction”. All referencing the kinds of imagery frequently repeated within contemporary mural culture. Through repetition and categorisation, the piece appears to question the value of what has become a recognised toolkit within the field of large-scale commissioned muralism.
HICKS
HICKS has worked for more than twenty years exploring themes connected to divination, masks, Jungian psychology, folk saints and the space between apocalypse and transcendence. His current mural and studio practice exists both within and against the traditions of street art and modern muralism. Whilst working at scale in public space, HICKS deliberately distances himself from the market-led aesthetics often associated with contemporary mural culture. Instead using walls as places to explore theology, catastrophe, history and responsibility.
James Klinge @jamesklinge_art
Bon Accord Terrace & Virginia Street
Glasgow artist James Klinge created two large-scale murals for ‘Poetry is in the Streets’. One on Virginia Road and another on Bon Accord Terrace. Both works moved away from the figurative stencil portraiture more commonly associated with his work. Instead exploring text, repetition and abstraction through large circular compositions resembling Spirograph patterns.
Repetition and Abstract
The murals were constructed from repeated and rotated lyrics which gradually became abstracted through the process of layering and geometry. One mural, painted in green and yellow tones, used the DMX quote: “Trust everyone to be themselves, but trust the fact that you see them well.” The second incorporated a line attributed to Rizza of Wu-Tang Clan: “A wise man don’t play the role of a fool.” Through repetition, the words shifted from readable language into abstract visual form.
Return to Nuart
Klinge’s contribution to Nuart presented a different direction. A previous contributor to the festival in 2022. That work also overlooks Virginia Street and shows a woman cross legged holding a finger to her mouth. It is more in line with Klinge’s more traditional practice. It’s a happy co-incidence that his 2026 word based piece sits closely to that older work.
Repetition and Abstract
Klinge is an artist from Glasgow whose work combines contemporary approaches with traditions of portraiture and figurative painting. Working primarily with hand-cut stencils and spray paint, he has spent more than two decades refining techniques that manipulate aerosol paint in ways that often resemble the texture and surface quality of oil painting. His subjects frequently draw from history, current affairs and popular culture, using visual storytelling as a central part of the work.
KMG (Scotland) @kmgyeah
Unseen, Unheard, Yet All Beside Us
Aberdeen artist KMG created Unseen, Unheard, Yet All Beside Us for Nuart Aberdeen 2026. It can be found on the rear wall of the University of Aberdeen’s Zoology Building facing into the Cruickshank Botanic Garden. The mural depicts a stylised blackbird. It is surrounded by deep greens and scattered flashes of yellow and red which echo the planting and natural environment around the site. The work formed part of the first collaboration between Nuart Aberdeen and the University of Aberdeen and connected closely with the festival theme, Poetry is in the Streets.
Nan Shepherd
The mural drew inspiration from the work of Aberdonian writer and poet Nan Shepherd. One of the first women to graduate from the University of Aberdeen. She is now widely recognised for her contribution to modern nature writing. Incorporated into the mural were the words “unheard, unseen”. A reference to Shepherd’s writing from the 1940s. The title of the work, Unseen, Unheard, Yet All Beside Us, also reflected that connection between nature, observation and the quieter details of the landscape. Something which Shepherd explored throughout her work.
Cruickshank Botanic Gardens
The location itself played an important role in shaping the mural. Working with Mark Paterson, curator of the Cruickshank Botanic Garden, KMG incorporated colours and details inspired directly by the surrounding planting. The blackbird also connected naturally to the site, with ivy beside the wall known to attract feeding birds. Positioned within the gardens rather than the city centre. The mural is closely tied to its immediate environment and the natural themes running through the work.
Festival Artist
KMG has been involved with Nuart Aberdeen since the festival first launched in 2017. Initially as a volunteer before later becoming both an artist and producer for the festival. Her work often combines bold graphic forms with themes connected to nature, folklore and local identity. She creates murals that feel rooted within the places in which they are painted.
Molly Hankinson (UK) @mollyhankinson.studio
Crooked Lane
Glasgow based artist Molly Hankinson created a mural on Crooked Lane for Nuart Aberdeen 2026 titled Dream of a Common Language. The title was taken from Adrienne Rich’s influential 1978 poetry collection of the same name. First published shortly after the American author and activist publicly came out as lesbian. Rich’s work explored themes of feminist identity, queer love and communication. All ideas which informed Hankinson’s approach to the mural.
Dream of a Common Language
The work depicts two women lying comfortably within the same shared space. Rather than focusing on direct interaction or narrative, the mural centres more on presence, familiarity and ease. Drawing from ideas of female friendship and self-acceptance, the piece reflected on what it means to feel comfortable within both your own identity and in the company of others.
Gendered Experiences
Born in England and now living and working in Glasgow, Hankinson’s practice explores everyday life through themes connected to safety, space and perception. Working across muralism, printmaking and installation. Her work often examines personal and collective gendered experiences through playful, emotive and energetic imagery. More recently, abstraction has also become an increasingly important part of her practice.
Emotional Connections
Across her work, Hankinson is particularly interested in how art can evoke feeling, offer comfort and create spaces of emotional connection. In Dream of a Common Language, those ideas were translated into a mural which balanced tenderness, stillness and representation within the shared environment of the city street.
Remi Rough @remirough
Loch Street
London artist Remi Rough created a large-scale mural on Loch Street for ‘Poetry is in the Streets’. Filled with bright colours, intersecting lines and contrasting geometric forms. The work continues a practice rooted in abstraction whilst still maintaining connections to the artist’s graffiti background. Positioned within the dense urban environment of the city centre, the mural introduced a sharp visual contrast against the surrounding architecture and streetscape.
Abstracted Style
Rough first emerged from the graffiti movement as a style writer and was later associated with the influential Ikonoclast movement. His work has it’s roots firmly in old school ‘style writing’. Something that pushes graffiti lettering towards increasing abstraction. That is until only its essential elements of shape, angle, structure and colour remain. Whilst traces of graffiti writing remain embedded within the compositions, the work moves beyond text into a more architectural and spatial form of painting.
Precision
Since the early 2000s, Rough has developed a body of work spanning canvas, paper, wood, brick and concrete. His paintings are defined by precision, rhythm and chromatic intensity. Carefully balanced arrangements of line and colour create a strong sense of movement across a surface. The precise geometry within the work continues to reflect the structural foundations of graffiti writing whilst extending them into more contemporary abstraction.
Post Graffiti
A leading figure within both the graffuturism and post-graffiti movements. Rough has exhibited internationally and created major murals across the world for more than three decades. From his early involvement in graffiti culture through to his current studio and mural practice. His work continues to explore the relationship between structure, movement and colour within public space.
Robert Montgomery @robertmontgomeryghost
Bon Accord Baths & Thistle Place
Scottish artist Robert Montgomery created two works for Nuart Aberdeen 2026. The first a light-based installation within the former Bon Accord Baths and the second a stencil piece on the side of a wall at Thistle Place. Both works continued Montgomery’s long-standing exploration of text within public space. Using language positioned directly within the urban environment.
Do Not Let Them Forget The Love
The installation inside Bon Accord Baths, was titled ‘Even After All This Time the Sun Never Says to the Earth “You Owe Me”. It formed part of the festival launch and used illuminated text within the abandoned swimming pool complex. Set within the deep end of the baths, the 11-metre installation combined poetry, light and atmosphere in a way that responded closely to the history and physical condition of the site. Inspired by lines often attributed to the Persian poet Hafez Shirazi. The work reflected on love, migration and public space whilst helping establish the tone for this year’s festival.
Text Based Street Art
Montgomery also created a stencil-based text work on Thistle Place. Simpler and more immediate in form, the piece connected with the traditions of street art and public intervention that have long informed his practice. Here text becomes something embedded into the fabric of the street. Something that is intended to be encountered directly by passers-by rather than within any formal institutional space.
Return to Aberdeen
Montgomery first painted in Aberdeen as part of the inaugural Nuart Aberdeen festival in 2017. Then he created a text-based mural at Jopps Lane which still remains in the city today. His return in 2026 marked his first new works in Aberdeen for the festival since that original appearance. Given that work he has certainly been applying the ‘Poetry is in the Streets’ mantra for some time.
The Rebel Bear @the.rebel.bear
Chapel Street & College Street
Scottish based street artist The Rebel Bear created two works for Nuart Aberdeen 2026. The first a large-scale stencil piece on a tall building on Chapel Street. Then the second an installation featuring flowers emerging from a large pipe on a building in College Street. Across both works, themes of love, human emotion and social commentary cut through the artist’s practice.
Falling in Love
The Chapel Street mural depicted two lovers locked in an embrace whilst appearing to fall down the side of the building. Positioned high above the street it has been painted using the multi-layer stencil approach that gives the work a distinctive look.
Flower Installation
Offering a very different intervention, The Rebel Bear moved into a more sculptural space for his next work. Going onto the side of the old BT building it features a cascade of flowers coming out of a large pipe. It’s a work that contrasts the idea of renewal in a space that over recent years has reflected abandonment and decay.
The Writing is on the Wall @thewritingisonthewall
Little Belmont Street & Various Locations
The Writing is on the Wall brought a series of text-based interventions to ‘Nuart Aberdeen 2026 – Poetry is in the Streets’. Working across multiple locations in the city, the artist’s practice focuses on introducing unexpected moments of reflection and narrative into the everyday urban environment.
Poetry House
The largest of the works was a “poetry house” on Little Belmont Street. Here the exterior of the building became covered with poems, phrases and stanzas. Alongside the installation, smaller pieces appeared across Aberdeen in locations that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. Literally ensuring that ‘Poetry is in the Streets’. Through both scale and placement, the works encouraged passers-by to stop and engage with language in spaces not usually associated with poetry or literature.
Hamster Wheel of Life
The project itself emerged during the Covid-19 pandemic. A period the artist describes as disrupting the “hamster wheel of life” and prompting an outpouring of writing. Rather than placing that work into traditional publishing formats, the decision was made to bring the poems directly into the street. First using paste-ups and what the artist refers to as a “poetry pistola”. The temporary nature of the works remains central to the practice, with weather, decay and time all becoming part of the process.
Writing on the Wall
Drawing on a long tradition of public writing and unofficial communication, ‘The Writing is on the Wall’ places poetry within spaces historically used for protest, discussion and expression. From toilet doors to city walls, the work reflects the idea that public space can function as an open platform for voices, opinions and personal reflection outside more formal or institutional settings.
Trackie McLeod @trackiemcleod
Rennies Wynd & Various Locations
Scottish artist Trackie McLeod creates a large-scale text based work on Rennie’s Wynd for Nuart Aberdeen 2026 called ‘Gay if you don’t’. The mural features a list of things described as “gay” during school years, drawing attention to the casual language, social pressures and contradictions often embedded within schoolyard culture. Many of the references are intentionally absurd, highlighting some of the irrationality of some of these narratives.
Humour and Familiarity
Presented in a direct and highly accessible format, the work uses humour and familiarity as a way of opening up broader conversations around masculinity, identity and language. By re-contextualising phrases and behaviours associated with adolescence, the mural reflects on how ideas around gender and queerness are often shaped through peer environments and everyday interactions.
Trackie Times
Alongside the mural, McLeod also installed a number of “Trackie Times” posters around the city. Styled after traditional newspaper vendor signs and billboard headlines, the works form part of an ongoing series rooted in Scottish humour, wordplay and contemporary culture. Often responding to current events, internet culture and stories in the press, the pieces use sarcasm, puns and playful language to create unexpected moments of humour within the street. Installed across Aberdeen, the posters encourage people to stop, read and engage with the work in the same casual way they might encounter news headlines in everyday life.
Masculinity & Queerness
Based in Glasgow, McLeod works across sculpture, textiles, video and print, often drawing on his own lived experience. His practice explores masculinity, queerness and their intersections with class, politics and popular culture. Influenced by the streets, parks and community spaces of the West of Scotland. His work frequently reassembles the visual language of 1990s and 2000s youth culture through a lens that is both playful and critical.
v2K @v2K_art
Skene Street
Aberdeen based artist v2k created a text-based work on Skene Street for Nuart Aberdeen 2026 titled Light within the darkness. Painted using his distinctive stencil typography. The piece continued a practice focused on placing poetry and politically charged text directly into the urban environment.
Lettering and Experience
The lettering style itself plays an important role in how the work is experienced. Irregular spacing, disrupted layouts and occasional reversed letters prevents the text from being immediately absorbed at a glance. Instead, the piece requires viewers to slow down and spend time with the words in order to fully read and understand them. Positioned along the side of the busy Skene Street. It challenges the passive way in which advertising and public messaging are often consumed.
Aberdeen Street Artist
A self-taught Lithuanian / Scottish street artist. v2k has been based in Aberdeen for many years. His works range across a number of different scales and mediums. Creating art that frequently explores socio-political themes connected to power, communication and perceptions of reality. Often highlighting injustice and imbalance created through more contemporary political and economic systems.
Nuart Festival
v2k has been involved with Nuart Aberdeen since the festival first launched in 2017. Initially volunteering before later moving into production roles and eventually becoming part of the artist line-up itself. His progression through the festival reflects both his long association with Aberdeen’s street art community and the increasingly important role that text and poetry have come to play within his work.
Nuart Aberdeen 2026 ‘Poetry is in the Streets’ took place on April 22-26 2026. You can follow the event by heading to the festival website. You can also follow via instagram with the handles. @nuartaberdeen and @aberdeeninspired
For more Inspiring City articles you might like, take a look at…
- Where to find street art in Aberdeen
- Miss Printed and her collage on the streets of Aberdeen
- Helen Bur paints giant mural in Aberdeen
- Nuart returns to Aberdeen with line up for 2024
- Robert Montgomery work launches Nuart Aberdeen at Bon Accord Baths
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Thanks for the fascinating tour, I would love to be roaming and reading there.
Thank you 🙂 It’s definitely a place i’d recommend with so much street art to see