Worldwide Street Art Series - New Zealand
"Kiwi Flex" marks the first digital collaboration between FLOX and SWEATS, two of New Zealand’s most celebrated international artists. As an artistic duo, they've embarked on a global journey, merging their distinct styles through site-specific murals that creatively reflect the local flora, fauna, and cultures they encounter around the world. Now, for the first time ever, they venture into web3. With “Kiwi Flex,” FLOX and SWEATS fuse their artistic voices into a harmonious collection steeped in street art and inspired by the rich tapestry of life on Earth, bringing the very best of New Zealand’s dynamic artistic landscape to OpenSea.
SWEATS is the art & creative studio of Pierre Hadlow. Producing: artworks, prints, illustration, design, lettering, apparel, art toys & murals.
SWEATS artworks can be characterised by their expressionistic and textural representations of figures and objects. His work explores the multifaceted nature of the human experience, tapping into an explosion of senses while retaining a playful naivety. Within this SWEATS creates bold contrasts and highlights different aspects of feeling and emotion to engage intrigue and connection.
With a Bachelor of Art & Design, SWEATS has over 20 years working internationally in the creative arts, achieved industry awards in Aotearoa and Australia for design, recently winning gold at NZ Pride & Print. Constantly evolving, his multidisciplinary work has spanned a wide variety of commercial and personal projects ranging from painting, design, illustration, and lettering, applied to areas of art, branding, print, packaging, merchandising, and murals.
With her roots firmly stamped within the street art era of the early 2000’s, FLOX’s trademark style derived from the natural world is unquestionably recognisable today.
The artist has always maintained a philosophy of “making art for the people” and making her art accessible which saw FLOX take her own artistic lane by avoiding the traditional artist/gallery relationship. Today, FLOX is one of Aotearoa's most recognised artists, spreading her ever expanding wings both locally and internationally with mural projects, commissions, product lines, brand colabs and workshops.
Where is the mind, lost control, tripped breaker, brain toll. Brighter doom, blurs and glitches, happy peak, emotional stitches. Under fire, coming down to the wire. All connected, infected, cables crossed, interjected. High sensory, overload, seeing sounds, hearing colours, mind map, brain code. Level up, repair, replace, remedy, go, blow the top, implode, explode. Multifaceted, life works it, human experience, love, short circuit.
Set against a watery drip background, this artwork pays homage to the beautiful oddities that occur throughout our natural world. The White Tūī depicted holds a condition called leucism, where their plumage can be entirely white, a luminous bird framed amidst pops of neon and aqua florals.
Painted with a popping palette of neon aerosol this mural was black lit during the Taranaki Festival Of Lights 2023. At night the artwork glows, paying homage to New Zealand’s diverse abundance of native flora and fauna. Gold Striped Geckos make an appearance, twisting and turning themselves around the natural shapes that the architecture provides, while a native Kingfisher flaps it’s wings around the bend of the stairs and a Kōkako flies off to the right.
A tropical Fruit Dove perches amongst a plethora of FLOX’S trademark palms and flowers while interweaving with SWEAT’s textured bold strokes and an expressionistic face.
