Wall-to-wall art: Hillary street art duo show off their heritage
Art provided this couple the means to while away hours painting and repainting the outside walls of the house in Hillary during lockdown.
A CHANCE encounter between a “rookie” graffiti artist and Hillary’s established mural painter, Candice Leth, has turned into a beautiful partnership both in life and in the art they create.
“We met at a pop up art shop where we were both selling paintings,” recalls Brendan Lyle, better known in the street art scene as UnoBear.
“I was asking for her advice on painting,” said Lyle who, unlike Leth does not have any formal art training.
“Candice has a fine art degree, I did accounting at school instead,” laughed Lyle in response to a question about his bona fides.
Early start
Leth, who said the choice to become an artist was one she made “at the age of about six” has a wide range of influences.
She lists artists such as Mark Ryden, an American painter considered to be “the god-father of pop surrealism” and lumped together with others of the so-called lowbrow movement in fine art, as one of her favourites.
Other artists she lists include South African sculptor, Jane Alexander, the artist who designed concepts for films The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, Brain Froud and Anat Ronen who, like her partner Lyle, is a self-taught artist, focusing on murals and street painting.
Graphic novels
Lyle said he finds inspiration from many sources: “My inspiration comes from graphic novels and various artists like Skottie Young, Derek Laufman and Todd McFarlane.”
For inspiration Leth said she digs deeper into the world around her.
“I think for me I do get influenced by my surroundings like animal bird people and also social media content, photographers and artists are inspiring as well,” she explained.
Collaboration
The couple first began collaborating when they painted a protea on canvas together. “That became the first ‘Beth’ piece,” said Candice explaining how they put Lyle’s graffiti name of Bear with her surname to come up with ‘Beth’.
The pair complement each other’s strengths. Leth describes how their partnership helps her process during the research and planning phase of a new project.
“If I do a portrait, let’s say a musician, based on a song or music I like and I’m unsure about the person I usually ask Brendan for more info, he is like an encyclopedia,” she laughed.
“He generally is in touch with the news and history of the world, I tend to live in my own world.”
“We learn a lot about people we paint as we search through a lot of reference pictures plus if they are musicians we listen to their songs,” he said.
“It does make you feel like you have a connection with them as you look so closely at every line and contour of their faces,” said Lyle.
Lockdown art
They busied themselves during the long months of lockdown by creating artworks to sell, and painting murals on Leth’s house in Huntley Road. “We painted masks and figurines and canvasses. Plus we painted murals on the wall,” said Lyle.
“I did do a lockdown painting of a nurse wearing a mask. It was an experiment of style, but it kind of evolved into a mental adjustment to the realities of the outside world,” she explained.
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Visit the pair’s Instagram feeds for more of their art like these two examples:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CDWf3knJaHh/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CD9BWjjpcjh/
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At the time of going to press, the contents of this feature mirrored South Africa’s lockdown regulations. 
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