There’s a prominent theory on urban decay called Broken Window Theory, where signs of crime, like broken windows, lead to more crime in the surrounding area. With graffiti, there seems to be a tipping point. A wall gets tagged, and if it isn’t removed, more people tag it. When a wall gets so covered in tags you can’t even see the wall anymore, suddenly, a beautiful mural appears. Street artists look for these walls because they aren’t cleaned often, and their mural won’t get painted over, illegal though it may be. In this way, Grateful Gallery represents the beauty that has bloomed from areas of decay in Glasgow. This is the DIY success story of three street artists who decided to take their work out of the alleys and into the galleries.
Grateful Gallery is run by three local street artists: Panda (@ohpandah), Conzo (@conzothrob), and Globel (@ciaranglobel). Panda paints those ‘Big Heids’ you see around town. And you probably know Conzo and Globel from the naked Billy Connolly mural on Nelson Mandela Place. Panda has known Globel since he was 16 years old, when they took a screenprinting course together, and they both got to know Conzo through his work.
Panda had an eye on this gallery spot for years. The building at the corner of Hill and Dahlhousie street in Garnethill had the perfect wall for a mural. Panda continued his career, starting Colour Ways (@colourwaysglasgow) and getting a stall at the Barras Market, which he considers a precursor to the Gallery. You can still visit him there on Sunday mornings. Earlier this year, he noticed the building had a ‘To Rent’ sign out front. He inquired immediately, and discovered the landlord who owned the building was none other than his own. A week later, they had the keys.
The exterior of Grateful Gallery is a hand-painted piece of art. The east wall is now a rotating mural which gets repainted when the gallery gets a new exhibition. But the front face is meant to last. It’s a jazzy green and gold, and ‘est. 2025’ is painted over the door as a hopeful sign they’ll be able to look back on many years from now.
Grateful Gallery wants to help create ‘hometown heroes’ with its art space. When Panda was young, he had his mind blown at Recoat Gallery, a street art space in the West End that closed in 2013. You never know who is going to walk through your doors and have their first experience with street art. It also wants to be a space where local artists might get their first gallery showing.
But Grateful Gallery has been having growing pains. A bad review showed up when Smug (@smugone), one of Glasgow’s biggest mural painters (literally, they’re massive), painted a skull on their mural wall. His recent exhibition there was called Dead Grateful. The review disappeared almost instantly, but it reminded the artists that their street art gallery sat between a kindergarten and a children’s play park. Panda said, ‘Art should, to some extent, be challenging, but we also don’t want to be complete dicks and paint something that’s going to be offensive.’ Making street art is often an internal thing, done by the artist to prove they exist. But a gallery is part of an ecosystem of artists and non-artists and demands a certain amount of responsibility.
At the time of this article, Grateful Gallery’s mural wall is covered in large cursive letters in pink and white announcing the gallery’s latest exhibition, Resist and Persist. The interior displays a variety of skillfully painted signs, all accomplished by Burds of the Brush (@burdsofthebrush) an international artist’s movement for women, trans, and non-binary sign painters. Though the work varied, many pieces shared that retro-advertising aesthetic that allows artists to wrap rebellious ideas in the style of an older generation. One piece, shaped like an old Atari console, depicted a small 8-bit Uma Thurman from Kill Bill fighting a man in a suit with the words ‘BURDS TAKE NO SHIT’ painted above.
Being the small operation that it is, Grateful Gallery wants to avoid any gatekeeping. Panda, Conzo, and Globel all remember when they were small-time but talented artists, looking up to institutions like Tramway and the Centre for Contemporary Arts and thinking it was impossible to get a show there. With paintings in cities all over Europe, ‘Conzo and Globel deserve their own show at Tramway,’ said Panda. These artists are ambitious and determined, but in owning a gallery, they understand the difficult balance of wanting to attract world-renowned artists while trying to support the ones at home.
Grateful Gallery wants to do what they can for Glasgow’s local art scene. Recently, an independent artist emailed the Gallery. They liked their work, and they decided to give him an exhibition. Just like that. But every gallery is curated to someone’s taste, so they’re not going to give a show to just anybody. Panda would personally love to work with Sickboy (@sickboykks) or 45rpm (@45rpmwhat) but wants to support up and coming Glasgow artists as well. If you think you have talent, and a style that’s right for Grateful Gallery, you can email them at hello@grateful.gallery to see if they might want to work together.
Grateful Gallery’s next show will be Panda’s solo exhibition Oddacious, which runs from 6th November until the end of the month. After that, Grateful Gallery will be ready for the holiday season and will rotate paintings as they sell during Jolly Good Show.
Find out more about Greatful Gallery
