THE ART OF BASKETBALL
21 Nov 2017
Sports courts have become the new canvas for urban artists, working to enhance neighbourhoods and encourage the use of recreational facilities through vivid colour and design.
Within the existing lines of a basketball court in the city of Aalst, Belgium, Muralist Katrien Vanderlinden has created a captivating, geometric composition. With 137 litres of paint, the existing court comes alive with exciting bright colours and strong geometric shapes. 
The artist worked alongside the youth department of the Council of Aalst, describing the project as a “colourful facelift”. This reinvigoration of an existing urban element, located between a grammar school and relief centre for minor refugees, will become a space where people can gather and children can play with new life and energy. 
“I had to work within the rectangle of the court, that was the natural canvas, and I also wanted to maintain the lines of the basket game,” claims Vanderlinden.
“I like the fact that you can play the basketball game and that this design creates extra spaces for children to make up their own games. The colours are an ode to the Memphis style, back in the 80s, when basketball and hip-hop were booming.” 
Without a large monetary investment, the city was able to produce a high-quality creative, regeneration project — following a current trend in urban basketball court decoration around the world. The project sites examples like Paris’ Pigalle Court and KAW x NIKE, Stanton Street court in New York City as inspiration. 
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