{ Category Archives }
Graffiti
Irena Zablotska
Ukrainian artist Irena Zablotska did something this morning that no one has done in a very long time (meaning a month or so). She inspired me to get back out on the street and paint a wall. Or actually I might start with a wall in my apartment, but either way she is the inspiration for my renewed interest in something big. She’s got that subtle something that’s very Eastern European about her work, and the other 95% of it is just plain, old badass. I especially enjoy the more geometric works. They remind me a little of Tim Biskup’s more recent works. I just can’t help it lately; I love all things geometric. When I close my eyes all I can see are lines and shapes intersecting and overlapping. Thanks to Zablotska, I’m going to be seeing those shapes on every blank wall I pass today.
D. Billy
I’ve only ever visited the Metro DC area once in my life, and that was on a guided elementary school field trip. So I didn’t really get to see much of the city outside of the monuments and halls of government. I’m regretting never going back for a closer look at the non-political side of the city now that I’ve come across the work of DC artist D.Billy. David William, aka D.Billy, has recently embarked on a project to recreate the world as action art. Is that too hard a concept to understand? Basically he is trying to turn the whole world into a Michel Gondry movie. Using balloons, artists tape and whatever else he has at hand, D.Billy has started to illustrate how the world sounds. It’s a sweet project on top of an already impressive body of work. If you haven’t gotten the chance before, now’s the time to scope out his portfolio.
Inner City Snail
Slinkachu, the most brilliant motherfucker behind The Little People Project has embarked on a new, and dare I say even more ingenious, art project. The Inner City Snail project takes your everyday garden snail and transforms it into a tiny piece of mobile street art. Non-toxic paints are used in case any of you were about to alert PETA; none of the snails get hurt. He’s also managed to incorporate his little people into the project, tying everything together in a tidy package. Tagging up snails? Fuck me that is awesome.
Gajin Fujita
I don’t need to dress this up. The concept and implementation are so good it sells itself. Gajin Fujita creates works that are a combination of modern street styles and traditional Japanese painting. It’s easy to picture even if I didn’t throw up an image for you. Just think of all the Samurai and Geishas doing what they’ve always done, but painted into a world of graffiti and other street art. Fujita manages to tie the two together so seamlessly that you can almost imagine some kids with spray cans bombing around Feudal Japan. Turf wars would be a lot worse if everyone had swords; and you’d probably have to commit seppuku if found guilty of biting someone else’s style. It’s a hard knock life.
Havec
Oh, Havec. If only I spoke French I could tell the five people reading this all about your inspirations and influences. I could tell them why your style is that crazy, sketchtastic mess that it is. Or how you’ve worked with practically all of my favorite French street artists. I could ask you if you’d draw me up a tattoo, but not a tramp stamp or anything, because, you know, I’m a guy. A straight guy. Google translate is a pain in the ass, and everything comes out like an alien robot wrote it, which is basically what does happen. So we’ll just have to look at the pretty pictures, man. Which is all good, but still… the tattoo would’ve been nice.
Evan Roth
Evan Roth is like the Richard Feynman of interaction and street art. Everything he does is open source. Everything he does turns the traditional idea of something on its side. He co-founded the Graffiti Research Lab if that will help you understand how gigantic his innovations are. My favorite part of any of his experiments/projects is that he wants to put them in all of our hands. Open source is the watchword. What makes him like Feynman even more is that he never settles on being great at one thing. His work is constantly moving into different arenas, mediums, ideas, and locations. It’s the process of dreaming up an idea and then making it a reality regardless of whether or not you have the skills to creat it already. People like this are unstoppable forces of change. I’m just glad he’s on our side.
*Update*
Evan and the GRL project are featured today in an episode of Boing Boing TV that you can watch here. You can also find it in today’s Daily Videos.
Peeta
Italian graffiti artist Peeta has recently updated his site with some new canvases. What a nice, simple sentence that completely fails to explain the sheer fucking talent that is displayed on the aforementioned canvases. I’ve seen a couple of Peeta’s walls before, in pictures and whatnot, but these canvases are fan-fucking-tastic, especially the piece pictured. It definitely brings a straight-from-the-streets graffiti style, while pushing that aesthetic further with three-dimensionality, splatters, and patterns. I think the splatters are most effective for getting a bead on the true skill at work. That’s the kind of graf I would get tattooed if I knew of anyone who could handle the work. And then I’d put a big Daim piece right next to it. Maybe I could make them holding hands.
Spok
I used to have a night job in a giant server room that mostly involved having nothing to do for 8 hours. I filled my time with the internets and books and studying and drawing. I would spend hours at a time looking at pictures on graffiti websites, studying the styles and colors, coming up with my own ideas, until eventually I would walk the 4 miles back home at midnight. The strange thing was that after looking at graffiti for so long without moving I would see it everywhere; shadows on the sidewalk, reflections in water, in groups of people walking. It’s probably one of the only times that I’ve induced some kind of non-drug related hallucination. It was awesome. In all my research I came across quite a few of the big names, one of which was Spok. I liked that his style was constantly changing as he experimented with actual ideas, rather than just interesting colors. It was the kind of work that goes beyond what it actually is and starts trying to see what it can become. Does that even make sense? Today I came across Spok’s portfolio site, and damned if he isn’t more talented than even I gave him credit for. You can tell that he’s a contemporary of Mear One, but that the two have very different visions. Mear has always been pretty dystopic, and Spok seems more playful, and more concerned with beauty. And now that I’ve written a short treatise on the shit (today’s got me feeling verbose) you should see for yourself.