Secret Still

Maybe it’s just something about Wednesday, but usually by the middle of the week there’s a nice angry core inside of me whose embers are fueling my drive to work. Wednesdays I listen to metal. Wednesdays I watch shark attack videos. It’s not a great day to schedule a meeting with me. It’s definitely not the day to use words like “workflow” and “action item” around me. But for Faro it’s the perfect day to send me some samples of  gritty, semi-angry, metal-powered work. That shit is just exactly what the doctor ordered. So while Bruce Dickson (I start off old-school in the mornings) is bringing my rage up to a nice healthy glow, Faro’s work is providing the perfect backdrop with neo-Egyptian monsters wreaking havoc on my screen. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one that feels the anger on Wednesdays, so join me won’t you, for a journey with my favorite of the 7 deadly sins — wrath.

Faro

I think the first Swampy skull I saw was a great big, shiny, pink bastard at Albany Bulb in all its heavy metal monster glory. And like a lot of things in the world — when it’s in your mind, you start seeing it everywhere (especially because he chills in Oakland a lot). I didn’t know who was making them (Ert told me at some point), but I knew that I kept imagining these long dead titanic beasts roaming the land, crushing everything in their path without thinking, sludge metal playing in the background. Just real fucking awesomeness. Fast forward to a few days ago when I posted about the Living Walls conference (mentioned here). Swampy himself will be in attendance, and I was reminded that, “hey, I like that guy’s work.” As with all the things I like, I am now forcing you to look at it. LOOK AT IT. There, now go do whatever you want, I don’t care.

Swamp Donkey

Oddly I had to learn about someone that lives in my city from a website across the country. In looking over the participating artists in Atlanta’s Living Walls conference, I came across the work of Oakland’s Feral Child. Ink drawing wheatpastes featuring portraits with intricate and varying patterns? I’ll take two, please. What really strikes me as weird is that I’ve never seen one of these pieces around. I thought I paid pretty close attention to the art around me when I’m out walking around. Maybe I just need to get out of the house more.

Feral Child

For the first time maybe ever in my life, I find myself wanting to be in Atlanta. Not to stay, hell no, but for just long enough to attend the Living Walls events that are going down August 13-15. The whole idea of the Living Walls conference is kind of a free form, fly by the seat of your pants event that brings Street Artists from all over the world together to do what it is they do best: make some art on the streets. There are lectures and whatnot, but the real draw is the legal walls to mess around with, and, of course, the not legal walls that will also get used. You can’t put that many street artists together in one place and not expect something amazing to happen. If I could afford it, I’d hop a plane to Atlanta, and join in the fun. Instead the ATL and I will remain, as always, quiet enemies.

Living Walls

Just dig on that, Monday readers. Just dig your bleary eyes into that.

Escif

For the most part, and speaking only for myself here, dreams are strange, but not overly so. Generally I dream about the kinds of things I see or encounter, or could encounter in the world. My dreams aren’t peopled with fantastic and terrible monsters or surrealist images of the world come apart. I don’t think the same can be said for Paris-based artist Sebastien Faraut, aka NIARk1. His jagged, colorful, kinetic style makes me think that his dreams take place in a dimension otherwise undiscovered by dreamers like me, where monsters consume the world in day-glo hues like a Barbarella acid trip through the South American jungle. Maybe it’s because his painting style reminds me of Jeff Soto, but Faraut has inspired me to pick up a brush for the first time in a long time, which is the only compliment ever worth giving. Now I just need to come up with the dreams to back up my paintbrush. Let’s hope some late night Thai food does the trick.

NIARk1

Shifting focus, here’s some fine and dandy street art one time for your mind. Miso the artist, I like you as much as Miso the soup. Consider that my highest compliment.

Miso

Here we see the graffiti in its natural habitat. A timid creature, the graffiti tends to occupy the quiet, untrafficked areas of urban landscapes. It can often be seen grazing under overpasses, behind large buildings, or even in train yards. Due to overcrowding of its habitat, however, it has more recently been forced onto the streets and sidewalks, finding shelter in newspaper machines, on trash cans, even street signs. The graffiti has adapted itself to these adverse conditions by becoming smaller and less intricate, sacrificing its former beauty for survival. Often, in these more public environments, the graffiti’s lifespan is shortened to days rather than months or years, leaving behind the blank, geometric husk of their fully matured forms. The graffiti, one of nature’s most interesting creatures, is threatened by extinction from its modern, fast-paced, ever-changing environment, driven out by ads, a cunning and pervasive species, which can even mimic the graffiti’s appearance to gain further control on the ecosystem. These paintings of graffiti in their former glory may be all we have to remember them by in a few years when the species has silently faded away forever.

Jessica Hess

He’s like a French graffiti style Dr. Seuss, wearing brass knuckles and smoking a blunt. I’m pretty sure that makes us blood brothers. Or at least homeboys. Is that still a word? Homeboy?

Alexone

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.

Irena Zablotska