BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAYPhiladephia born New York Street Artist Stephen Powers AKA ESPO has been covering walls in Brooklyn since last summer with puns, phrases, and messages that hide in plain sight. Borrowing from a visual vocabulary of mid 20th century commercial signage and injecting his low-brow sarcasm and a knack for wordplay, the former graffiti writer perfected this kind of lettering more than a decade ago doing non-commissioned street art work in broad daylight on storefront grates in dilapidated New York neighborhoods.
Steve ESPO Powers (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Like his barking carney signage for famous Coney Island, the work has all the subtlety of a cannonball. But you may be bamboozled. The sharply sweet uptown fonts and punchy retro palette could look like he’s giving you the straight dope, but a second glance reveals the winking eye of a court jester. With an advertisers sensibility, his recent expansive public art installations – “Love Letters” to Philadelphia, Syracuse, and now Brooklyn – have a tough-as-nails enamel gloss while the soft center swirls a sentiment more gooey, even maudlin.
Steve ESPO Powers (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Using phrases snatched directly from Brooklyn folks conversations on the street as well as his penchant for the parlance of snake oil salesmen, Powers yells boldly these non-sequitur and illusory missives across a parking garage, regularly looking back to see if “yah heard?”. It’s what emotional signage this size demands and gets, if only for a second.
Steve ESPO Powers (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Steve ESPO Powers (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Steve ESPO Powers (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Steve ESPO Powers (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Steve ESPO Powers (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Steve ESPO Powers (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Steve ESPO Powers (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Steve ESPO Powers (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Steve ESPO Powers (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Steve ESPO Powers (photo © Jaime Rojo)
238
138
45
Other Articles You May Like from BSA:
Who are these revered men cast in iron, carved in marble, poured in bronze? What great lengths have they traveled to achieve what high aims, and who decided they were worthy of statuary? Also, how lo...
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities. Now screening : 1. Seve Garza Paints Homeless People in Austin 2. Stik: London Street Artist by Ben Hanr...
Travel blogger and writer Giulia Blocal is sightseeing and living in new places as an independently minded explorer and observer. She has lived in Slovenia, London, Madrid, and Dublin in recent years,...
Barcelona, Spain has begun the process of re-opening the city from the confines of Covid-19. Lluis Olive, a frequent BSA collaborator tells us that phase I of re-opening includes bars and restaurants...
It seems like we’ve talked to you about this great project before and undoubtedly you have heard of it, but we weren’t prepared to see the high-quality, visually succulent and densely compiled tome th...
