Features

Overunder & No Touching Ground : Lending a Hand to Japan

March 26, 2011 Artists, Brooklyn, Features, NYC, On the Street

Amazing new work has been appearing around New York by Street Artist Overunder for about a year and a half. An illustrator, painter, and text writer – the styles are quite varied and intermixed and the themes are often symbolic, fantastic, and blurred. One recent piece, a large scale realistic collaboration with a street artist named No Touching Ground, is a memo-pad tattooed arm with a short list to accomplish, finished with a cluster of rollup gates. While the wall was permissioned, the rain was not and it complicated matters for the two artists. In fact, weather is always a component in the work of the street.

When describing the new piece, Overunder explains how one must plan for a works degradation when it is created for the street:

“So pre-production consisted of picking out bits and pieces from my sketchbook followed by an impromptu photo shoot of my arm and tattoo. But the real genesis of the piece was admitting it’s faults. Like saying no matter how good the work is it’s still going to chip, still going to tear, and rip, and fade. It’s going to do everything that we’ve become accustomed to when choosing to work outdoors. So the spin was how can we use deterioration to our benefit?

Overunder and No Touching Ground (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Helping Hand’ is our hypothesis to what I would call a “slow” painting. Painting, as I’ve always understood, is based on getting to that point when you say, “it’s done, it’s a masterpiece.” The slow painting anticipates elements of change and works subtractively. So when it starts it’s finished, and then you create layers on top to allow that finale to be postponed.

It was a list of things to do that I wrote on my real hand and then sprayed on this larger-than-life hand. I added a new note on the list: DONATE TO RED CROSS JAPAN. I then left one note undone: PAY RENT. I hoped this subtle prioritizing would get people to question how much they really could help.”

Image of the original hand model from Overunders’ blog. (© Overunder)

“Lastly I worked on the gates and the names. The longer I’m in NY, the more I’ve become infatuated with roll-up gates and use them in my work, either for imagery or as canvas. The gates are stacked against one another like they are in the city but further abstracted. I then took names of writers; Optimist, Cope, Heart, Give, Host – to be read by writers or non-writers to get two different yet similar perspectives. “

Overunder and No Touching Ground (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Following are images of other pieces recently done by Overunder and ND’A.

Overunder and ND’A (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Overunder next to an old Miss 17 throw up (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Street Artist Don John’s Experience in Tokyo

March 21, 2011 Artists, copenhagen, Denmark, Features, Japan, On the Street, Tokyo

As we listen to, watch, and read the cautiously optimistic developments at the nuclear power plant in Japan and consider the ever-growing estimates of the number of people lost during the last week and a half, we send our condolences and support and reflect on our fragility and survival. In ancient times populations fell victim to natural disasters as we do today. While we are better prepared in many ways, that preparation is tempered now as we watch our outstanding technological advances turn into our nightmare, compounding the severity of damage rendered by the natural world. As leaders in Japan talk about using this crisis to learn, we reflect on nuclear facilities, deep water oil rigs, and technologically lethal implications of our own creation.

(Please see 5 ways to help at the end of this posting)

Tokyo at Night (photo © Don John)

Street Artist Don John lives in Copenhagen but happened to be on vacation in Tokyo when the calamitous earthquake and ensuing tsunami struck the coast of Japan. Nearing the end of holiday there with his girlfriend, some of his recent wheat pasted portraits had just appeared on streets in the Shibuya area of Tokyo.

Don John (photo © Don John)

The imagery for these pieces, developed far before the earthquake, in some ways mirror the shocked and saddened visages of the citizenry. Nonetheless, Don John reports that most people in Tokyo took the unfolding events in stride and reached out to one another and strangers to assist in a time of uncertainty and need. See some of his observations further down the page.

Don John (photo © Don John)

“We were amazed about how friendly and helpful Japanese people are, even in a situation like this. All trains stopped in Tokyo after the earthquake and we had 5 kilometers to walk back to our hotel. This super friendly guy offered to walk with us all the way to make sure that we found it. Having been around the people that are affected by this disaster makes it even more terrible to follow the developments in the news.” ~ Don John

Don John (photo © Don John)

From Sarah Milner Barry at New York University News, here are 5 ways you can help our brothers and sisters in Japan:

Text REDCROSS to 90999 or JAPAN to 80888

Each text to REDCROSS will provide $10 for the Red Cross, and each JAPAN text will send $10 to the Salvation Army. If texting JAPAN, make sure you respond YES when you receive a “thank you” message. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.

Visit the Google crisis response site

The site provides an aggregate of different websites accepting online donations, including the International Medical Corps, UNICEF and the Japanese Red Cross Society. The website is also continuously updated to provide the latest information about the crisis.

Donate via iTunes

Apple has created a simple donation page on the iTunes homepage where you can send money to the Red Cross in just a few clicks.

Spread awareness on Twitter

Here are some key hashtags to remember:
#Jishin: focuses on general earthquake information
#Anpi: confirms the safety of individuals or places
#Hinan: lists evacuation information
#311care: provides medical information for the victims
#PrayforJapan: shows general support and best wishes for victims of the crisis

Attend NYU’s vigil for Japan on Tuesday, March 22 at 7 p.m. at Gould Plaza, on 4th Street between Greene Street and Washington Square East.

AVOID PI: Street Art, Graff, Fine Art, and Pantheon

March 10, 2011 Artists, Events, Fundraising, Interview, Manhattan, NYC, On the Street, Street Talker Interview

In a few weeks the former Donnell Library on 53rd Street across from MoMA will be host to a grassroots funded and curated historical view of New York’s art from the streets. That phrase is specifically chosen by the show’s curators, Joyce Manalo and Daniel Feral, as an inclusive term for all manner of public art on the streets here since the 70s including graffiti and Street Art. A show visible through the giant windows from the street, Pantheon will feature live performance as well as installation, printed materials for you to read about history, guerilla librarians, and incognito street docents – a sparkling job description that sounds like a naughty librarian fantasy involving Julie Andrews.

Avoid “Nowhere Action” (photo © Chelsea Ragan)

We recently spoke with one of the exhibiting artists of Pantheon who goes by the name Adam Void (or AVOID pi) and who plumbs the murky depths between fine art, graffiti, and Street Art with no apparent desire to align himself with any one of them. An experimenter and explorer, a lot of his early stuff looks clearly like a small survey of graffiti’s modern vocabulary. Sometimes raw gestural markings with perhaps cryptic meaning, his love for symbolism, data, abstraction, wordplay, and a recently begun formal art education all are a swirl inside his head. Where it all settles will be a surprise to everyone, including him. This search also seems emblematic of the moment.

Avoid “Everything Small” (photo © Mike Sachse)

A wisenheimer of the highest order, he describes himself this way; “AVOID likes to take long walks on the beach, riding freight trains, and destroying the dominant paradigm.” We’ll just say that he’s a rebel inquisitively looking for a cause, making art along the way.

Avoid “Do I Have a Voice” (photo © Mike Sachse)

Mr. Void spoke with Brooklyn Street Art about labeling art movements and the current state of a very fluid story of art on the streets and in the galleries.

Brooklyn Street Art: As you look at the evolution of graffiti and street art some people have observed that there appears to be an erosion of once distinct practices. Where do you see these two going at the moment?
AVOID: The distinctions between the two genres are disappearing. Graffiti Artists are becoming multi-media with the inclusion of zines, posters, stickers, rollers and blasters into the already full table of tags, throws and pieces. Street Artists are experimenting with the use and importance of signatures as well as expanding into sculpture and video. Both groups have a dialogue on the streets and in their personal lives. Recently Graffiti and Street Artists have shown their fine art together with many big name art world’ers at big name galleries. This is an exciting time for the intermixing of worlds.

Avoid ADH (photo © Chelsea Ragan)

Brooklyn Street Art: Is it crucial to the understanding or appreciation of someone’s work to describe it as Graffiti or Street Art or Fine Art?
AVOID: Often times the artist’s intentions are misunderstood. I personally enjoy the ability to make a painting either in the street or in a gallery and not have to explain the meaning, to have it remain an enigma. A word or phrase can be interpreted a million different ways by a million different viewers. Am I a Graffiti Writer, a Street Artist, a Fine Artist, a Musician, a Writer, a Filmmaker, or am I just an artist? This is decided by the context the work is seen and the viewer’s interpretation.

Adam Void, “Luckystrike”, a work in progress. Detail (photo © Avoid)

Brooklyn Street Art:What role does Street Art play in New York today?
AVOID: Well, if anything, Street Art has allowed for the illumination of the giants of my personal history. Through shows like PANTHEON as well as 112 Greene St. and many others, the once unsung heroes of graffiti’s past are coming to light, thankfully while many of the writers are still alive to see it happen.

A rather painterly painting by Mr. Adam Void, “Seaside”; a brand new collaboration with Ryan Neely. Detail (photo © Avoid)

Brooklyn Street Art: How has your artwork changed in the last year?
AVOID: The literal “street” art of Brooklyn and NYC has been replaced by spotwork on Baltimore’s abandoned spaces, freight trains and track sides. I get more time to experiment as well as a chance to hang out and soak up some mental space. I am continuing to not categorize my work. I’m just making what I want, when I want, where I want.

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3 days left to Support Pantheon – if they don’t hit 5K, they lose it all.

http://kck.st/gw3L7J @pantheonnyc #streetart

Please help Daniel and Joyce, the curators of “Pantheon” by donating to the Kickstarter Campaign. They are very close to reach their goal and you can make this happen. With only less than three days left on the Kickstarter timer your involvement is crucial. Click on the link below and please give:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1959564116/pantheon-a-history-of-art-from-the-streets-of-nyc

PANTHEON extends its gratitude to its Media Partner Brooklyn Street Art, it’s Media Sponsors , Hyperallergic, The Street Spot, Gothamist, Streetsy; the Exhibition Sponsors WM Dorvillier & Company, Inc.; Crescent Artists; Conveyor Arts. Special thanks to the Woodward Gallery, NYC for the loan of Richard Hambleton’s, Fountain of Youth, 1982.

A New Clown Comes to Town : Clown Soldier in Studio

March 3, 2011 Art Fair, Artists, Features, Street Talker Interview, Studio Visit

All the World is a Circus! Says I.

Clown Soldier Silk Screen (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jugglers, acrobats, trapeze artists, bareback riders, high wire walkers and of course the stern Ringmaster to smartly sharply keep them all on task. Enter the clown, bobbing along on the stage periphery, gamely plumbing audience notions of propriety for absurdity.

Winter sun floods the old factory stable, crowded with tall boards, small canvasses, art and history books stacked on handmade shelves, multiple screens leaning 5 deep against a light table. An oblong work table with flat files underneath holds myriad constellations of actual clip art arranged and stuck together in endless combinations on rolled paper. For the first public interview with the Clown Soldier you’ll have to gingerly squeeze yourself into the unkempt low-fi cyborg factory, lest you knock something off a nail. Once you are in, the merrymaking is evident, and so is the well studied industry behind the images.

Clown Soldier Silk Screen (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Since Clown Soldier first appeared, people have wondered what the hell it is, and what it means. The incongruity of a military jester in cool poppy color standing 8 feet tall amidst a field of detritus on walls across the city has mystified a number of Street Art watchers. Behind each image is 15 years of fine art, academic study, fascination with chance and experimentation. The collage process is not haphazard, but it is part divination. In the end, the work of Clown Soldier it is about the absurdity of the world and engaging the spirit of play and discovery.

(Ed Note: For people in town to see the art fairs – the most recent piece by Clown Soldier can be viewed right now at the Fountain Art Fair on West 26th Street floating on the Hudson River.)

Brooklyn Street Art: Do you think that people realize what goes into making your work for the street?
Clown Soldier: No I think that when they see it they think that it’s a computer printout. They probably think that I scanned in the image, blew it up to 8 feet and printed it out in two seconds at Kinkos. And they might say, “Where is the art in that? Where is the skill?”

Clown Soldier The screened image. Work in progress (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Clown Soldier in the wild. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: So what do you do, how do you make these, what is the process?
Clown Soldier: I start with collage. I cut up thousands and thousands of pieces of imagery until something works. What’s great about collage is you come with things that you wouldn’t come up with if you were drawing. So you cut up all these fragments, you know – it’s inspired by (William) Burroughs and it goes back to Picasso right? Anyway that process, you cut up these things and you put them together and not in a million years I would put these things together or come up with… so when I find this gem, this absurd thing.

There was a photographer who’s name I can’t remember right now who said that they felt like they were Richard Dreyfus in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” – He’s got “Devils Mountain” in his mind. And he’s making Devil’s Mountain with his mashed potatoes his family thinks he’s crazy. And he’s ripping apart his house and he takes everything including the garbage and makes this Devil’ Mountain in his living room. It’s like he knows something – he’s like “this is something” – he’s channeling something…… And that’s what I feel like when I’m cutting up the stuff. I’m channeling something. Something is there and I’m going after it. And I’m not exactly sure what it is.

Clown Soldier Detail of a finished canvas (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: How would you characterize that something? Is it the creative spirit? Electicity.
Clown Soldier: I don’t know. It’s beyond anything I can comprehend. I mean I’m cutting up things and something happens and you can’t believe you created this thing and it didn’t exist a minute ago. These two objects that you put together and it didn’t seem like it worked yet and you are making a realization. I was originally inspired by (Max) Ernst and the idea of automatism. So you get at the subconscious. So I’m getting at my ideas and it doesn’t look contrived. I really don’t like work that is contrived and as a painter I worked that way and I worked through color and form and I like when it just evolves naturally.

Clown Soldier. Silk Screened images in progress for Fountain Art Fair (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Clown Soldier collage in the wild (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: You mentioned Burroughs and I think of him and I wonder, did he just accept the outcome of the process or did he select his favorite outcome?
Clown Soldier: That’s a good question, I mean he and Brion Gysin were working a lot with chance. I mean I think in a way they were very similar to the Da-Da-ists in the 1910s but I think that they were trying to push it much farther. I don’t think they were selecting their preferred outcome, and I think that would be a difference between me and Burroughs process because I am only taking the cream of the crop from what I make and then it becomes really powerful to me.

But also there is a consistent absurdity to me of all the work. There’s a sense of humor. I feel like there is a whimsical quality and my sense of humor comes across. But it’s the same strangeness, same absurdity. Writing is not my strength, and I can’t nail down exactly what it is saying. It’s beyond that, beyond words for me. Maybe if I actually found out what this about maybe it would not be interesting for me or for other people.

Clown Soldier. Collage (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: Can you describe, for someone who hasn’t done it before, how do you make a screenprint.
Clown Soldier: That’s cool, that’s a good question. Basically you start with making a film, a positive transparency, a photocopy on a transparency for example. The way the screen printing process works is you have different meshes of screens, and it can go from 80 mesh to 300 mesh for example. So 80 mesh is not that tight a weave, and the higher you go, the tighter you go and the smaller the squares formed by the weave. It’s like thread counts, or in Photoshop you have different resolutions, or dpi. Same thing with screen printing.

Then you take silk that is stretched on your frame and you coat it with a photo-sensitive emulsion and put it on a light table with the film you made. Wherever the light goes through and hits the emulsion, it hardens. The light doesn’t go through where the black is, so the emulsion stays soft and it washes out with a water hose. So that’s it.

Brooklyn Street Art: So each Clown Soldier is made of three screens?
Clown Soldier: It’s like 7 screens for each one! I mean, the thing is, it takes me a whole day to make a clown soldier. People don’t realize that. I have to print the head and then dry it with a hair dryer and then print the next section because they’re tiled together and then I paint it – the skull cap, the lips, the blue of the suit, and the yellow belt. Then I cut it out. So, yeah, the whole process takes a day. And people look at it for 2 seconds. I think they can tell it’s hand rendered. There’s a lot of time and effort put into it.

Clown Soldier. Collage in progress. Detail (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: You know what people would want to know the most – What is the significance of the Clown Soldier? The name? The image that goes with it?
Clown Soldier: I’ve been thinking a lot about that. Originally I liked it because I was watching this movie “Bomb It” and there were a bunch of Street Artists who were talking about being soldiers of the street. Not that I compare myself to people who jump into trains or over fences and risk their lives in that way. But I feel like every time you go out on the street you put yourself at risk so you are sort of soldier. In no way do I want to compare myself to a real soldier and I highly respect real soldiers. I really thought of it like; The incongruity of it was interesting to me – just having the two names combined – clown and soldier – is an oxymoron. But about the clown portion; I want to know when did clowns get a bad rap? It’s like everybody thinks clowns are scary. I tell people my tag and they say, “Clowns are scary”. I mean, in no way do I think that that clown is scary. I mean when Picasso did it everybody loved it.

Brooklyn Street Art: But his clowns were more like a harlequin, though.
Clown Soldier: That’s the thing though he sort of looks like a harlequin. What’s the difference between a harlequin and a clown?

Brooklyn Street Art: I think a harlequin is this sort of foppish character from a royal court, maybe from the Renaissance.
Clown Soldier: Oh, maybe he’s more like a harlequin. I was thinking about myself more like a clown. I definitely connect with this image of a clown soldier. For me it had no political connotation – I certainly respect soldiers and I don’t want to give the wrong idea about that.

Brooklyn Street Art: It’s about the absurdity of the pairing.
Clown Soldier: Yeah, the absurdity! It’s obviously such an innocent image, I think. It’s also interesting that he has a Dutch ruffle, a French Revolution uniform, and a clown head. It’s three different cultures and time periods.

Clown Soldier. Work on paper in progress (photo © Clown Soldier)

Brooklyn Street Art: It’s like someone got lost in a costume shop, trying on different things.
Clown Soldier: Right, that’s what it is like for me. I’m trying different things, combinations, having fun. I think life is a circus. Like this Fountain Fair is a circus.

Brooklyn Street Art: So what has your experience been like at the fair so far? What are you going to do while you are there?
Clown Soldier: Well, I’ve been looking at a lot of circus imagery and I think that is a direction I’m going to be going in. I’m going to try to create a piece that looks kind of like those banners you see going into a circus. Like those banners that advertise ‘freaks’ – a culmination of things you’d see on the way into the circus. I want to make it look very circus like.

Brooklyn Street Art: I always think of what Fountain does as a kind of punk circus.
Clown Soldier: It is. It’s avant-garde. I love what John and David do. I think that they are incredible guys because they put so much into it and it’s amazing what they are able to achieve in such a short amount of time. They take this boat, canvas it with a tent, which is a huge feat, put walls all around it and get all these different galleries, set it up, and then throw this incredible party. You know? I mean they get a lot of help from their friends but basically they do it themselves and I’m like, “How do they do this?” and it winds up being a success.

Clown Soldier. “beef, bef,” An early work (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Clown Soldier’s work will be on display at Fountain Art Fair in New York City. To read more about Fountain click on the link below:

http://www.brooklynstreetart.com/theblog/?p=18835

Augustine Kofie in Studio

March 1, 2011 Artists, California, Canada, Features, Gallery, Interview, Los Angeles, Opening, Studio Visit, Valentines

Graffiti writer and fine artist. Old Skool Bomber. Wildstyle. Mid-Century Abstractionism. American Modernism. Choose One and Stick with it, right?

You find the evolution of artists of the streets can go in many different directions with time. As the current generation of wild teens and art school grads claim a hip-hop birthright to get up on public walls across cities everywhere, we are reminded of 1970s New York train-writing graff artists like Lee Quinones and Futura who eventually evolved their skills into galleries, private collections, museums. And they are only two. It has happened enough times now for it to be identified as a natural progression for some artists ‘of the street’, and in many cases, to incredible effect. It is a worthwhile point to consider if not labor over; the street has proven a valuable training ground for an increasing number of our great artists; With or without, and sometimes in spite of, our participation.

Augustine Kofie (photo © Todd Mazer)

Augustine Kofie began as a writer in Los Angeles in the 1990s and has always had a deep love for illustration and linework. Today he has a studio doing markedly different work from what he developed on the streets – and it is a direct result of his evolution as an artist and as a person.

Todd Mazer recently visited the studio of Kofie and talks here about what he saw:

“Tucked away in the sleeping hills of Filipino town in Los Angeles, just a stones throw away from an Emergency Room entrance where Bob Dylan’s immortal words “He not busy being born is busy dying” are literal, you’ll find Augustine Kofie. This meeting of degradation and downfall with birth and uprising seem to be principle themes that play out in this ongoing story. It’s a story that eloquently eludes those who question the direction, proximity and order of the beginning to the end.

Kofie will be the first one to tell you that we are a product of our environment. Upon entering his work/living space it becomes nearly impossible to find the separation point between his environment and his work. A quick scan across the dimly lit room offers the realization that these aged manuals, endless sketchbooks and found artifacts are like records to a beat-maker and that Kofie is creating his own version of soul music on canvas”

~Todd Mazer

Augustine Kofie (photo © Todd Mazer)

Kofie talked with Brooklyn Street Art about his work and his inspirations;

Brooklyn Street Art: The clean architectural lines and shapes in your work fit together as if they were a floor plan. Have you had experience designing buildings?
Augustine Kofie: None at all. I’m inspired by preliminary design, drafting, architectural renderings and pre production concepts revolving around visual futurist design. I wouldn’t be opposed to an actual build out based on my work at some point but it’s not where my heads at right now… sticking to what I know.

Augustine Kofie (photo © Todd Mazer)

Brooklyn Street Art: Why is it important to incorporate found items into your work, when you obviously could create them yourself.
Augustine Kofie: I’m taken by their texture, color and age, plus I enjoy the archeologist/ ‘digging in the crates’ aspect of collecting. Sampling is the best way to put it.. It is like finding a strange soundscape from a record or film, then twisting, manipulating and layering it with other found bits to create a new component, both audio and visual. They possess lost histories and past stories all their own so it feels appropriate and truthful to use such ephemera instead of recently produced papers. The up cycling and reinterpretations are endless.

Brooklyn Street Art: What kind of object catches your eye and forces you to bring it back to the studio?
Augustine Kofie: Usually outdated garage and office items from estate sales make me geek out. Anything that ‘contains’. Old wooden boxes, metal file boxes and hand made cabinets from an old mans garage workshop. Drafting based items. Paper wise, the more fatigued and yellowed the better but not to the point of crumbling. Engineering and accounting paperwork is nice as well. Yardsticks definitely get scooped.

Augustine Kofie (photo © Todd Mazer)

Brooklyn Street Art Your work is vintage and futuristic – vintage in that jazz modernist warm way, and futuristic in its 1960s complex precision. Do you feel some nostalgia for that period and what does it represent for you?
Augustine Kofie: When I was a kid my parents played old jazz and soul records. This became the soundtrack to my life and I created my own perspective of a time-period that I only experienced as a child. That combined with the Futurist viewpoint of Syd Mead as well as the Futurist Movement set the foundation for what I do today and who I will become in the future.

Augustine Kofie (photo © Todd Mazer)

Brooklyn Street Art Your studio working environment really parallels the clean lines and warm tones of your work. Could you create this same work in a different place (like a chaotic and messy one for example), or is it not important at all?
Augustine Kofie: To me my studio is a place of comfort, meditation and inspiration. I prefer a ‘workshop’ environment over a living room setting. I have been working on my aesthetic for long enough that as long as I’m given paint and a surface then I could create a style that is mine, anywhere. The energy and execution of the art is always influenced by my surroundings, though.

Augustine Kofie (photo © Todd Mazer)

Brooklyn Street Art: Your earlier graffiti contained foreshadowing of the abstract approach you are using now. At what point do your pieces stop being called graffiti and start being Street Art? Or does it matter at all to use terms like this?
Augustine Kofie: This is a strange place for me, this sort of limbo between titles. I just want to contribute my work as a man and as a whole, regardless of its contemporary title or standing. Confusing or not it is what it is.

My work and I are in constant progression. Evolution is mandatory. There is no seam that defines a beginning or ending to who I am and what I wish to produce. I do both the Graffiti and ‘art on the street’ depending on the moment and situation and especially moods. I’m a moody cat and I tend to gravitate to what I want to do to ease my restlessness. A different attention and energy is given to each form of expression here. Sometimes I want to blast on a crew production with classic characters/ letters & background scenarios. Other times I want to take a 20 year old can of outdated American spray-paint to a refused and abandoned surface and paint triangles, circles and lines without lettering, just getting loose on the foundations of line-work. I feel like Graff gave me a voice and I’ve contributed to this art form, now I have to contribute further and test my styles as well as change my own mindset and preconceived ideas of what this art form is as much as where its going.

Augustine Kofie (photo © Todd Mazer)

On Saturday March 5th Augustine Kofie will be part of a group show curated by Indigo at the Becker Galleries in Vancouver, Canada. To learn more details about this show click on the link below:

http://www.brooklynstreetart.com/theblog/?p=18278

“Unusual Suspects” at 17 Frost : Art, Friendship and Collaboration

February 24, 2011 Artists, Brooklyn, Features, Gallery, Interview, NYC, Opening

Street Art can be a very singular activity, and if you desire, you can do your own thing without ever hanging with the crew. Royce Bannon has never been interested in the Lone Wolf approach, preferring to work with friends on projects. In fact, as part of the Endless Love Crew, he brought about the big “Work to Do” show in Soho a couple of years ago with a truckload of mostly New York Street Artists, all working collaboratively to pull off one of the most lively freeze-frames of the current scene, without attitude.

Royce Bannon and Dark Clouds (photo © Jaime Rojo)

For “Unusual Suspects”, opening Saturday, the curator and artist invited some of these same artists to this nice open community space in Williamsburg with one important requirement; They all needed to collaborate on a piece with a least one artist in the show.

When asked why he wanted the artists to collaborate he explained that a lot of them work together in many shows but most of them have not painted together on a single piece. In a collaboration you are more cognizant of the working style of the other, and, while not losing your own identity, you are part of a conversation. The resulting work is something entirely different from what either one could have produced solo. The process here involved passing the work back and forth over a period of time with each artist adding his or her contribution. Instructed Royce “Do what you want – just make it look good!”

Chris RWK and Matt Siren (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Most of these names are seen on the street and it is always interesting to see how the work translate to the framed pieces on gallery walls. Included in this offering are a number of individual pieces that span a wide range of styles and one can clearly see these Street Artists going forward in their personal explorations.

“Unusual Suspects”At 17 Frost Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn opens this Saturday, February 26.

Deekers, Celso, Infinity and Stikman (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Keely and Dark Clouds (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Moody and Sno Monster (left) Chris RWK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Infinity (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dark Clouds (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Keely (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Matt Siren (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mutz/Moody (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nose Go (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Royce Bannon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Celso, Keely and Mutz collaborate on the scaffolding outside the gallery (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A detail view of the front facade of the gallery (photo © Jaime Rojo)

To read more details about “Unusual Suspects” click on the link below:

http://www.brooklynstreetart.com/theblog/?p=17537

The Secret Language of Retna. Graffiti Going Abstract.

February 16, 2011 Artists, Events, Features, Gallery, Manhattan, NYC

Looking at the cavalcade of new Retna paintings for his “Hallelujah World Tour” New York debut, currently on display at a pop up shop in West Soho, you’ll see elements of anthropology, historical academia, and the current street penchant for the remix, or mashup.

Retna (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Retna is one of a handful of today’s Street Artists with a background in graffiti taking the art form into the abstract, making it feel genuinely fresh and forward-looking. No doubt the literal meaning on the canvas might add an extra dimension to the piece but that’s probably not what the artist had in mind when he began exploring and developing his style as a graffiti writer in Los Angeles. It’s about the jolting energy of the street. Best viewed from the distance – his kinetic letters and symbols cannot remain still. The bold handstyle is spare, elegantly unpretentious and perfectly anarchistic.

How do you spell Retna? (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The effect of this stunningly lit and somehow crowded traveling show (despite a 10,000 square foot exhibition space) is mystery, monastery, in motion. It is also very exciting to witness in person; A periodic splash of red in the monochromatic scheme of white, black, and silver.

Retna (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Using the concept of the graffiti tag as a starting point to craft a secret language of symbols, the canvasses are messages known to him and his inner circle alone. His approach and style has been compared to hieroglyphics, the Egyptians, Incas and Eastern calligraphy but is probably more analogous to the coded graffiti of Brazilian pixação that his southern contemporaries are spraying in black throughout favela streets right now.

Retna (photo © Jaime Rojo)

RETNA “The Hallelujah World Tour”

560 Washington Street, NYC

Thursday, February 10,2011 – Monday, February 21,2011

Daily Hours: 10 AM – 6 PM

General Inquiries: 212 242 2905

Erik Burke Captures Nick Spilling The Beans (and sweeping them up)

February 15, 2011 Artists, Brooklyn, Features, NYC, On the Street

The vicissitudes of daily living get in the way of creating life. I just made that up. Genius, right? These days when things can seem so difficult, it’s good to remember that creative folk like you are also struggling with demons, and everybody has occasional victory.

“Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness.” ~ Alan Ginsberg

In this brand-spanking new film, “Nick The Amazing”, artist ND’A and director Erik Burke follows a Street Artist around Brooklyn, camera in hand, and catches the manic thinker and worrier as he goes about making art, frantically talking and painting and cutting and pasting and performing verbal and physical stunts. The resulting urban pastiche is a welcome poem on the inner and outer life of an artist and by extension, a filmmaker. Or, as Erik says, “A manic portrait of Brooklyn based artist ND’A that follows him as he creates artwork in the streets and spills the beans at work, literally.”

Nick the Amazing

and I shambled after as I’ve been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!” ~ Jack Kerouac

Hallelujah! Visions of Retna Appear in NYC!

February 7, 2011 Artists, Events, Features, Gallery, Manhattan, Miami, NYC, Opening, Primary Flight

Fresh from his sold out show with Primary Flight at this year’s Miami Art Basel, LA-based Street Artist Retna brings his fine art “Hallelujah Tour” to New York City for a solo show in SOHO this week.

Retna mural with El Mac (detail). Miami Primary Flight 2009 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Retna has built a strong reputation for being not only an exceedingly talented artist but well regarded personally. His uniquely invented style of calligraphic letters, often done on massive walls, tell stories about the people that he encounters. Each one has made an impression on him and his life experiences.

Retna’s letter style, created and refined over the years is the product of his life as a graffiti artist as well as his interest in English calligraphy and Egyptian hieroglyphics. Retna often collaborates with El Mac, who paints the portraits while Retna tells their stories. According to accounts from the street, certain friends can read the messages as easily as those on a milk carton.

Retna mural with El Mac (detail). Miami Primary Flight 2008 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Retna from his show “Silver Lining” at Miami Primary Flight 2010. Photo courtesy of Primary Flight. © Peter Vahan.

Check out more great pics of the show by RJ at Vandalog.

H.Veng Smith Solo At Pandemic: Studio Visit And Interview

December 13, 2010 Artists, Brooklyn, Events, Features, Gallery, Interview, new york, NYC, Opening, Street Talker Interview

Aerosol, Arsenic and Squared-Jawed Vikings

Forging Identity in “Identifiable Reality”

“Visual Thought”, by H. Veng Smith (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A traditional A-frame wooden easel smacked up with street art stickers sits in a tiny pitched roof attic studio. The focused artist sits, poised brush in hand, staring intently at his palette of carefully selected and mixed pigments with linseed oil, deciding how to recreate a spray painted tag by Street Artist Dark Cloud onto the stone walled bridge in his canvas.

“With these pieces I’m more interested in trying to have fun with them. I want to give you a reality, but at the same time an alternate reality,” so explains Veng of Robots Will Kill, now H. Veng Smith. The name itself indicates his desire to consolidate two extremes in his career so far – “Veng” from his days as a graff/street artist and member of the New York collective Robots Will Kill – and the formal name “H. Smith” under which he first showed his finely rendered oils on canvas.

Detail from “Visual Thought”, by H. Veng Smith (photo © Jaime Rojo)

As Veng painted canvasses over 3 months for his first solo show as a “Street Artist” on display indoors at Pandemic Gallery this Friday, he found himself again reconciling his two distinct interests – graff culture and the Dutch Masters. Looking at the oil painting of a survey of the expanse of a river alongside a non-descript European town from perhaps a few centuries ago, you see he has included tags from Street Artists circa 2010 like ECB, Chris from RWK, and Dark Cloud on walls in the village.

Brooklyn Street Art: I like the way that you pay homage to street artists and graffiti artists in these formal, painterly, old-world settings

Veng: That to me is the ideal world. I really enjoy that piece because it mixes the things that I like all in one. It’s got the street art, which I like, it’s got the graffiti, which I like, it’s got some modern conveniences like trucks moving because obviously you need to drive. I don’t want to be sitting around with a horse and buggy or something. Airplanes…. I like my laptop. At the same time I like the simple quiet old times, and the ideas of them, the old buildings. You know if you look at the city today I don’t think it looks as nice as it did a hundred years ago or in the 1800’s. If you go to some of the old Brooklyn or Manhattan buildings, you see that they’re beautiful. And the Manhattan skyline is beautiful too – it’s world-famous obviously. But I’m for classy, rustic, old world aesthetics. And I hope that’s what you get when you look at these pieces.

“Jerome”, by H. Veng Smith (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Identifiable Reality”, his first solo show as a Street Artist will showcase his own version of reality, which is to say, fictional.

Brooklyn Street Art: What does the title of the show refer to?
Veng: Just to all the pieces in the show that are realistic – you know what you are looking at, nothing is abstract in the design. But at the same time the ideas are a little abstract. You don’t usually see somebody with a hat made of books on their head with candles. Even though the candles on the hat is a realistic idea, because in olden days they would put candles on their hats for visibility to paint at night. Michelangelo and Goya both wore hats with candles when they were painting. A lot of people assume that this is all fantasy but it is not completely fantasy.

Goya’s ” Self-Portrait in the Workshop”, 1795, shows the artist with candles in his hat. (Courtesy Museo de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes, Madrid)

Out the open hinged window comes the sound of two Black-capped Chickadees calling each other in the branches of the blazing fall yellow trees. The conversation turns to the poker-faced man who appears throughout his giant street pieces and in these smaller canvasses. Veng calls the reappearing ever morphing costume-changing dude his “character”, and his blunt center stage presence is always beguiling with a hint of the comic. Truthfully, these “characters” are all probably versions of Veng, exhibiting different qualities of his own character, if only slyly.

Brooklyn Street Art: In a lot of your work there is a healthy dose of humor, however subtle.
Veng: Yeah – I wouldn’t consider it too serious. It’s kind of playful.

Brooklyn Street Art: Your character for example; It’s got this expression in this piece. What is that expression? Is he tasting a sour lemon?
Veng: He’s an unhappy Viking. You know, he’s plundering and he’s just not in the best of times I guess.

Brooklyn Street Art: I’ve noticed the shape of the face of the character has now become completely square, even with corners now.
Veng: I started off doing a more circular shape and I like it because it is recognizable and I always want to stick to more simple shapes, and I like them to be unrealistic. So no matter how realistically you paint an eye or a nose, no matter what you ever do to it, it is never going to look real because the shape alone is going to kill that for you totally. I would never use, say, a triangle or something. I like the idea of having that clean edge circular or square shape to break up the reality that you might otherwise get. I think it separates it from other things that are going on. I could sit here and do all of these with more realistic facial proportions but I feel like, for me, it would take out some of the fun of the character.

Brooklyn Street Art: And in fact, the character is fun.
Veng: Yeah, you look at first and it almost looks “identifiable” but then you realize it’s completely square. You take away the eyes and nose …..

For a minute you forget you are talking to a well known aerosol wielding Brooklyn Street Artist in this cozy Staten Island hideaway. It’s stillness is free of clutter and there are neatly stacked glass jars of pigment, oils, a mortar and pestle. Reconciling these two worlds must be work in itself.

Brooklyn Street Art: Recently there was a show at 17 Frost Gallery with Erik Burke & Cahil Muraghu where they married graffiti techniques and vocabulary with the Hudson School of painting. When I saw some of their pieces I was impressed and I was also thinking of the way that you are marrying two styles are a few centuries apart from one another.
Veng: You know if you look at the books I have on my shelf, people usually get a kick out of it because there will be a Chuck Close book next to a book on Jan van Eyck, or some Dutch guy. I personally find great interest in all of them and I reference them and I think when you can combine them using creativity it is a great luxury. Technique-wise, we have a lot to learn from the past.

Brooklyn Street Art: I’ve heard you talk before about having within your style these polar opposites and you’ve withstood some criticism from people like your peers for example. When you were doing graff on the street and you started to do Street Art based stuff – let alone Dutch Masters influenced pieces- what were some of the responses you were getting?
Veng: It’s definitely been tougher from the graffiti crowd than the Street Art crowd. But the graffiti crowd, especially here in New York, has loosened up on it’s ideas basically due to a lot of Europeans coming over doing graffiti too. The graffiti scene was always sort of A-B-C-D.

Brooklyn Street Art: In what way?
Veng: You spray paint, you use your caps, that’s it. You do it illegally, you never get too artsy. Whereas with Street Art, you can kind of get almost as artsy as you want.

Brooklyn Street Art: So you are saying that those people who might have given you a hard time before might not be doing it now.
Veng: Now they don’t do it at all. But at the same time, a lot of people won’t consider it graffiti. They’ll say, “Oh, he uses spray paint to do it but it’s not graffiti”. So I think a lot of the borders have all been cut down.

Brooklyn Street Art: So would you say a certain level of respect exists across all of it?
Veng: Yeah. I mean I’ve always been pretty peaceful and I’m pretty easy going. I’ve never really had any personal problems. I mean some people give their opinions, which is fine obviously, because not everybody likes everything the same and thank God.

Brooklyn Street Art: So you pick all of your paints.
Veng: Yeah, a lot of the paints, about 85% of them, I mix myself from the pigments. There are certain pigments I don’t use.

Brooklyn Street Art: What do you mix the pigments with
Veng: Oil – linseed oil or possibly walnut oil. – Which you can kind of smell in here. And then I add to them different stuff like resin, which will speed up the drying and give it a glossy hardened feel.

Brooklyn Street Art: Where do you get your pigments and supplies?
Veng: A lot of the supplies I get from a local colorman in Brooklyn, Robert Doak in Dumbo. His business has been around longer than I’ve been living. A lot of the pigments and materials I use come from him. It’s really specific, not just to oil paintings but to traditional materials. Also I get a lot of stuff from a company out in California called Natural Pigments, which specializes in all the hard-to-find pigments. Also I use the more dangerous stuff like lead-based paints and paints that contain arsenic.

Brooklyn Street Art: Really? Arsenic?
Veng: Yes, it’s a color called Opiate. It’s a really gorgeous yellow, but it contains arsenic.

Brooklyn Street Art: So do you have to wear a mask using some of these pigments?
Veng: When I mix the pigments I have little dust mask on for the super dangerous ones. – Not that I feel like I really need one because I’m dealing with it in very small doses. Obviously I don’t have the window open in front of me or the fan going. But just to be on the safe side I do wear a dust mask. Some are more dangerous if absorbed through the skin. Like Vermillion – (takes the glass bottle to show) – it’s a really really nice red. But if you absorb it through your skin it’s dangerous.

Brooklyn Street Art: This is a pestle.
Veng: It’s a grinder for the paints. You put it on here with the oil. Here are different oils, here is the walnut you can smell if you want.

Brooklyn Street Art: Yeah I think I can smell the linseed. That is really understated. I think people use linseed oil for furniture.
Veng: Yup, linseed oil – if you would ask people, probably 80% of them use linseed oil for their paints.

Brooklyn Street Art: How does it feel doing a solo show?
Veng: It feels great. I’m nervous. I hope everyone enjoys the work and likes it and shows up. It’s been good to get a body of work together in this genre because I’ve never really had a full collection of these pieces before that is more influenced by my Street Art. I’ve done a single piece for a commission or a group show here or there. So I’m really excited putting them together and coming up with similar ideas, breaking them down into groups, and having them all come together.

Finally it’s like a family of these street art pieces. To be honest I’ve never seen so many of these character paintings together in the studio.

Excerpt: Painting Birds

“I think they are the neatest things to paint. They give you all sorts of texture, they give you colors. I just think that technically they are great to paint, they give you the details, you can keep them super rendered. I’ve always been a big fan of birds in general – watching them, taking pictures of them. When I lived in Pennsylvania I did a lot of bird watching. So I just like them in general, and to paint them it’s a lot of fun and so far people have shown a lot of interest in my birds.”

Excerpt: Swedish/Norwegian Architecture

We had relatives from Sweden here and they gave me this tile, which has a Stave church in it, which I thought was really great. So I looked up these churches and they all have these really good architectural features, so I did my character like them. It’s a church. Instead of saying church building, you would say “stave”

“I thought the buildings looked amazing so I automatically thought of putting it in. I just like the old wooden buildings like that. They are fun to paint and not a lot of people reference stuff like this. It’s not secret, everything I have at home is kind of European, or fantasy based. But at the same time, this church is an actual architectural design that exists.

Detail of “Gotland” by H. Veng Smith ( photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA…………………….BSA…………………….BSA…………………….BSA…………………….BSA…………………….BSA…………………….

“Identifiable Reality” at Pandemic Gallery with H. Veng Smith

Friday December 17, 2010, 7-9 pm

Brian Adam Douglas AKA Elbow-Toe : Inside Out

November 30, 2010 Artists, Events, Gallery, Interview, Museum, Street Talker Interview

Brian Adam Douglas née Elbow-Toe stands inside looking out a third floor Brooklyn window down the block as late autumn winds whip and churn leaves and debris across the sidewalk, blowing lids off garbage cans and a Yankees cap off a bike messenger. At his feet and all over the blond hardwood floor behind him are scattered piles of loose ArtForum pages; poked, pocked and carved with a sharp blade to cull their very particular hues.

“There’s a certain amount of chaos but I know where everything is. This is the brown palette, right? This is all browns. This is greys, oranges, violets, blues, yellows, greens. I use that palette (pointing) – I have that set up. That’s how I learned how to paint – with that particular palette. The chromatic values are laid out in a grayscale value,” says the artist as he explains the disarray.
Brooklyn Street Art: I don’t know what that means.
Brian Adam Douglas: So basically the color goes from white to black. If you were to take a black and white photo of this right now, you would see. That yellow would be a real light grey, and it works it’s way down to black.

His Street Art peers a few blocks from here, the Brooklyn Street Art collective Faile, have been exploring a new technique this year they call wood painting; not quite collage, nor sculpture or painting. Since the leaves that are blowing outside these windows first began to bloom in March this year, Brian has been exploring another difficult to categorize method of “painting” by assembling thousands of custom cut pieces of paper to create nearly 20 new canvasses. Its a process he calls collaging, and it’s effect leaves viewers stupified.

Brooklyn Street Art: You’ve been doing status updates on your Facebook and Twitter feed forever saying that you are collaging.
Brian Adam Douglas: I know! (laughing) That’s all I’m doing man! I can’t wait to say, “Today I’m sleeping”.

Technically, yes, they are collage; a composition of materials and objects pasted over a surface. But it’s so easy to miss this obvious fact as you look at the painterly forms, their musculature, expression, gesture and puzzling symbolism. Each one of these new pieces fits somehow into an overriding theme that revealed itself to the artist only while Douglas labored. Surprising even the author, it took his wife and friends sometimes to help him see what was right in front of his exacting scalpel; through dream inflected symbolism he has unwittingly written a treatise about family, parenthood, and how they profoundly impact the formation of character. Without intending to, his inner world pushed it’s way to the outside, where he will be displaying this new powerfully personal collection December 4th at The Warrington Museum of Art in England with a show called “Due Date”, followed by a March show at Black Rat Projects.

But the artist won’t reveal to you their exact meanings necessarily when you are standing with him looking at a new piece at the easel or laptop, throwing out possible interpretations. “This is what I enjoy,” he says a bit mischievously, “people bringing in their own sort of meaning into the pieces.” Other times he’ll gladly offer a backstory. Even then, you are left to your own observation skills to intuit the relative intensity of the symbolism.

Brooklyn Street Art: How successful have you been at fielding questions on what these pieces are about?

Brian Adam Douglas: Pretty good. There are certain things within them that I don’t talk about. I mean I think that they are kind of universal enough that they could mean a number of things. As far as I’m concerned with the work, I’d rather people bring their own interpretations of the work in. Rather than me saying, “This is what this work is about, this is my idea and this is what it has to be,” I find the most interesting art becomes better when you make it personal.

Even so, some of these are quite unusual depictions to trust oneself to interpret accurately. We did take a few guesses, and with time Brian also decided to help us uncover the meanings in these new paper paintings. One thing is not nebulous; this methodical and meticulous cutting and pasting has taken over his imagination so much that he’s confident that he’ll be doing it for a long time.

Brooklyn Street Art: Do you want to continue to explore this technique? Have you gotten tired of it? Is it still capturing your interest?
Brian Adam Douglas: As far as I’m concerned I understand the medium really well. Each piece builds confidence. Now I’ve got something and I want to really see what I can say with it. I’ve got so much inspiration about things that I want to really plump into that I want to figure out that I could do this for like 15 or 20 years.

And Street Art? What about the twisted forms and ephemeral poetic passages that put Elbow-Toe plainly on the public radar a handful of years ago? Now that he has a gallery presence, has he abandoned his street persona? “About the street stuff – I’ll do that but it will be purely for fun. An outlet, like it was at the beginning. It kind of became a pain a year or two in. It got very stressful for a while, it wasn’t fun anymore,” he says.

“Now that I’ve kind of got my ‘gallery voice’ I just want to have a street voice that is it’s own thing. – strictly for the street and completely ephemeral.

Brian Adam Douglas: You get all this loaded meaning that’s happening behind it. The fire that’s happening in the backyard. This one is partly autobiographical of when I was a kid.
Brooklyn Street Art: The split-level ranch?
Brian Adam Douglas: Well, we didn’t live in one like that but I had to find a photo of the suburbs. It was wintertime, I was pretty young, maybe 12 or 13, and I was playing around with my paper airplanes. I had this great idea – I can light these on fire and it will look like World War II planes coming down crashing. Right? And I had the hope that they would burn up before they hit the ground. It’s winter time. Texas. I light this thing on fire and throw it and it’s one of those trick planes. Instead of curving up and flying it goes down into my yard. I see it land and it is like, “Floom!” – the ring of fire is running across my yard.
Brooklyn Street Art: And that’s how you burned down your house and killed your parents?
Brian Adam Douglas: Yeah, exactly! No. This piece is all about the fact that your kid is going to f*ck up a lot. But as a parent, the kid gives you that look and you are going to be like, “Oh, right, it’s okay” Like you still love them regardless the insanity they can produce.

Brooklyn Street Art: Ha! Now that seems like a metaphor, doesn’t it?
Brian Adam Douglas: Yeah, but also it comes from life. My Dad is a landscaper and one day when I was in high school he was up in a tree and he’s got the chain saw and he cuts the branch off. He’s so busy in the tree – he’s like “zhrooom!, Vrooooooom!” And he’s like 30 feet up! And so he’s falling, with this chain saw going in one hand as he’s failing. He grabs a branch as he’s falling and he’s hanging there swinging. He drops the chainsaw. Then he climbs down the tree. This is so….. I can imagine that moment when you find out you are going to be a parent and you are like, “Fuck! Everything is changing”. In order to take care of something else you are having to let a lot of other things go, and adapt. You are pruning things in your life. Certain things are taking precedence that maybe didn’t before.

Brian Adam Douglas: This one is called “Tradition”
Brooklyn Street Art: So the elders are in a supportive pose.
Brian Adam Douglas: Yeah
Brooklyn Street Art: And there is a lantern and a nest on your head?
Brian Adam Douglas: On my head. Yes.
Brooklyn Street Art: Well I like the body language of the guy in the middle. I suppose that could be a father figure.
Brian Adam Douglas: Yeah.
Brooklyn Street Art: It’s supportive, but directional also. With intent.
Brian Adam Douglas: Yeah.
Brooklyn Street Art: Wow, that says a lot of love there. That’s very nice.

BSA…………………BSA…………………BSA…………………BSA…………………BSA…………………BSA…………………

Brian Adam Douglas will be showing these pieces and more beginning December 4, 2010 at The Warrington Museum of Art . He is currently preparing for his solo show at Black Rat Projects in March 2011

To see more images for “Due Date” visit the artist’s web site at:

http://www.elbow-toe.com/studio.html

“Due Date”
December 4, 2010 – February 19, 2011
Warrington Museum
Museum St
Warrington, Cheshire WA1 1JB, United Kingdom

http://museum.warrington.gov.uk/

Black Rat Projects
through Cargo Garden
Arch 461, 83 Rivington street
London EC2A 3AY

http://www.blackratprojects.com

Street Art Against War, Supports Vets in Chicago

November 24, 2010 Artists, Chicago, Features, On the Street

Justseeds and IVAW collaborate on “Operation Exposure”.

“Operation Exposure: War is Trauma”, a coordinated Street Art action to raise awareness of the poor way veterans are treated after they are injured, took place on the streets of Chicago last week. Sponsored by Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) and the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, the postering campaign took over public space that is usually reserved for encouraging citizens to think of themselves purely as consumers.

Images Courtesy of Justseeds

The wheat-pasting collaboration with Street Artists and war veterans tells of a suicide epidemic in the armed forces and the practice of re-deploying of troops multiple times despite serious debilitating injury, and the silent suffering of neighbors who are touched by our wars. Veterans, artists, and volunteers met in Rogers Park and divided into teams for the installation. They divided up posters that Justseeds had designed for IVAW and then hit the streets.

Click here to continue reading this article on Justseeds…

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Overunder and No Touching Ground (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Overunder and No Touching Ground (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Overunder and No Touching Ground (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Overunder and ND’A (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Overunder and ND’A (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Overunder and ND’A (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Overunder next to an old Miss 17 throw up (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tokyo at Night (photo © Don John)

Don John (photo © Don John)

Don John (photo © Don John)

Don John (photo © Don John)

Don John (photo © Don John)

Don John (photo © Don John)

Don John (photo © Don John)

Avoid “Nowhere Action” (photo © Chelsea Ragan)

Avoid “Everything Small” (photo © Mike Sachse)

Avoid “Do I Have a Voice” (photo © Mike Sachse)

Avoid ADH (photo © Chelsea Ragan)

Adam Void, “Luckystrike”, a work in progress. Detail (photo © Avoid)

A rather painterly painting by Mr. Adam Void, “Seaside”; a brand new collaboration with Ryan Neely. Detail (photo © Avoid)

All the World is a Circus! Says I.

Clown Soldier Silk Screen (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Clown Soldier Silk Screen (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Clown Soldier The screened image. Work in progress (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Clown Soldier in the wild. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Clown Soldier Detail of a finished canvas (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Clown Soldier. Silk Screened images in progress for Fountain Art Fair (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Clown Soldier collage in the wild (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Clown Soldier. Collage (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Clown Soldier. Collage in progress. Detail (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Clown Soldier. Work on paper in progress (photo © Clown Soldier)

Clown Soldier. “beef, bef,” An early work (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Graffiti writer and fine artist. Old Skool Bomber. Wildstyle. Mid-Century Abstractionism. American Modernism. Choose One and Stick with it, right?

Augustine Kofie (photo © Todd Mazer)

Augustine Kofie (photo © Todd Mazer)

Augustine Kofie (photo © Todd Mazer)

Augustine Kofie (photo © Todd Mazer)

Augustine Kofie (photo © Todd Mazer)

Augustine Kofie (photo © Todd Mazer)

Augustine Kofie (photo © Todd Mazer)

Augustine Kofie (photo © Todd Mazer)

Augustine Kofie (photo © Todd Mazer)

Augustine Kofie (photo © Todd Mazer)

Augustine Kofie (photo © Todd Mazer)

Royce Bannon and Dark Clouds (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Chris RWK and Matt Siren (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Deekers, Celso, Infinity and Stikman (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Keely and Dark Clouds (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Moody and Sno Monster (left) Chris RWK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Infinity (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dark Clouds (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Keely (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Matt Siren (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mutz/Moody (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nose Go (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Royce Bannon (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Celso, Keely and Mutz collaborate on the scaffolding outside the gallery (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A detail view of the front facade of the gallery (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A detail view of the front facade of the gallery (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Retna (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Retna (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Retna (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Retna (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Retna (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Retna (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Retna (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Retna (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Retna (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Retna (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nick the Amazing

Retna mural with El Mac (detail). Miami Primary Flight 2009 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Retna mural with El Mac (detail). Miami Primary Flight 2008 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Retna from his show “Silver Lining” at Miami Primary Flight 2010. Photo courtesy of Primary Flight. © Peter Vahan.

Aerosol, Arsenic and Squared-Jawed Vikings

Forging Identity in “Identifiable Reality”

“Visual Thought”, by H. Veng Smith (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Detail from “Visual Thought”, by H. Veng Smith (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Jerome”, by H. Veng Smith (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Goya’s ” Self-Portrait in the Workshop”, 1795, shows the artist with candles in his hat. (Courtesy Museo de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes, Madrid)

Detail of “Jerome”, by H. Veng Smith (photo © Jaime Rojo)