All posts tagged: Cernesto

BSA Images Of The Week: 03.17.24

March 17, 2024 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Welcome to BSA Images of the Week!

Happy St. Patricks Day to all our Irish brethren and sisteren (?) — unless you are unlucky to be a gaylesbitrans Irish resident of Staten Island: their official Saint Patty parade bans all of those other types. Our 5^th borough always complains that it doesn’t get enough attention because Manhattan, Brooklyn, Bronx and Queens hog the spotlight. So bigotry, because why not? But Manhattan shouldn’t bray too loudly; we’re old enough to remember the LGBT bans by The Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) at the beery 5^th Avenue parades for decades.

Grocery stores, big box stores, and McDonald’s are converting customer service to self-service, so why not law enforcement in Brooklyn? On the subway, this dude takes a gun from his attacker so he can shoot him, after another passenger stabbed him in the back. You used to call this vigilante justice, but now it’s just called DIY policing.

And now images from our ongoing conversation Specter, Cern, Homesick, Peter Phobia, Dzel, REW, Folk, Appear 37, BRK. Nover NYC, GUS, Hand of Tess, 1krlOs, Pirdb!, Kool Hand, Croke, Regae, Nova44, and Spyee.

FOLK. HOMESICK. PRDB! (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Spring 2024. Manhattan, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 08.23.20

August 23, 2020 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

What a week – as bad news is replaced by horrible news. But seriously, the summer has been beautiful in the streets of New York in so many ways, and we feel lucky here – even though there appears to be an exodus? Yeah we remember it from the 60s and 70s too but it was called “White Flight” then. Wonder who’s leaving now? Kitchen too hot? Please, gurl, go home. The rest of us will be just fine here because we’ve always loved New York in good times and in bad. These are the Golden Years.

The DNC 2020 infomercial this week looked like the 1996 RNC one but with “diversity” – as we get pulled/pushed further and further toward the right. This weeks’ RNC infomercial broadcast from White House grounds will march us off a cliff, no doubt. Speech writers are searching now to set the reich tone. Austerity for all! War is Peace! Suburban Karens Will Crush You!

Let’s see what the streets are telling us.

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring 7 Line Art Studio, Adam Fu, Billy Barnacles, CB23, Cern, Gee Whiskers, One Rad Latina, and Rar Grafix.

A drama played out in two parts by Billy Barnacles (photo © Jaime Rojo)

7 Line Art Studio goes Wu-Tang for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

7 Line Art Studio for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

There’s a staaarrrrr cat waiting in the sky. Gee Whiskers (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Rar Grafix for East Village Walls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

CB23 Smile / Don’t smile (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Brooklyn, August, 2020 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 09.08.19

September 8, 2019 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Surreally yours! The art on the streets this week appears to reflect the times. It’s going to take all this creativity and force to turn the tides!

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring 1Up, AJ LaVilla, Android Oi, Cern, Dark Clouds, Dirty Cobain, Early Riser, Invader, Jason Naylor, Little Ricky, Lubaina Himid, Lucas Blalock, Oscar Lett, Robson, SacSix, Subway Doodle, Zimer .

Subway Doodle vs Brooklyn Rats for Under Hill Walls. You can see here there are some subtle differences between Brooklyn rats and regular ones. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Subway Doodle vs Regular rats (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Android Oi for Under Hill Walls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dirty Cobain for Under Hill Walls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ceci n’est pas une Invader (photo © Jaime Rojo)

1UP in good company… (photo © Jaime Rojo)

SacSix for Under Hill Walls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Oscar Lett for Under Hill Walls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

AJ Lavilla for Under Hill Walls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Zimer for Under Hill Walls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cern. Detail. Arts Org Murals. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Shadows. Brooklyn, NY. September 2019. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faring Purth & Thievin’ Stephen Bed Stuy Collabo: “Cypress, Top Wrung”

January 27, 2016 Artists

The dynamics of collaborations between artists are often informative, even revelatory to the viewers as well as the artists. By deliberately casting your creative lot with that of another you are taking a bit of a risk, experimenting with your own conceptions, responding alongside and in tandem with the style and vision of your partner.

Sometimes it is symbiotic, like Warhol with Basquiat. Or hilariously stunning, like Christopher Walken dancing to Fat Boy Slim. More recently the reviews were awfully mixed with the performance art collaboration of Jay Z and Marina Abramovic.

Faring Purth & Thievin’ Stephen “Cypress, Top Wrung”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Today on a windy Brooklyn roof we look at a fresh collaboration with Oakland’s Faring Purth and Rochester’s Thievin’ Stephen, and we wonder how it will play to the J train audience who pass by it in Brooklyn’s Bedstuy neighborhood.

Purth travels the country in service to her nearly spiritual in-the-moment musings, her willow-limbed figures ephemeral and hash-marked, comporting themselves outside of realism. The surety of a knife-cut line ensures that stencil-wielding Stephen would not be as on-the-fly when spraying out a portrait, even that of a surrealistic frog sponge being squeezed by his main lady.

Faring Purth & Thievin’ Stephen “Cypress, Top Wrung”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We spoke with the artists to get their take on the collaborative experience and we learned that despite their stylistic differences the creative partnership was strengthened by “Cypress, Top Wrung” and by facing the challenges of painting outdoors in Brooklyn during January.

Brooklyn Street Art: How did the collaboration come about?

Faring Purth: We met a few years back during the 2013 Wall\Therapy festival in Rochester, New York. We formed a very unusual close bond after a crazy week of creating – and subsequently surviving a chemical fire on the rooftop of an abandoned building where we were working with a few other artists. Since then, we have adopted each other as family, becoming very familiar with each other’s work. Collaborating was a natural progression to that.

Thievin’ Stephen: Whenever Faring is back in Rochester we make it a habit to link up, and I’ll take her to paint in one of my favorite abandoned spots. We used to explore together and do separate pieces, but after we had fun on a quick collabo this fall in the abandoned Rochester subway, the next logical step was to work together on a bigger wall. Our schedules lined up, so we decided to take advantage of the bizarre January heat wave and meet in Brooklyn

Faring Purth & Thievin’ Stephen “Cypress, Top Wrung”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faring Purth: It’s our first official, large scale collaboration. We tossed around a few different locations and ideas. Brooklyn ultimately won – we both have a particular love for this area. The piece itself developed through dialogue and then through exchanging sketches until a cohesive blueprint was formed. That blueprint was the basis and we are thrilled with how the piece ultimately manifested.

Brooklyn Street Art: Where did the name Cypress come from, and is that the character in the painting?

Faring Purth: It is. While we were completing the work, two friends of mine gave birth to their first child, a beautiful baby girl whom they named Cypress Valentina. The name immediately struck me and resonated as I continued to carve away at this pearl in the freezing cold. I found myself rolling it off my tongue while shivering and clapping my hands together to get the circulation back in my fingers. The elements tested us to say the very least and “Cypress” became a strange mantra for me the following week – helping me feel a little bit stronger and a tiny bit warmer every time I said it.

Faring Purth & Thievin’ Stephen “Cypress, Top Wrung”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Thievin’ Stephen: Yeah, Faring usually gives her women a name, and I enjoy using word play related to my imagery

Faring Purth: I ultimately decided the figure in the painting should take the name of her celestial twin. It’s not every pearl that gets to share their shucking with a human birth. And it’s not every name that carries such profound wisdom. Cypress Valentina is now ten days old. Cypress, Top Wrung is two days old. I hope one day their paths cross and that they unlock some universal secret not even I know.

Faring Purth & Thievin’ Stephen “Cypress, Top Wrung”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The work began immediately after the new year began and that became of certain significance in itself: It’s the first of an epic year to come, the release of an epic year just lived. This piece exposed me to a very different process than my own and provided me with many tools and lessons going forward. The experience simultaneously tested my body & spirit greatly. By the time the work was actually done, I had massive bruises, battle wounds, & life lessons to show for it.

As for the stylistic juxtaposition of the work & the various narratives the piece inspires, both are open to interpretation and a happy side effect of our familiarity as artists and friends. We knew how to work with and play off of each other’s visions and allow that dialogue to unfold on its own.

Faring Purth & Thievin’ Stephen “Cypress, Top Wrung”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Brooklyn Street Art: Your styles couldn’t be more different yet the balance and the composition works really well within the context of the piece. Can you talk about your thoughts and experiences creating it.

Faring Purth: “Cypress, Top Wrung” was an incredible learning experience both in the complications of the wall itself and in the personal life that was being lived during its creation. As for me, the two are impossible to separate… One always reflects and reveals elements of the other and in so doing provides me with certain personal epiphanies I needed to have at that moment. Suffice to say, creating Cypress was no different in this respect.

Thievin’ Stephen: My favorite collaborations are those where two friends divergent styles come together so that was the most exciting thing about melding my work with Farings’. My color theory mixed with Faring’s grey-scale compliment each other, and I think that’s what makes this mural feel like the true winter-time creation that it is.

It was fun watching the interplay between my sharpness and her fluidity unfold, and you can see it best where the hand and sponge connect, which was the last thing we did. Waiting for that moment to be done, as we went back and forth getting it right, that felt like a big pay off as it was really the first time our two styles merged into one piece. The wall also benefits from the combination of Faring’s painterly line work with my style of stencilism. I put forty something layers of stencils up on this wall. While our aesthetics are certainly far apart, I think the surreal anatomy that Faring gives her women harmonizes with my impossible creatures.

Faring Purth & Thievin’ Stephen “Cypress, Top Wrung”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The finished piece probably means quite different things to Faring and me, and I think that makes it a more intriguing creation for the viewer.

It’s always great to be surrounded by the humanity you encounter in Brooklyn, and Bed Stuy never disappoints. A lot of crazy shit and hilarious things happened during the creation of this wall, but nothing overshadows the roof top experience. The elevated train line of the J right behind me was a nice inspiration, along with busy-ass Broadway directly below. You know it’s a memory when you have to put rock salt under your ladders! Being at the top of a ladder on the very corner of a roof top definitely attracts attention. MTA construction guys thought we were nuts. Maybe we were. I’m happy with the wall, and glad it felt like the good old days.

Faring Purth & Thievin’ Stephen “Cypress, Top Wrung”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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The artists would like to thank Cernesto and ArtsOrg for their help.

BSA Images Of The Week: 11.22.15

November 22, 2015 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Carcioffola, Cern, City Kitty, COST, ENX, Invader, Isaac Cordal, Le Diamantarie, London Kaye, MSK Crew, Otto Osch, Sean 9 Lugo, Space Invader, Spaik, Stray Ones.

Top image above >>> Invader’s new series of pieces in New York is a campaign to pay tribute to some of our icons. Here is Joey Ramone at The Bushwick Collective – done in cooperation with Mana Urban Art Projects (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Invader. Lou Reed. The Bushwick Collective/Mana Urban Art Projects (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Invader. The Bushwick Collective/Mana Urban Art Projects (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Invader. Damaged almost as soon as it went up. The Bushwick Collective/Mana Urban Art Projects (photo © Jaime Rojo)

COST. The Bushwick Collective/Mana Urban Art Projects (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Stray Ones (photo © Jaime Rojo)

London Kaye. The Little Prince of Bel-Air. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Otto Osch new piece in London, UK. (photo © Otto Osch)

Isaac Cordal in Manhattan, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Isaac Cordal over looking the New York Stock Exchange in lower Manhattan, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Isaac Cordal in Manhattan, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Studio Affordability Project protesting in front of the Brooklyn Museum about gentrification and a Real Estate event being held there. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Carcioffola new piece in Naples, Italy. (photo © Carcioffola)

Sean 9 Lugo (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Modern Love. We are not sure who did this or if it’s a Holiday Ad. It reminded us of the work of a collective who was active in the early 2000’s under the name of Eternal Love. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cernesto brings all his lil’ characters on parade on this wall. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cernesto (photo © Jaime Rojo)

MSK Crew(photo © Jaime Rojo)

Spaik in Bordeaux, France. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Le Diamantarie (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ENX (photo © Jaime Rojo)

City kitty (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Bushwick, Brooklyn. November, 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BSA Images Of The Week: 05.24.15

May 24, 2015 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

New York is bittersweet as we are welcoming summer this weekend and remembering those who served and who were lost in war as well (Memorial Day); amidst a changing political atmosphere where the country is tentatively beginning to seriously debate whether the US should have gone to Iraq and Afghanistan.

So it’s also Fleet Week in New York, which means a lot of sailors and marines and Coast Guard personnel are carousing the tourist spots and bars – sort of a military spring break and a chance for the local girls and boys to yell out “Hey Sailor!” – and flash some flirty eyes. It’s also big weekend for movies, barbecues, beers, burping, suntans, rummage sales, bike rides, and of course spray painting empty trailers in cluttered lots. That’s why we start this weeks pack with a new stallion just sprayed on a trailer in Williamsburg by Cern. He’s running wild with a great view of the cityscape behind him.

Also, Kiss Me I’m Irish!

So here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Cern, Christos Voutichtis, David De La Mano, Din din, Dont Fret, DourOne, Iraq Veterens Against the War, Kuma, Mata Ruda, Miishab, Musketon, Pablog H Harymbat, Rebel, Smells, Sweet Toof, Temo & Miel, and Urma.

Top image above by Cern (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cern (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Iraq Veterans Against The War (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mata Ruda in Jersey City, NJ for Savage Habbit. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mata Ruda in Jersey City, NJ for Savage Habbit. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Telmo & Miel new mural in Dortmund, Germany for 44309//Street Art Gallery. (photo © Courtesy of 44309 // Street Art Gallery)

Smells . Sweet Toof (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Musketon. It’s in the cloud… (photo © Jaime Rojo)

DourOne new wall in Los Angeles, CA. (photo © Phil Sanchez)

Artist Unknown. This has got to be one of the more elaborate ways we have seen to throw an insult. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Miishab (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dont Fret (photo © Jaime Rojo)

David De La Mano and Pablo H Harymbat in Montevideo, Uruguay. (photo © Harymbat)

KUMA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Din Din (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Rebel (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Urma. New installation in Milan. (photo © Christos Voutichtis)

In case you thought that your uncle Ernie was the only one full of hot air, public artist creates this installation that attempts to capture the breath of the city. He tells us that in the end he decided his experiment was a good mix of architecture, Art, and postmodern French literature.

“I applied simple means to build parametric and temporary installations;

It is an open system, varying with steadily modifying environmental processes, but without completely changing its own structure.”

Urma. New installation in Milan. Interior. (photo © Domenico Laterza)

Untitled. Manhattan fly over. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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Happy New Year 2015 – BSA Readers Choice Top 10

January 1, 2015 Artists

Happy New Year to All! Thank you for inspiring us to do our best and to those of you who continue to support our personal art project / cultural examination, we extend our gratitude more than ever.

Begun as an enthusiastic discovery of what was happening in a few neighborhoods in New York, we continued to expand our view into more cities around the world last year and into the history and future of the scene. We also aimed to provide you with a critical platform for examination of the street art/ graffiti / public art/ contemporary art continuum with interviews with artists, curators, collectors, organizers, observers and thinkers in the street, studio, gallery, and museum – trouble makers and taste makers alike.

In the end, it’s your observations and the conversations on the street that are most important. As we begin the year with over 300K fans, friends, and followers on social media platforms and 225 articles on the Huffington Post (thanks HuffPost team!), we feel like we get a valuable good survey of current opinions heading our way daily.

With in-depth interviews, investigative articles, opinion infused examinations, plain celebratory reverie, occasionally silly non-sequitors, and public appearances where we get to meet you, we get a good analytical look at an ever-evolving movement, glittery polish and warts and all.

As the new year begins we take a look back at the top stories chosen by BSA Readers in the last 12 months. Among them are two takeover pop-up shows in soon-to-be demolished buildings, a story about commercial abuse of artist copyrights and the effort to fight back, a street art community’s response to the sudden death of an activist street artist, a Street Art tourist trip, and a few inspirational women, men, and Mexican muralists. Even though we published at least once a day for the last 365 days, these are the most popular pieces, as chosen by you, Dear BSA Reader.

10. Exploring Lisbon as a Street Art Tourist

Os Gemeos / Blu (photo © Stephen Kelley)

9. Kara Walker and Her Sugar Sphinx at the Old Domino Factory

Kara Walker. The artist portrait in profile with her sugary sphinx in the background. (photo via iPhone © Jaime Rojo)

8. Women Rock Wynwood Walls at Miami Art Basel 2013

Fafi (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

7. A Sudden Secret Street Art House Party in Manhattan

Icy & Sot (photo © Jaime Rojo)

6. Niels Shoe Meulman Balancing “Unearthly” Paintings

Niels “Shoe” Meulman. Process shot. (photo © Adele Renault)

5. It’s All the Rage, Street Artists Filing Lawsuits Left and Right

4. Shok-1 Street Art X-Rays Reveal a Unique Hand at the Can

Shok-1 (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

3. 12 Mexican Street Artists Stray Far from Muralism Tradition In NYC

Sego (photo © Jaime Rojo)

2. Army Of One, Inspiration To Many : Jef Campion

Army Of One AKA JC2 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

1. Graffiti and Street Art Lock Up “21st Precinct” in New York

Pixote in action. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Cern In the Garden and On the Wall

November 1, 2014 Artists

As New York is waving and weaving through two or three consecutive nights of Halloween costumery and roleplay, dipping into fantasy, fears, and frolicsome forays befitting otherworldly matters, we turn to artist Cern for a surrealist soft opera crowd-sourced from another magical kingdom.

Cern (or Cernesto, Cernism, or other variants). Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A rather sweetly hazy view through a broken looking glass, or in one case, a broken fence from Cekis, the aerosol induced hallucinations feature many of Cern’s recurring characters cavorting and lounging placidly in one another’s company in a lush garden of possibility. Rising from the street, and perhaps from our dreams, in their midst is the idealized female form; inviting, comforting, understanding our troubles and our troubled minds.

The styles and references are many here as Cern’s multitudinous explorations on walls through the last years are gradually merging together into his one unique perspective on the here and the now; with an open public framing that only pretends to barely contain it all.

Cernesto (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cernesto collaboration with the frayed fencing of Cekis. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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BSA Images Of The Week: 04.20.14

April 20, 2014 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

It’s Easter! It’s also 4/20! What kind of grass did that bunny leave in your basket this morning?

While you are chewing the chocolate ears off of your new friend you can have look at some of the springtime gifts that have appeared on the streets this week.

Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Alice Pasquini, Cern, Hamlet, JC, Jerk Face, Lexi Bella, Mika, Myth, Pyramid Oracle, and Tripel.

Top Image >> Jerk Face for The Bushwick Collective (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cernesto painted this mural last year but were patiently waiting for the Spring to arrive to post the photos. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cernesto. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lexi Bella (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mika (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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#CheckYourSelfie, A New Online Project from Gilf!

February 1, 2014 Artists, Interview

Using Social and a Self-Pic to Start a Conversation with You

Street Artist Gilf! has been developing her work the last few months in a more conceptual direction and diversifying from straight paint on a wall. Her new online project incorporates photography, activism, online conversation, and the pinnacle of personal image promotion right now, the selfie.

And she’s hoping you’ll send her yours right now. It’s Saturday, what else is going on, laundry?

Also, you could change the world.

For Gilf! the heralded phone self portrait is more than just a way to show off your beauty mark or your biceps, it can be a way to open a conversation about a topic you care about. “This is an opportunity for people to connect with friends to discuss and brainstorm a cause or an important issue,” she says of the new art project she calls #Checkyourselfie.

As if you weren’t already fixing your hair and getting ready to snap, she’s sweetening the deal by offering to give you one of her prints from her 5-selfie series that she’s releasing each day next week starting Monday. “The winner will be decided on my perception of the image’s ability to facilitate dialog, its composition, and of course the level of creativity that went into it,” she says, and already she’s gotten a few that are stretching the selfie concept into personally artful directions.

See a full discussion sparked by this image from xoaoart, “Okay, so I’m usually not one to do this but I love me some @gilfnyc and I’m always up for thought provoking discussion #checkyourselfie” (http://web.stagram.com/n/xoaoart/ )

Be extreme if you want to be, suggests Gilf!, and tell everybody what you care about, and this Street Artist who has always loved social, political, and environmental activism says she’ll promote you even more. “You’ll be surprised at how many people feel the same way you do, and how good it feels to get your opinion about something important out among like-minded people,” she says.

Check the end of this post for details on how to #Checkyourselfie, but first here’s Gilf! speaks with us about her project.

Brooklyn Street Art: Judy Pearshall from the Oxford Dictionary observed that the act of taking a selfie is an “essentially narcissistic enterprise.” Do you suppose the desire to share an image of your physical appearance is something more than that?

Gilf!: Absolutely. To share a selfie is a brave yet strategic move. Ultimately we don’t share things on social media if we are not seeking others’ opinions or approval. Often times I see selfies as requests for validation. As a society we are so inundated with the media telling us how we need to be thinner, hotter, and more stylish, so of course we’re all a bit insecure.

A submission to #Checkyourselfie from @Halopigg on Instagram. “I wanted to challenge myself with this photo, which is why this photo and caption were made entirely by me using my feet and toes,” he says (image © Halopigg)

Every time we get a “like” on our photos we are rewarded with a jolt of dopamine. This can make us feel better about ourselves, but it’s short lived like any other drug. It doesn’t contribute to true self worth- but actually, in my opinion, creates further need for validation from our peers. I think the need for acceptance has become highly integrated in self esteem since the advent of social media. Maybe this isn’t new but it’s far more visible and intense than ever before.

Brooklyn Street Art: Television and advertising are often accused of defining beauty standards. Would you say that the “selfie” phenomenon is redefining those standards or otherwise altering them?

Gilf!: I see the selfie as an amazing tool that can redefine our understanding of beauty. The majority of the selfies I see are reinforcing the media’s beauty standards, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. I think it’s rare to see a selfie that blatantly shows and accepts a person’s flaws. We need more of these. It’s an incredible way to use the selfie as a source of empowerment. We can choose to hold ourselves up to the unrealistic, photoshopped version of beauty or accept and own our perceived flaws as part of what makes each of us unique and beautiful.

“So #checkyourselfie is about using a selfie to create constructive dialog about things other than the self,” says Gilf!, “I don’t know how constructive this one is as an example- but it sure made me laugh!” (unattributed photo from Gilf!’s Tumblr on Jan 31)

Brooklyn Street Art: With more than 30 million Instagram photos carrying the hashtag #selfie, have we all become stars?

Gilf!: I think it’s gotten a little out of hand. It’s one thing to love ourselves, it’s another when we use social media to feed our egos. One of the questions I keep asking myself while working on #checkyourselfie is why do we have such a fascination with the self. Ultimately we can each only control our own self.

The world and all it’s problems can seem so daunting on an individual level. “What can one person really do?” is a question I often hear. It’s so scary to feel helpless and ineffective. We turn our focus inward, because the self is the one thing we can control. While heavily “connected” with social media, by focusing on the self we can become disempowered, isolated individuals. It has such potential to connect us and create dialog yet social media has largely become a tool to stoke our egos.

Use your camera to create frehley: Street Artist Oh Captain My Captain (OCMC) submitted this image for #checkyourselfie (© OCMCPropaganda)

Brooklyn Street Art: You are using this project as a way to open a conversation – what do you hope we will all talk about?

Gilf!: Social media presents an incredible opportunity to create community and effect change, and I don’t think we’re harnessing its full potential yet. I want to use the selfie to create dialogs about greater issues. I’ll be using the project to discuss issues that I’m interested in like the environment, body image, and how we understand community. What I’m hoping participants will discuss are issues that are important to them. This can be a way to create new connections, bring people together, or motivate a group to actually organize or volunteer together, instead of just saying “someday”.

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How you can participate in #checkyourselfie right now:

To start a conversation, simply tag your image with #checkyourselfie. Your image will appear on Gilf!’s Instagram, tumblr, and twitter under her handle @gilfnyc, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/gilfnyc, and her website website: www.gilfnyc.com. See her website for more details.

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To see Gilf’s five new images in print you’ll need to go to DUMBO, Brooklyn next Thursday night at Arcilesi Homberg Fine Art . Since the artist is planning to be in attendance you can continue your conversation in person.

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A Sudden Secret Street Art House Party in Manhattan

January 15, 2014 Artists

It’s a House Party Y’all!

With studio apartments in Manhattan now hitting nearly 3K a month the closest thing most Milennials will ever get to a house party in Gotham will be snagging a VCR tape of the Kid ‘n Play danceoff movie at their parents stoop sale. Last week during the “polar vortex” cold freeze some lucky invitees did get access to a secret house party in a dilapidated building on the Lower East Side for 2 hours however. There wasn’t much heat, no DJ, and your flask of Jack Daniels substituted as the bar, but if you made it in you scored a free condensed Street Artist show that is as rare as a New Jack Swing hit these days.

A little more than 40 (mostly) Street Artists brought the four floor former tenement building to life one last time before it will be destroyed – and they did it almost entirely in secret over the course of a week. Just how secret this event was is debatable considering the multitude of blog posts and photos of it that appeared in the days following but in the Internet age, news about stuff like this goes viral no matter what.

All tolled, the varied collection of participants was a cross-section; a blurry screenshot of Street Artists on the New York scene along with a few graff writers, taggers, sticker slappers, painters, illustrators, aerosol experts, installationists, art school students, and visitors to the big city who happened to be around at the right time. Also, a couple of pyros.

While this sort of artist takeover of an abandoned house or building is increasingly occurring in bankrupt cities and neighborhoods in America and Europe where no one wants to live except the creative types, you don’t find this unruly and freewheeling expression much in the increasingly scrubbed and mall-like playground for the rich in Manhattan.

Similarly, producers of large Street Art/Urban Art events in global cities can deliver murals that make you salivate and on a scale that dwarfs this “event” thanks to corporate underwriters and shills for sneakers/sodas/urban-themed tampons these days, but few can truthfully rival the unpolished impromptu spirit of a semi-secret House Party jam session. For one week during installations and on opening night it was like the ghost of New York’s downtown 1970s-80s Bohemia was coming back to the island in all it’s imperfectness to remind everyone of Manhattan’s former greatness as a petri dish for experimentation and discovery.

Considering the huge increase in sanctioned walls over the last two years in New York, this work looks surprisingly alive, and is just the sort of balm needed for the raw nerves of anarchists everywhere who have bemoaned the polished soul-deadening mural painting of late. Even if some of this looks sort of slap-dash and ragged in spots, and it does, it also gives off an air of being authentic and in-the-moment.

Notably, the ratio of penis, breast, and defacation-related themes was higher than your average art show but as you know, there is an audience for every artist, even the ones gravitating to bathroom humor as creative wellspring. Judging by the few hundred images floating around on Flickr and elsewhere, this pop-up was a hit for the people.

Given the growing number of artists communities that have blossomed outside of Manhattan, this could have been one of its last jams for Street Art. Yo! That’s my jam!

And now please step aside as we build another luxury condo.

This show, “Surplus Candy” was organized by Hanksy, and is now closed.

A near complete artist list includes:

Alice Mizrachi/AM, ASVP, BD White, Bishop203, CB23, Cernesto, Col Wallnuts, Cosbe, Dee Dee, Dick Mama, Drippings, Edapt, EKG, El Sol 25, Elizabeth Glaessner, Elle, Enzo and Nio, Foxxface, GILF!, Hanksy, Icy and Sot, Left Handed Wave, Lunar New Year, Magda Love, Martha Cooper, Mata Ruda, Moustache Man, Mr. Toll, Mr. Two Three, Mrs. Big Stuff, NDA, Never, Nicolas Holiber, Royce Bannon, Russell King, Sonni, Tako, Tone Tank, Tony Depew, Trap, UR New York, Vulpes Vulpes, Wizard Skull, and Wretched Beast.

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Swinging Trunks – Cernesto Gets Elephantine in London

May 25, 2013 Artists

What ya gonna do with all that junk inside your trunk?

“I got to do two nice murals in London,” says Cern as he flies back to dirty old New York for the Memorial Day Weekend in time for the official start of Summer. It looks like there is a lot of elephant love going on here, no? “It’s a metropolis of sorts built upon “upside down” elephants. It became the foundation for other hybrid creatures to dwell in.”

This one is not human-centric, he says, it’s elephant-centric. He says that he was in the aerosol zone and this “gravity defying romance unfolded above Bricklane as more elephants got to visit London. ”

Badunka dunk dunk and the trunk trunk trunk, know what I’m sayin’? Come on Summer! Bring it.

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Faring Purth & Thievin’ Stephen “Cypress, Top Wrung”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faring Purth & Thievin’ Stephen “Cypress, Top Wrung”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faring Purth & Thievin’ Stephen “Cypress, Top Wrung”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faring Purth & Thievin’ Stephen “Cypress, Top Wrung”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faring Purth & Thievin’ Stephen “Cypress, Top Wrung”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faring Purth & Thievin’ Stephen “Cypress, Top Wrung”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faring Purth & Thievin’ Stephen “Cypress, Top Wrung”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faring Purth & Thievin’ Stephen “Cypress, Top Wrung”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faring Purth & Thievin’ Stephen “Cypress, Top Wrung”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faring Purth & Thievin’ Stephen “Cypress, Top Wrung”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faring Purth & Thievin’ Stephen “Cypress, Top Wrung”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faring Purth & Thievin’ Stephen “Cypress, Top Wrung”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Faring Purth & Thievin’ Stephen “Cypress, Top Wrung”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Top image above >>> Invader’s new series of pieces in New York is a campaign to pay tribute to some of our icons. Here is Joey Ramone at The Bushwick Collective – done in cooperation with Mana Urban Art Projects (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Invader. Lou Reed. The Bushwick Collective/Mana Urban Art Projects (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Invader. The Bushwick Collective/Mana Urban Art Projects (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Invader. Damaged almost as soon as it went up. The Bushwick Collective/Mana Urban Art Projects (photo © Jaime Rojo)

COST. The Bushwick Collective/Mana Urban Art Projects (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Stray Ones (photo © Jaime Rojo)

London Kaye. The Little Prince of Bel-Air. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Otto Osch new piece in London, UK. (photo © Otto Osch)

Isaac Cordal in Manhattan, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Isaac Cordal over looking the New York Stock Exchange in lower Manhattan, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Isaac Cordal in Manhattan, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Isaac Cordal in Manhattan, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Artist Studio Affordability Project protesting in front of the Brooklyn Museum about gentrification and a Real Estate event being held there. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Carcioffola new piece in Naples, Italy. (photo © Carcioffola)

Sean 9 Lugo (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Modern Love. We are not sure who did this or if it’s a Holiday Ad. It reminded us of the work of a collective who was active in the early 2000’s under the name of Eternal Love. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cernesto brings all his lil’ characters on parade on this wall. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cernesto (photo © Jaime Rojo)

MSK Crew(photo © Jaime Rojo)

Spaik in Bordeaux, France. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Le Diamantarie (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ENX (photo © Jaime Rojo)

City kitty (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Bushwick, Brooklyn. November, 2015. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Top image above by Cern (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cern (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Iraq Veterans Against The War (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mata Ruda in Jersey City, NJ for Savage Habbit. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mata Ruda in Jersey City, NJ for Savage Habbit. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Telmo & Miel new mural in Dortmund, Germany for 44309//Street Art Gallery. (photo © Courtesy of 44309 // Street Art Gallery)

Smells . Sweet Toof (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Musketon. It’s in the cloud… (photo © Jaime Rojo)

DourOne new wall in Los Angeles, CA. (photo © Phil Sanchez)

Artist Unknown. This has got to be one of the more elaborate ways we have seen to throw an insult. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Miishab (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dont Fret (photo © Jaime Rojo)

David De La Mano and Pablo H Harymbat in Montevideo, Uruguay. (photo © Harymbat)

David De La Mano and Pablo H Harymbat in Montevideo, Uruguay. (photo © Harymbat)

KUMA (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Din Din (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Din Din (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Rebel (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Urma. New installation in Milan. (photo © Christos Voutichtis)

Urma. New installation in Milan. Interior. (photo © Domenico Laterza)

Untitled. Manhattan fly over. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Os Gemeos / Blu (photo © Stephen Kelley)

Kara Walker. The artist portrait in profile with her sugary sphinx in the background. (photo via iPhone © Jaime Rojo)

Fafi (photo © Martha Cooper for Wynwood Walls)

Icy & Sot (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Niels “Shoe” Meulman. Process shot. (photo © Adele Renault)

Shok-1 (Photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sego (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Army Of One AKA JC2 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pixote in action. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cern (or Cernesto, Cernism, or other variants). Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cernesto (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cernesto (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cernesto (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cernesto collaboration with the frayed fencing of Cekis. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Top Image >> Jerk Face for The Bushwick Collective (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cernesto painted this mural last year but were patiently waiting for the Spring to arrive to post the photos. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cernesto. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cernesto. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lexi Bella (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mika (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Myth (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Myth (photo © Jaime Rojo)