As the Northern Hemisphere is heading into autumn, we bring you two more blasts of summer’s rich jewel tones from central Gothenburg in Sweden. UK Muralist Sophie Mess favors pleasant domestically flowering botanicals and slices them up diagonally in a way you may associate with Berlin’s James Bullough’s portraits or Li-Hill’s sculptures. Decidedly more targeted to the House & Garden set, here Mess creates a decorative mural duo for tourists and shoppers in the courtyard of Magasinsgatan, commissioned by gallery/agency Artscape.
Before we get down to the Street Art related stuff, everybody get up and dance to some “True Romance” across a snowy mountain top with 20 of your closest backup dancers! Indian spandex space aerobics costumes not necessary. It’s FUN FRIDAY!
Can’t stop, won’t stop! That was exhilarating, wasn’t it? Now let’s see what’s up Street Art-wise around the whirl:
1. Pure Evil goes Pop @Boxpark Gallery (London)
2. Gregory Siff “There & Back” At Siren Studios (Hollywood)
3. ThinkSpace Gives You “Picks of the Harvest 2012” (LA)
4. Simple has Solo Show at Urban Art Room (Sweden)
5. “As The Crow Flies” Benefit for Art Against Knives (London)
6. Gregory Siff Time Lapse at Siren Studios Mural (VIDEO)
Pure Evil goes Pop @Boxpark Gallery (London)
Pure Evil opened his show at BOXPARK in London’s Shoreditch neighborhood. BOXPARK strips and refits shipping containers to create unique, low cost, low risk, ‘box shops’. This show opens to the general public today through the month of March.
For further information regarding this show click here.
Gregory Siff “There & Back” At Siren Studios (Hollywood)
Brooklyn born Gregory Siff had his opening last night on the Left Coast at Siren Studios and today it’s open to the general public in Hollywood, CA. In addition to the new work by Siff are 100 stickers by students in the neighborhood – see the kids and Siff making them in the video below.
Gregory Siff (photo courtesy of The Site Unscene)
For further information regarding this show click here.
ThinkSpace Gives You “Picks of the Harvest 2012” (LA)
For further information regarding this show click here.
Simple has Solo Show at Urban Art Room (Sweden)
Celebrating his birthday and his solo show Saturday (3/3), German born Street Artist SiMPLE has dynamic work on display at Urban Art Room Gallery in Gothenburg.
For further information regarding this show click here.
“As The Crow Flies” Benefit for Art Against Knives (London)
Art Against Knives is a youth-led charity which works to reduce the root causes of knife crime through arts initiatives that provide an alternative to violent gang culture.
Mother Drucker and Art Against Knives present: “As The Crow Flies” at BoxPark in Shoreditch, London. This is a print show of European emerging Street Artists to raise money for future youth community projects in East London. Artists included in the show are: Penny, Nomad, Hannah Parr, Elmar Lause, Victor Ash, Various and Gould, Dolly Demoratti and Anton Unai.
For further information regarding this show click here.
Gregory Siff Time Lapse at Siren Studios Mural (VIDEO)
If you decide to stay in the city this holiday weekend you can incite your imagination and feed your intellectual curiosity by walking the streets for the great out door gallery, or go inside to see great new stuff.
1. Happy 70th Birthday Bob Dylan (a couple of days ago)
2. “Paint It Now” Tonight in Greenpoint, Brooklyn
3. Miss Van and Gaia Double Bill at Jonathan Levine
4. Shai Dahan Solo Show in Gothenburg, Sweden
5. Melrose & Fairfax Saturday “What Graffiti is to New York, Street Art is to Los Angeles”
6. FAILE SAYZ: PLAY WITH YOUR ART! Release Puzzle Boxes
7. DJ Mayonaise Hands Insightful Review of ELIK at Brooklynite
8. Narcelio Grud
9. FEIK in Brazil by Sampa Graffiti
Happy 70th Birthday Bob Dylan (a couple of days ago)
“Paint It Now” Tonight in Greenpoint, Brooklyn
Paint It Now makes its NYC debut in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood (just north of Williamsburg). The show’s curators, Thomas Buildmore and Scott Chasse partner with Fowler Arts Collective for this Brooklyn-centric show, although Philadelphia and Boston represent.
Miss Van “Bailarinas” and Gaia “Succession” opened last night at the Jonathan Levine Gallery in Chelsea in Manhattan. Miss Van has been painting since her teenage years in France and in Europe and Gaia is celebrating his recent graduation from MICA in Baltimore. Congratulations GAIA!
(images courtesy of the Gallery)
For more details on this show, times and address click on the link below”
Shai Dahan moved to Sweden last year and, wasting no time, he set up to work on his new art projects as soon as the plane touched ground. Today he invites all people that happen to be in Gothenburg , Sweden to come to the opening of his solo show “Things Come Undone” at the Artspace + Us Gallery.
Melrose & Fairfax Saturday “What Graffiti is to New York, Street Art is to Los Angeles”
On Saturday the West Coast Street Art site Melrose&Fairfax invites you to attend the opening reception of their curatorial debut “What Graffiti is to New York, Street Art is to Los Angeles” at the Maximillian Gallery in West Hollywood, CA.
Street Art Collective Faile have released a set of six different Puzzleboxes to the public. When we visited their studio last year they were in the process of creating these fun, interactive fine art pieces and now they are available, with an app on Itunes to boot.
For information about the Puzzleboxes and to purchase go to:
DJ Mayonaise Hands Insightful Review of ELIK at Brooklynite
Narcelio Grud
Brazilian artist Narcelio Grud was filmed getting up all day in Manhester, UK where the only thing that really got in his way was a flock of adorable baby geese crossing his path.
Artspace + Us Gallery @ Gothenburg, Sweden Things Come Undone : Shai Dahan
May 27th – June 20
Opening Reception: May 27th @ 6-10 pm
Södra vägen 30
412 54 Göteborg
Artspace + Us Gallery is proud to present the first international solo exhibition by urban contemporary artist Shai Dahan in Gothenburg Sweden. The show will include new works by Shai including large scale canvas paintings, illustrations as well as mixed media installations.
With his recent relocation to Sweden from New York, Shai chose to combine both cultures into the work for this solo show. The work includes hybrids of urban landscapes and familiar Scandinavian wildlife. With his signature birdguns, Shai expanded his animal-gun series and also chose to utilize other means from their environment to express the conflict between animals and the humans who invade their habitat.
Earlier this year, Shai took part of the Madrid Street Ad Takeover and also exhibited in Philadelphia. In 2010, Shai took part of the New York City Underbelly project with a selected group of artists painting in an abandoned New York City subway rail station. In 2009, he took part of the New York Street Ad Takeover, joining other artists to paint over illegal advertising throughout the New York City neighborhoods.
Shai currently lives in Borås with his wife and two dogs where he continues to paint.
Shai Dahan misses New York Street Art. But he’s discovering new inspiration in Sweden, and finding an emotional component in his work he didn’t know before, and its’ exciting. As the Street Artist and fine artist prepares for his solo show May 27th at Artpace and Us Gallery in Gothenburg, Sweden’s second largest city, he is also bringing the natural world to the streets.
“Finding Street Art in Sweden is like trying to find a deer in Manhattan,” Shai remarks as he gets a little nostalgic for the layers of built up wheat pastes and posters that clump together in certain parts of New York’s streets. “I think that was a huge part of the inspiration as well – finding the torn wheat pastes and dripping dry stencils on the street. They really had my mind think about texture and color combinations.”
“It is a bit funny to me that in New York, with the exception of a short cab ride to Central Park, I had a lack of access to nature and animals, whereas here I miss the street art that I could find with the ease of taking a cab ride down to the Lower East Side.”
You can see the effect of Shai’s new home in his work; horses, deer, zebras, birds are featured through out. Can’t imagine that there are too many zebras wandering through his backyard. Thinking about that a little, maybe his animals are more symbolic than literal. “The natural elements, the green forest, it all has a huge inspirational affect on my work and me I think for me, the biggest transition was influence to inspiration,” he explains. “When I was in New York, the city, the art on the streets, the culture, all of it really had a big influence on me even if I didn’t think it did. It all came out one way or another into my work. Once I moved here, I really was more inspired than influenced.”
Of course he has brought his guns from New York. His bird guns that is. And now deer guns too. A busy entrepreneur on the New York street art scene, his Bird Gun blog has given shine and opportunity to a number of street artists looking to stretch their wings. His own design of the same name, an iconic merging of a New York pigeon with a revolver, is undergoing a reinterpretation in his new home, and taking on additional meaning for him as he reflects on “man v. nature” mythology. “The animal/gun hybrid always expressed the never-ending need for animals to protect themselves or feel like they had a choice to fight back. We only hunt animals because we feel we know how to pick up a gun. The animals are just fighting adaptation. When humans kill animals, it is considered a sport but when any of these animals harm a human, it is a threat or savagery.”
You have heard people refer to living in New York as a rat race, and with good reason. For Dahan in his new environment, the inclusion of so much animal imagery in his new work has been a study of the relationship between humans and animals. “Those paintings really symbolize the “fight or flight” aspect of the natural world. Animals can’t really fight back and we humans tend to feel very brave knowing we can have power over them. We hunt for fun; we set fires and cut trees down. It makes us feel powerful. It is a very strange dynamic.”
It’s relevant to explore core assumptions about the world with regularity, especially during these times of continuous tumult. As an artist, change can be a strong motivational tool to re-examine work and open areas previously unexplored. It looks like Shai Dahan is on a journey and he’s sharing it with you.
Taking the broad view of the new work, Shai reflects on his growth, “I am very proud of the work for the solo show. I think I am most proud of the pieces because they are very emotional. My paintings for this show really show the level of emotion and transition I endured when I moved. I began working for this show only a month or so after I moved here and you can really see the different emotions I was going through. It is expressed a lot by the colors, the movement in the brush strokes, the imagery itself…all of it really is what I went through as an artist moving from the Big Apple to…the small Smorgasbord.”
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