New graphic works by Brazilian duo Bicicleta Sem Freio—Douglas de Castro and Renato Pereira—tap into a visual language shaped by music, memory, and the intensity of youthful aspirations. Their palette leans hallucinatory, echoing blacklight posters and underground zines, with surreal figures and dream-fed compositions that push past the real. The vibe is familiar to anyone who’s ever covered a bedroom wall with band posters—but BSF’s imagery doesn’t stay inside. It moves outward, into public space, into the street and across walls.
Bicicleta Sem Freio. Hot Since. (photo courtesy of Justkids)
Emerging from the underground music scene in Goiânia, Brazil, the duo gained early recognition for hand-drawn concert posters and sounds of the underground. Their work stood out—not just for its precision and electric style but for the way it captured the pulse of a scene. Since then, their large-scale murals and print works have reached large audiences while still retaining their character. These new graphics keep the same charge: a mix of neo-tropical chaos, psychedelic pop attitude, and a designer’s eye for detail.
Bicicleta Sem Freio. BomaHot Since. (photo courtesy of Justkids)
In a time when digital art can feel generic and automated, BSF’s all-handmade approach carries weight—their images land somewhere between street icon and personal artifact—tight compositions with a raw pulse. On concrete or adapted into cultural objects, their work travels between public and private zones, staying rooted in the traditions of street art and the music scene while expanding its territory. These new pieces are less a departure than a return, reminding you that the spirit of street culture has always been about connection, rhythm, and marking space—sometimes on a building, sometimes on a bedroom wall.
Bicicleta Sem Freio. Vintage Culture. (photo courtesy of Justkids)Bicicleta Sem Freio. Boma Vintage Culture. (photo courtesy of Justkids)Bicicleta Sem Freio. Vintage Culture. (photo courtesy of Justkids)Bicicleta Sem Freio. Boma Vintage Culture. (photo courtesy of Justkids)Bicicleta Sem Freio. Carnaval. (photo courtesy of Justkids)Bicicleta Sem Freio. FATBOY SLIM. (photo courtesy of Justkids)Bicicleta Sem Freio. Black Coffee. (photo courtesy of Justkids)Bicicleta Sem Freio. Boma Black Coffee. (photo courtesy of Justkids)Bicicleta Sem Freio. Boma Disclosure. (photo courtesy of Justkids)Bicicleta Sem Freio. Bear Stone Festival. (photo courtesy of Justkids)
Now, right next door, we begin the year with a vibrant and thought-provoking project by French graffiti writer, street artist, muralist, and natural scientist Mantra. Tasked with breathing life into the rooftop of a multi-story parking garage in Miami, Mantra delivers a masterclass on how art can energize and possibly educate.
Mantra’s artistry goes beyond aesthetics; his murals are environmental narratives intrinsically rooted in his passion for entomology and the natural sciences. This latest work transforms an otherwise overlooked rooftop into an expansive visual dialogue about conservation and the interconnectedness of ecosystems.
By showcasing the fragile beauty of species like the endangered ‘Miami Blue,’ Mantra forces viewers to confront what is at risk as urban landscapes encroach upon natural habitats. While some may marvel at the mural’s sheer scale and technique—achieved without projections or stencils—what truly resonates is the intimacy Mantra creates within the grandeur.
Each butterfly seems to hold its breath, inviting quiet reflection no matter your distance from it. It’s an extraordinary juxtaposition: the fragility of nature presented boldly against the Miami skyline, compelling us to consider our impact on the natural world.
As often happens when we see a finished piece by Mantra, this feels like a call to action, a vivid reminder that every city has room to nurture life beyond its asphalt and concrete. With this work, Mantra beautifies Miami and (possibly) deepens its cultural and ecological dialogue, proving that art can be both breathtaking and profoundly purposeful.
Seattle-based digital artist and color virtuoso Abigail Dougherty, known in the art world as Neon Saltwater, recently unveiled her latest installation in Downtown Las Vegas, an eye-popping spectacle you can appreciate in the images here. Located on bustling East Fremont Street, the “Cherry Lake” project transforms a once-abandoned garage into a vibrant, chromatic fantasy. Curated by the innovative group Justkids, this installation signifies a notable shift from Dougherty’s well-known digital realms to a tangible, immersive experience.
Neon Saltwater, celebrated for her ethereal digital landscapes featuring neon-drenched rooms and malls, has translated her unique aesthetic into the physical world. The installation, infused with a futuristic flair and a touch of Y2K nostalgia, offers a multi-era experience. It envelopes the entire building in a kaleidoscopic gradient, accentuated by large digital renderings and neon lights, reminiscent of the slick, optimistic urbanism found on album covers in the stylized 70s and 80s. Inside, visitors are immersed in a dream-like space where silhouettes of floating balloons glow under a haunting red light, creating an atmosphere filled with mystery and longing.
“The familiar structure of Cherry Lake is sharply contrasted by intense colors, lighting, and candy-like text, reflecting the excess and fantasy that form my vision of Las Vegas,” Dougherty explains.
This extensive installation, a standout feature of the recent Life is Beautiful Festival, pays homage to the dual nature of Las Vegas – its allure and its disappointments. Justkids’ Curator and Director Charlotte Dutoit comments, “Neon Saltwater’s creation captures the fabulous and the eerie, the futuristic and the nostalgic. Abby’s world blurs the lines between time and reality, taking viewers on an emotional journey through a beautifully hazy, melancholic, and peculiar landscape.”
Discussing her creative process, Dougherty likens her approach to that of a realist painter or photographer, creating images from scratch to depict non-existent spaces. “I intertwine neon light and color with mundane architectural elements, crafting a surreal yet believable environment,” she remarks. Reflecting on the inspiration behind “Cherry Lake,” she muses on the paradoxical nature of Las Vegas, a city teeming with high hopes and letdowns – recurrent themes in her work. The installation presents an ironic take on the city’s iconic imagery, set against the backdrop of a quaint small-town gas station.
Is “Cherry Lake” a sensory expedition into the heart of urban fantasy? It also depicts emotional contrasts, offering a unique lens through which to view the complexities of the urban landscape.
Bentonville, Arkansas is more known for Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, The Momentary, the Ozark Mountains, hiking/biking, cosmopolitan amenities, luxury homes, millionaires (and a couple of billionaires), – than it is for being a vibrant organic street art scene. Nonetheless, art dealer and curator Charlotte Dutoit and her team at Justkids have been bringing street art names to do public installations here for a decade or so, and the dynamism of the works adds the influence of ‘the street’ to the city while preserving its scrubbed wholesome whitebox sensibility.
Here we have the newest public art installation from Spidertag from Argentina, who BSA showed to readers more than a decade ago when he was creating artworks with string and nails. At the time, he was sharing a studio at an alternative art spot in Madrid called La Tabacalera and creating unpermissioned, uncommissioned, works that wended their way through small streets – one nail to the next. Later he disrupted his own public art practice with experimental, electrified, glowing results that became more permanent than temporary.
His newest captivating creation artfully combines technology, design, and artistic ingenuity, interactivity, and playful energy to the city. Curated by Justkids and made possible through the support of OZ Art NWA, this permanent public art piece, named Interactive Neon Mural 16 (INM#16), shines brightly in the heart of the Downtown square. Encompassing 4,700 square feet, this monumental masterpiece represents Spidertag’s most ambitious project to date, inviting viewers to actively engage with the artwork by manipulating the light and motions with their phones.
It is not usual to see a fusion of art and technology within the realm of muralism, but examples do exist in many cities we’ve traveled. Spidertag continues his of extensive research and experimentation, honing in on cutting-edge components that allow him to construct luminous murals, defy traditional techniques, and surprise viewers. INM#16 is a complex maze composed of 77 harmoniously arranged geometric shapes, including circles, triangles, waves, lines, and rectangles, mounted on aluminum mesh panels. This composition actively engages the audience, enabling them to alter the colors of the shapes through a dedicated app, ensuring a distinctive and dynamic viewing experience with every interaction.
“Creating art that is accessible to everyone is incredibly rewarding for me, which is why INM#16 was designed to generate a unique experience for each viewer,” says Spidertag. According to Justkids, the project spanned over a year from conceptualization to installation, with the team managing technical aspects, logistics, lighting, and electronic elements, to ensure the successful realization of Spidertag’s vision.
“We are thrilled to collaborate once again with Oz Art NWA and enrich Bentonville’s remarkable public art collection,” says Charlotte Dutoit. “He brilliantly merges the spectacular and the playful, and the artwork truly comes alive at sunset!”
“Nature, colors, spirituality, self-knowledge, beauty and the power of black women and ancestral matrix cultures,” says Criola about the things that inspire her.
The Brazilian muralist is in downtown Las Vegas to paint a bold diptych called “Black Girl Magic,” for the 3-day Life is Beautiful Festival.
She says she’s happy to pursue aesthetically pleasing projects while being aware that there is always the burden of the past that has formed this Afro Brazilian woman from “a matriarchal family of black women who were forced to be strong and resistant because of structural racism since the colonization of my country.” The portrait that looms above people walking through town here is elegant and proud and full of splendid ideas that pop around her head, like so many cosmically exploding afro-puffs.
Criola says she gravitates toward painting black women “to exalt and represent, in a positive way, an aesthetic that should be positioned in a place of honor and appreciation. It also means being a protagonist in the evolution process of my individual consciousness, and collective consciousness, which involves the use of my power and artistic exploration games to deconstruct systems of oppression that are still very much present in Brazil.”
Just after seeing Billie Eilish or Young Thug at the “Life is Beautiful Festival” in September you could wander over through vintage Las Vegas to check out the new fluorescent diptych by street artist Spidertag. It’s an installation that happily recalls a heyday most visitors didn’t experience, but are drawn to.
Spidertag. “Neon Mural #12” Life is Beautiful festival. Justkids, Las Vegas. (photo courtesy of Justkids)
The Spaniard has brought his glowing vocabulary here in a way that is evocative of that which once distinguished the nighttime streetscape of Sin City. “Electrified eye candy” is how curator Charlotte Dutoit of Justkids describes it, and in fact, the simplicity of shapes appears romantically nostalgic in a modern time that seems cluttered with visual complexity.
The modern twist is that Spider Tag made his installation interactive, allowing visitors to alter the colors if they want. His installation joins the success of street artist Felipe Pantone’s first-ever-solar powered neon mural here a few years ago – and looking at the poster letter style of this year’s poster – It’s an aesthetic that many are enamored with.
Spidertag. “Neon Mural #12” Life is Beautiful festival. Justkids, Las Vegas. (photo courtesy of Justkids)Spidertag. “Neon Mural #12” Life is Beautiful festival. Justkids, Las Vegas. (photo courtesy of Justkids)Spidertag. “Neon Mural #12” Life is Beautiful festival. Justkids, Las Vegas. (photo courtesy of Justkids)
We hope that “Summer Always Blooms” – and so far so good this year. If you follow the order of flowers blooming in Brooklyn you’ll know that we are in the middle of the peony explosion that happens every year just after the lilacs and just before the roses. Perhaps that’s what was on muralist Ouizi’s mind when she painted this new soft brush portrait of coral charm peonies in Bentonville, Arkansas.
Curated by Charlotte Dutoit of Justkids, the piece coincidences with the new Georgia O’Keeffe exhibition at Crystal Bridges, and you can see that the full pulsating expanse of natural blooms thrills Quizi as much as it did the mother of American modernism.
“I have thoroughly enjoyed being back in Arkansas for this project,” says Ouizi, “and I have heard nothing but positive responses about the mural. I even got to see the dogwoods start to bloom in real life!”
A psychedelia of this moment, the modulated visual liquid was produced by the artists use of digital copies made of shiny aluminum papers. Printed on vinyl, she transformed this exterior into a trippy grid of lenswork that allows passersby to see fields that instantly challenge imaginations.
Vieux says she enjoys stretching beyond limits of data and physical space, a description analogous for some with cinema itself.
“In this piece, I wanted to disrupt the solid geometries of the architecture with a hyperreal fluid painting placed in the landscape,” she says, and something in the description makes it conversant with the chaos and surrealist quality of US life today.
“I reflected on these ideas in a cultural/political context,” says Vieux, “thinking that a larger takeaway of this piece is that through disrupting and dissolving boundaries we can create a fluid open space where there’s room to unite.”
Have you noticed that the air and sky in your city is cleaner than you ever remember it to be? Car traffic is down, plane traffic is scant. Many polluting industries have had no workers in the last few months either. Mother Nature is happy.
Okuda “Mother Natura” for Justkids/Park MGM Las Vegas. (photo courtesy of Justkids)
One wonders about the connection between our outright
slaughter of nature and the fact that this virus is wreaking havoc on our
physical health and economies. Mother Nature inserts herself into every
conversation eventually – what fools we were to think that we were separate
from her.
Okuda “Mother Natura” for Justkids/Park MGM Las Vegas. (photo courtesy of Justkids)
Street Artist OKUDA San Miguel says that he has been inspired by Mother Nature in his new commission for that natural oasis Las Vegas. Creating 3 new sculptures and a mural inspired by Mayahuel, the Mexican goddess of agave and fertility, his fragmented pop surrealist dreams will great guests and invite them to gamble the future at this luxury resort. He created this installation in coordination with Justkids founder and curator Charlotte Dutoit and he’s calling it “Mother Natura”.
Okuda “Mother Natura” for Justkids/Park MGM Las Vegas. (photo courtesy of Justkids)Okuda “Mother Natura” for Justkids/Park MGM Las Vegas. (photo courtesy of Justkids)Okuda “Mother Natura” for Justkids/Park MGM Las Vegas. (photo courtesy of Justkids)Okuda “Mother Natura” for Justkids/Park MGM Las Vegas. (photo courtesy of Justkids)Okuda “Mother Natura” for Justkids/Park MGM Las Vegas. (photo courtesy of Justkids)Okuda “Mother Natura” for Justkids/Park MGM Las Vegas. (photo courtesy of Justkids)
Before “street art” became a globally recognized genre, Barry McGee and Margaret Kilgallen were charting their course—one rooted in graffiti, …Read More »
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
