All posts tagged: Reka

BSA Images Of The Week: 04.28.19

April 28, 2019 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

New York is in bloom still, Jay-Z just re-opened Webster Hall, artist Ross Bleckner is having his first exhibition since gallerist Mary Boone went to the slammer, Jose Parla (don’t call him a Street Artist) opened a new show at Bryce Wolkowitz, Martha Cooper’s documentary opened at Tribeca Thursday, and MANA is opening on a new Rammellzee exhibit this week. In short, New York is poppin’. So are the streets!

So here’s our weekly interview with the street, this time featuring Brujo, Captain Eyeliner, Cash4, Combo-CK, Dain, M*Code, Mike Lee, New Worx City, Phetus, Raf Urban, Reka, Sinned, and Zimer.

Top image: a Conchero altar in Queretero Mexico offers a meditative place full of symbols, metaphors and meanings. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Unidentified Artist. Money buy politicians. Money has corrupted our democracy. (photo © Jaime Rojo)buys

Dain is back on the streets with reissued imagery printed and pasted rather than custom crafted. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Spotted on a park bench…poet unknown. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Shoe installation by an unidentified artist. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Death and rebirth. Brooklyn, NYC. April 2019. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“The Art Of The Mural: Volume 01” Captures a Moment

May 10, 2016 Artists

Murals hold their own place onstage in public space today for a variety of reasons that we discuss regularly on BSA. From grassroots and public, to private and corporate, we have watched the genre professionalize as Street Art festivals and other initiatives are often coupling artists with brands and are selling canvasses through the organizers galleries. Today we have the first of a promised four-part book series by Art Whino gallerist and organizer of the Richmond Mural Project in Virginia, Shane Pomajambo, that features many artists he has worked with in the brand new “The Art of the Mural”.

Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Featuring more than fifty current graffiti/Street Artists, the survey pays special attention to the show-stopping eye candy that commands attention for these nomadic painters who are developing their craft before an ever larger and more appreciative international audience.

Culture critic and curator Carlo McCormick, who writes the introduction to the Schiffer published hardcover, notes that this mural renaissance is quite unlike the US government funded New Deal era mural programs that produced “hundreds of thousands of murals for schools, hospitals, post offices, housing projects, and various government facilities”. And he’s right, these are emanating from a different place entirely.

Antony Lister. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

The world-traveling media-soaked artists, of which this collection is subset, have had vastly more exposure to corporations and branding perhaps than, say, arts institutions, and a sophisticated self-handling is often on display with artists ever more savvy in their choices of style and content.

A greater percentage are now entering into private collections, galleries, and museums thanks to unprecedented platforms for huge exposure on the Internet, and their public works are adding rich character and dialogue to our neighborhoods and public spaces.

Curiot. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

With academia, art critics, and auction houses all grappling with the rightful place of these artists in contemporary art and society at large it will be instructive to know the history and their lineage, content, context, and patronage. One has to agree when McCormick says that all of these “are helpful for us to consider in looking at and understanding the artists’ walls of today.”

This collection of talent is strong, with many of the mid-large names that are at play in this generation of painters whom are primarily born in the 1970s and 80s. In their work is a cultural appreciation for modern graffiti history as they now channel it along with formal training, art history, advertising, and a multitude of media. With few exceptions, it’s a tight list of artists, the images are riveting (though uncredited to their photographers), and the brief introductions by Pomajambo contain just enough biographical information and artist’ quotes to ground the story and give it context.

“As with everything I do,” says the Queens, New York native Pomajambo, “I always question and observe, and as we reach critical mass with murals I felt compelled to create this project and capture a moment in time.”

Evoca 1. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Fintan Magee. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Miss Van. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

MOMO. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Onur & Wes 21. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Telmo & Miel. Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

Tone (Robert Proch). Shane Pomajambo The Art of The Mural Volume 01 Foreword by Carlo McCormick. Schiffer Publishing. 2016

All photos of the spreads by Jaime Rojo

The Art of The Mural: Contemporary International Urban Art. Volume 01 by Shaen Pomajambo. Schiffer Publishing. Atglen, PA. USA.

Participating Artists
Amose, Arraiano, Augustine Kofie, Axel Void, Bezt (Etam Crew), Chazme 718, Chor boogie, Clog Two, Curiot, Cyrcle, DALeast, Decertor, Dface, ETNIK, Faith47, Fintan Magee, Hense, INTI, Jade, Jaz, JR, Kenor, Lister, Logan Hicks, Low Bros, Meggs, Miss Van, Momo, Mr Thoms, Muro, Natalia Rak, Nosego, Onur, Pener, Reka, Robert “Tone” Proch,Ron English, Rone, Sainer (Etam Crew), SATONE, SEACREATIVE, Sepe, Smithone, Sten Lex, Stormie Mills, Telmo Miel, Tristan Eaton, TWOONE HIROYASU, Vhils, Wes21 and Zed 1

REKA Completes His Largest Mural in Paris 13

August 3, 2015 Artists

July always brings out massive public artworks in the northern hemisphere and this year you can add this one, his largest, by Australian street artist REKA in Paris which he completed last week. Tracing his surrealist abstract pop composition diagonally to the upper right corner of this multi-story building, the Melbourne-now-Berlin based aerosol artist labored for five days laying his flat shapes across this brick façade in the heart of the city.

REKA. Galerie Mathgoth. Paris, July 2015. (phot0 © courtesy Galerie Mathgoth)

The building is a few blocks from Le Seine and Université Paris Diderot in a district called Paris 13 that is now known for massive murals by street artists from around the world. The wall and opportunity was organized by Gautier Jourdain, director of the Galerie Mathgoth and this mural is being followed closely by an equally expansive piece by artist JACE.

REKA. Galerie Mathgoth. Paris, July 2015. (phot0 © courtesy Galerie Mathgoth)

BSA Film Friday 07.17.15

July 17, 2015 Artists

Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.

Now screening :

1. Roma Street Art Tribes as Captured by Dioniso Punk

BSA Special Feature: Roma Street Art Tribes as Captured by Dioniso Punk

Gwen Stacy Parts I and II

Disorderly, discordant, and richly chaotic, these two videos are centered around the Italian street art paintings and artists whom you will recognize from our earlier postings on community/gallery organized urban art programming – but within the context of historical art publicly displayed, peoples movements, patronage, fascism, the classics.

Dioniso Punk allows everyone to talk – neighbors, artists, organizers, curators, public philosophers, elected officials, psychologists, sociologists, entrepreneurs, posers, professors, historians, students, an opera singer, the petite bourgeoisie, international visitors and hapless puzzled opinionated locals.

Discussions at panels cut into impassioned discussions by senior women in the courtyard or didactic examinations in the street – some for illustration, others for whimsy, none to be ignored. More of a fact finding mission than cogent analysis, you may find it difficult to follow the narrative and so it is better to let go and allow yourself be battered by the insights and observations delivered with the jumpy cuts and uncompleted thoughts and discussions, preferring instead to sink into the tribe of the humans, here selectively displayed for your pleasure and hopefully, edification.

(turn on the CC (closed captioning) if you do not speak Italian)

Featuring interviews with Solo, Gaia, Diamond 0707, Maupal, Best Ever, Bol23, Jerico, Guerrilla Spam Sen One, Sabrina, Dan, Stefano Antonelli (999 Contemporary,) Marta Ugolini (Galleria Ca’ D’Oro), Agathe Jaubourg (Pasolini Pigneto), Alìn Costache (YUT!), Edoardo Martino (Villaggio Globale), and Eleonora Zaccagnino (Acid Drop).

Special Guests: Mp5, Alice Pasquini, Mr. Thoms, Jessica Stewart, Sandro Fiorentini (La Bottega del Marmoraro).

Murals by Blu, Roa, Borondo, Etam Cru, Space Invaders, C215, Hogre, Herbert Baglione, Sten & Lex, JB Rock, Ernest, Pignon-Ernest, Etnik, Axel, Avoid, Sbagliato, Jim Avignon, Fin DAC, Jef Aerosol, Seth, Zed1, Ericailcane, Clemens Behr, Caratoes, Momo, Derek, Bruno, Kid Acne, Mto, Alexey Luka, Tellas, Moby Dick, Philippe Baudelocque, Mr. Klevra, Lucamaleonte, Diavù Kocore, Agostino Iacurci, Danilo Bucchi, Jaz, Desx, Reka, Lek & Sowat, Hopnn, Matteo, Basilé Alberonero, Ex Voto, Andreco, Moneyless, Nicola, Verlato, Ludo, L’Atlas, Escif, and Pepsy Zerocalcare.

“Big City Life Rome” Exclusive Shots of All the Walls

February 26, 2015 Artists

The first thing you’ll notice is that all the walls are the same size. For “Big City Life Rome” all of the artists were given equally large walls for their murals, which is good because you avoid fights that way. We have seen a few festivals where there are heated discussions about which artists have what walls, how large or small they are, and where they are located. This sort of uniformity is rather unique in that way.

Seth (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

The second thing you may notice is that there are only men here. Even the children in photos on the website are male. There may be a couple of females on the Street Art scene here, but this is a male dominated game in Rome.

“Big City Life Rome” brings some of the names you are familiar with, and undoubtedly one or two of your favorites are represented here. Given the similar generous scale of the walls the artists have it is easier to make comparisons between the geometric minimalism of Moneyless, the calligraphic pulsating patterning of Domenico Romeo, and the metaphoric wrestling musclemen of Jaz. Each of these artists has a distinct voice and seeing them revealed over a the period of 7 week festival provides you ample opportunity to appreciate them individually and as a group.

Our very special thanks to Stefano S. Antonelli, who curated this show for the 999 Contemporary Gallery, for sharing these exclusive images with BSA readers.

Seth (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

Gaia (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

Domenico Romeo (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

Moneyless (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

Alberonero (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

Diamond (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

Jaz (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

Mr. Klevra (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

Philippe Baudelocquebig (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

Philippe Baudelocquebig tracing the hand of his muse. (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

Philippe Baudelocquebig (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

Reka (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

Lek . Sowat (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

Lek. Sowat. “Veni, Vidi, Vinci” (photo courtesy © 999 Contemporary Gallery)

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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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More Pow! Wow! Hits as Picked by Martha in Hawaii (Part II)

February 25, 2014 Artists

Today we jump right in to the warm Honolulu waters for a swim before padding barefoot up to the painted walls of Pow! Wow! where photographer Martha Cooper is waiting camera in hand and looking for a fly swatter to smack down a camera drone that is buzzing around her head and getting in the way of her shots.

Here’s part deux of some of Ms. Cooper’s pics from PW 2014, beginning with an aquatic version of the sort of poker-playing canines popularized by illustrationist and painter Cassius Marcellus Coolidge about a hundred years ago that still persist in the offices of law firms and investment banks today. This large scale variation is by street humorist Ron English.

High stakes in Hawaii. Ron English takes a gamble at Pow! Wow! (photo © Martha Cooper)

“Ron English painted marine animals playing poker. His brother-in-law who lives in Hawaii (I think) had been begging for this wall for a long time so Ron finally did it,” says Martha.

Trav MSK at work on his wall. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Wayne White working on his sculpture/mask. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Wayne White in his Elvis mask with Trav MSK doing the backup singing. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Know Hope has painted himself into a corner (photo © Martha Cooper)

123 Klan in action. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Brenden Monroe (photo © Martha Cooper)

We think it is possible that REKA was really influenced by his wardrobe when choosing the palette for his wall. (photo © Martha Cooper)

REKA at work on his wall. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Tristan Eaton before. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Tristan Eaton after. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Remi Mead at work on her wall. Detail. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Remi Mead and an unidentified artist on the right. (photo © Martha Cooper)

AIKO (photo © Martha Cooper)

Reach in action. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Jessie and Katey (photo © Martha Cooper)

INTI in action. (photo © Martha Cooper)

James Jean in action. A detail of Rone and Wonder on the right from last year’s edition. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Lars Pedersen really getting up. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Apex in action. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Dabs & Myla with Misery. (photo © Martha Cooper)

Drones in action. (photo © Martha Cooper)

“One of the craziest things I saw was the use of camera drones operated by remote control. There were a couple and they could fly high or swoop down to shoot.” -MC

“Not everyone loves Pow!Wow!–an anti-PW poster here: Although it is not clear what the specific objections are”- MC (photo © Martha Cooper)

Our special thanks to Martha Cooper for sharing her images with BSA readers.

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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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The Power of Color via Street Art, Graffiti, and Murals

February 5, 2014 Artists

No doubt it is the grey days of late winter that is making us think about this as we brace for the next snowstorm, but today we’re considering the impact that Street Art color has on architecture that never asked for it.

We’re not the first to think of hues, shades, tones, and palettes when it comes to the man made environment of course, but it does strike us that most of the buildings that are hit up by street art and murals today were designed by architects who never imagined art on their facade.

Os Gemeos in Boston. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Modern architecture for some reason is still primarily grey, washed out greens, beige, eggshell, snore.

“Color is something that architects are usually afraid of,” said internationally known and awarded architect Benedetta Tagliabue in an interview last May about the topic of color. A generalization probably, and you can always find exceptions of colorfully painted neighborhoods globally like the Haight in San Francisco, La Boca in Buenos Aires, Portafino in Italy, Guanajuato in Mexico, Bo-Kaap in Capetown, the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and the Blue City of India, but many of those examples speak to color blocking and pattern.

Interesni Kazki in Baltimore. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

We’ve been looking at the power of Street Art to reface, re-contextualize, re-energize, and re-imagine a building and its place in the neighborhood. Some times it is successful, other times it may produce a light vertigo. The impact of work on buildings by today’s Street Artists and muralists depends not only on content and composition but largely on the palette they have chosen. It sounds trite, and self-evident perhaps, but much of Street Art is about color, and primarily on the warm scale first described by Faber Birren with his OSHA colors and color circle in the 1930s .

Faile in Manhattan, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Birren developed his color system with the observation that artists favor the warm colors more than the cold, from the violet side of red and extending beyond yellow because “, their effect is more dynamic and intense and because the eye can, in fact, distinguish more warm colors than cold.”

It’s common now to think of 21st century Street Art as the graffiti-influenced practice that primarily activates the detritus of the abandoned industrial sector blighting western cities in the wake of trade agreements that sent all the jobs to lands without protections and regulations. While that is definitely the sort of neglected factory architecture preferred for “activation” by many graffiti artists and Street Artists alike, we also see more curious couplings of color with the delicately ornate, the regal, or even modernist structures today thanks to artists being invited, rather than chased.

Shepard Fairey in Manhattan, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The results? Abstractionist, cubist, geometric, letter-based, illustrative, figurative, text-based, outsider, folk, dadaist, pop. One common denominator: color.

“The environment and its colors are perceived, and the brain processes and judges what it perceives on an objective and subjective basis. Psychological influence, communication, information, and effects on the psyche are aspects of our perceptual judgment processes,” writes Frank H. Mahnke in his recent piece for Archinect. The author of Color, Environment, & Human Response has made it his mission to explore psychological, biological effects of color and light and to help creators of the man-made environment make good choices.

Whether all of these choices are good, we leave up to you. But it is worth considering that Street Artists have been part of the conversation on the street for decades now, making powerful suggestions to architects and city planners , so maybe it’s worth taking another look at what they’ve been up to lately.

Ever in Baltimore. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Escif in Atlanta. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kenton Parker and Roa in Miami. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

LUDO in Chicago. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Anthony Lister in Los Angeles. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kobra in Manhattan, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Smells, Cash4 and Spiro in Brooklyn, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Don Rimx in El Barrio. Harlem, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Agostino Iacurci in Atlanta. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Barry McGee in Brooklyn, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jaz and Cern in Brooklyn, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pose and Revok in Manhattan, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Rime, Dceve and Toper in Manhattan, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pixel Pancho in Miami. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Deeker and David Pappaceno in Brooklyn, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Reka in Brooklyn, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

RRobots in Brooklyn, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

MOMO in Brooklyn, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Skewville in Brooklyn, NYC with an old NEKST tag on top. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

3ttman and Elias in Atlanta. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Chris Stain and Billy Mode tribute to Martha Cooper in Brooklyn with ROA on the water tank. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Rubin in Brooklyn, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Os Gemeos in Manhattan, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

JMR in Brooklyn, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Greg LaMarche in Brooklyn, NYC. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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This article was also published on The Huffington Post

The 2013 BSA Year in Images (VIDEO)

December 18, 2013 Artists

Here it is! Our 2013 wrap up featuring favorite images of the year by Brooklyn Street Art’s Jaime Rojo.

Before our video roundup below here is the Street Art photographer’s favorite of the year, snapped one second before he was singled out of a New York crowd, handcuffed, and stuffed into a police car – sort of like the Banksy balloons he was capturing.

“Among all the thousands of photos I took this year there’s one that encapsulates the importance of Street Art in the art world and some of the hysteria that can build up around it,” he says of his final shot on the final day of the one month Better Out Than In artist ‘residency’ in NYC this October. It was a cool day to be a Street Art photographer – but sadly Rojo was camera-less in a case of mistaken identity, if only for a short time.

Released two hours later after the actual car-jumping trespasser was charged, Rojo was happy to hear the Chief Lieutenant tell his officer “you’ve got the wrong man”, to get his shoelaces back, and to discover this photo was still on his camera. He also gets to tell people at parties that he spent some time in the holding cell with the two guys whom New York watched tugging down the B-A-N-K-S-Y.

What’s everybody looking at? Jaime Rojo’s favorite image of the year at the very end of the Banksy brouhaha. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Now, for the Video

When it came to choosing the 112 images for the video that capture the spirit of the Street Art scene in ’13, we were as usual sort of overwhelmed to comb through about ten thousand images and to debate just how many ‘legal’ versus ‘illegal’ pieces made it into the mix. Should we include only images that went up under the cover of the night, unsanctioned, uncensored, uncompromised, unsolicited and uncommissioned? Isn’t that what Street Art is?

Right now there are a growing number of legal pieces going up in cities thanks to a growing fascination with Street Art and artists and it is causing us to reevaluate what the nature of the Street Art scene is, and what it may augur for the future. You can even say that from a content and speech perspective, a sizeable amount of the new stuff is playing it safe – which detracts from the badass rebel quality once associated with the practice.

These works are typically called by their more traditional description – murals. With all the Street Art / graffiti festivals now happening worldwide and the growing willingness of landlords to actually invite ‘vandals’ to paint their buildings to add cache to a neighborhood and not surprisingly benefit from the concomitant increase in real estate values, many fans and watchers have been feeling conflicted in 2013 about the mainstreaming that appears to be taking place before our eyes. But for the purposes of this roundup we decided to skip the debate and let everybody mix and mingle freely.

This is just a year-end rollicking Street Art round-up; A document of the moment that we hope you like.

Ultimately for BSA it has always been about what is fresh and what is celebrating the creative spirit – and what is coming next. “We felt that the pieces in this collection expressed the current vitality of the movement – at least on the streets of New York City,” says photographer and BSA co-founder Rojo. It’s a fusillade of the moment, complete with examples of large murals, small wheat pastes, intricate stencils, simple words made with recycled materials or sprayed on to walls, clay installations, three dimensional sculptures, hand painted canvases, crocheted installations, yarn installations etc… they somehow captured our imaginations, inspired us, made us smile, made us think, gave us impetus to continue doing what we are doing and above all made us love this city even more and the art and the artists who produce it.

Brooklyn Street Art 2013 Images of the Year by Jaime Rojo includes the following artists;

A Dying Breed, Aakash Nihalini, Agostino Iacursi, Amanda Marie, Apolo Torres, Axel Void, Bagman, Bamn, Pixote, Banksy, B.D. White, Betsy, Bishop203, NDA, Blek le Rat, br1, Case Maclaim, Cash For Your Warhol, Cholo, Chris RWK, Chris Stain, Billy Mode, Christian Nagel, Cost, ENX, Invader, Crush, Dal East, Damien Mitchell, Dase, Dasic, Keely, Deeker, Don’t Fret, The Droid, ECB, el Seed, El Sol 25, Elbow Toe, Faile, Faith 47, Five Pointz, Free Humanity, Greg LaMarche, Hot Tea, How & Nosm, Icy & Sot, Inti, Jilly Ballistic, John Hall, JR, Jose Parla, Judith Supine, Kremen, Kuma, LMNOPI, London Kaye, Love Me, Martha Cooper, Matt Siren, Elle, Mika, Miss Me, Missy, MOMO, Mr. Toll, Nychos, Okuda, Alice Mizrachi, OLEK, Owen Dippie, Paolo Cirio, Paul Insect, Phetus, Phlegm, Revok, Pose, QRST, Rambo, Ramiro Davaro, Reka, Rene Gagnon, ROA, RONES, Rubin, bunny M, Square, Stikki Peaches, Stikman, Swoon, Tristan Eaton, The Lisa Project 2013, UFO 907, Willow, Swill, Zed1, and Zimer.

Read more about Banksy’s last day in New York here and our overview of his residency in the essay “Banksy’s Final Trick” on The Huffington Post.

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Images Of The Week: 11.24.13

November 24, 2013 Artists

Here is our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Ainac, Bunny M, F. Caba, Kitty Kitty, Mgr Mors, Mr. Styles, Mr. Prvrt, Mr. Toll, Never, Owen Dippie, Reka, Sarah Rutherford, SheWolf, Veng RWK, and Zimer.

Top Image >> Reka at The Bushwick Collective. If grasshoppers were invited to Burning Man we imagine this is how they would look:-) (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Owen Dippie at Low Brow Artique. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

SheWolf (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mgr Mors & Mr Styles in Poland. (photo © Mgr Mors)

Mr. PRVRT and Sarah Rutherford collaborate at The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mr. Prvrt and Sarah Rutherford. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Kitty Kitty (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Knock On Wood (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Zimer at Low Brow Artique. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Ainac (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Mr. Toll (photo © Jaime Rojo)

bunny M (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Veng RWK at The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Never paints a cicada at The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. 14th Street Subway Station. NYC, NY. (sculpture by Tom Otterness) (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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The “Aqueduct Murals” Are Off and Running!

November 22, 2013 Artists, Interview

“He’s pissed off. He’s like… he has an attitude. He’s ornery. In my work I’m always looking to relate my own feelings to the images that I see and try to express them through painting.”

Chris Stain is looking at a black and white photo of a victorious and defiant jockey covered in mud – a guy named Webber who raced “Broiler” at Aqueduct – and talks about why he is immortalizing the fella in paint for this thoroughbred race track that turns 120 years old next year.

“So when I saw him I was like, ‘Yeah I feel like that sometimes, most of the time, ninety-five percent of the time.’ ”

Any seasoned wagerer knows it is a bit of a gamble to work with graffiti and Street Artists – untamed and unbridled as they can be – but Street Artist Joe Iurato has corralled a small herd and coaxed them inside off the streets for this one race. The Aqueduct Murals are out of the gate and if last nights marathon of painting was any indication, the odds are good they will all hit the finish line by Saturday.

Chris Stain found this vintage photograph as an inspiration for his collaborative piece with Katherine Huala. Jockey Weber finished second place on his horse “Broiler”, and it looks like it was a rainy and muddy day at the track here in 1941 in Jamaica, Queens. Original photographer unnamed. (This photo © Jaime Rojo)

“Equestrian racing, jockey related – the only criteria they gave us was they wanted to see something that was more in the spirit of the place,” says Joe as he looks around the mainly beige walls of the facility in Queens that is filling with aerosol fumes as the clock nears midnight. He still has to get up on a cherry picker and get working on his collaborative mural with Logan Hicks, but as the organizer, Joe discovers he needs to make sure all the other artists are getting taken care of first – its all part of the care and feeding of Street Artists.

Tomorrow night the opening bell on the reception rings at 6 pm at Aqueduct with a DJ and a print release with all the artists in attendance and Ellis G doing some live chalk drawings, but for right now Joe is looking at some peeling paint and figuring out how to seal it.

“They gave us a photo bucket that was full of about 300 pictures from the past 60 years,” he says of the racetrack reference material that roughly half of the artists are using in their murals. “We were able to use any of those and a lot of them were just brilliant.”

The international and locally-based artists all are taking different approaches – and the distances they have traveled vary from South Africa, Australia, Sweden, Italy, Texas, California, New Jersey….and even hometown Queens and Brooklyn guys like Stain, Skewville, and Hicks. In the middle of the progress last night BSA got some shots as some of the pieces were galloping along – some are on the backstretch while a few just started out of the gate.

Participating artists for The Aqueduct Murals include : Logan Hicks, David Flores, Chris Stain collaborating with Katherine Huala, Rubin, Faith 47, Skewville, JMR, LNY, Ian Kuali’i, Shai Dahan, Zed1, Joe Iurato, ThenOne, and Reka.

“I’m trying to experiment a little at the moment and in terms of colors I’m just doing strictly gray scale,” says Melbourne Street Artist REKA, who is normally known for his use of vibrant oranges and reds in his tightly fluid character-based street work. “Also this is something a bit more messy, a bit more dynamic anyway – I’m allowing more room for error and be more playful.”

“I want to show the movement in the racing – sections of the horse and the jockey – to show more of the human element and the connection between the rider and the horse. I don’t paint realistically – so that is my representation of the horse.”

Italian Street Artist Zed1 stays monochromatic in his palette also but his metaphor is entirely different. “I prefer you see when you finish because it is a surprise !” he says while revealing to us in a conspiratorial tone what the humorous scene will eventually depict. Don’t worry folks, it’s all clean and respectful.

Brooklyn Street Art: This doesn’t look like a horse.
Rubin: No. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a horse just because it is a race track.

The least representational of the murals draws a clearer connection to its location and proximity to the city with more abstract depictions of the roaring crowd and the city skyline. Roaring twenties of last century meld well with the spattered street inflections of early teens 21st century here.

“I kind of flipped those Art Deco inspired lines from being horizontal to vertical and so it is my way of paying tribute to New York,” says the Greenpoint, Brooklyn based Swedish artist who says he never tires of going on the roof to look at Manhattan across the East River.

LA’s David Flores used to go to the races at Santa Anita when he was a kid. “but nothing major, we didn’t bet or anything like that,” he says as he steps back to compare his rendering to the piece on the wall. The composition combines the jockey image from a photo from the track with a new mask and a horse and hand from two other sources. “I kind of married them together,” he says of the scene. “I had to make it the way I wanted with a lot of diamonds and stars and stripes – you know how they wear their gear so it’s all colorful.”

Normally more abstract, this wall by Flores is literal in its depiction, but with an illustrators eye. Has he worked with animals in his work much? “I have worked with animals a couple of times but nothing of this scale – or horse racing and I’m super excited because I’m a fan of the sport. I’m stoked on it now.”

New Jersey Street Artist LNY took something with history and shot with the older film based technology and manipulated it with a current digital and returned to the hand rendered painting form to create it on a wall.

“Yeah, especially this,” he says as he rolls a thin screen of crimson over his composition, ” – doing washes is a super traditional technique”

The subject matter for LNY speaks to the regimented hierchy of class that permeates the traditions of racing. “Its always been about social status and that became really apparent when I came here,” he says as he describes his choice of outfielders he researched as subjects.

“The outfielders are the guys that go out there and if a horse goes crazy – they are kind of the cops of the field – so basically they are staff,” he says of the well-dressed horsemen in the original image he started with. “I just got some really nifty iPad apps that cost nothing but they let you transform images so I’ve been having a lot of fun with those and I’m basing my mural on that.”

Brooklyn Street Art: I guess it is not that far a stretch for you to paint a couple of horses!
Shai Dahan: “No! I’ve been painting nothing but horses for the last three years”

The LA-New York- now Sweden based artist has been painting his interpretation of Swedish Dalecarlian horses which are traditionally red, so he is making sure to include on in his Aqueduct piece.

Brooklyn Street Art: Had you seen races before?
Shai Dahan: No, this was my very first time
Brooklyn Street Art: What was your impression?
Shai Dahan: It’s very cool. To actually see them race – just to see the quickness and the power and the movement of it is really fascinating and inspiring. I wanted to create some kind of forceful movement to get people out to the racetrack. The graffiti background is to represent the feel of New York, and all the bright colors.

New Jersey’s ThenOne says has been a graffiti artist for 16 years and he likes his lines to be crisp and tight. Using his favorite red and black palette he brings perhaps the most historical equine references to the new collection at the race track and skillfully alludes to the practices from the modern graffiti scene he came up from.

ThenOne’s black Arabian horses are silhouetted in a decorative arrangement that recalls his Persian ancestry as depicted in pottery and ceramics and textiles while also recalling the early cave paintings that many art historians trace as ancestors to the Street Art/graffiti practices of today.

As long as the stylized stallions are as close to his original sketch as possible, he’ll be happy. “My style graffiti-wise is I like to be as clean as possible,” ThenOne says, “So the graphic and the clean work perfectly for me.”

Organizer and artist Joe Iurato is up on his lift, masking out his collaborative piece with Logan Hicks. In between his other responsibilities, he’s planning to paint too.

Street Art wordsmith Squewville grew up in Queens so his trip here was one of the shorter ones. The text based entreaty he is taping out here will say “Update Your Status” – in one short phrase bringing the track into the “social” sphere. The well known slogan for people using sites like Facebook also doubles as a reference to the incoming status of races as the bets and odds are displayed across screens and horses cross the finish line.

The Brooklyn based Logan Hicks is prepping for his seven layer stencil that will depict a crush of horses in the thick of the race (not seen here). First he is applying a patterned background to his collaborative piece with organizer and Street Artist Joe Iurato.

Logan Hicks at work on his piece. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Originally from Hawaii, artist Ian Kuali’i is laying in the abstractly energetic background for his sliced paper piece that will float over it.

“I’m going to paste up a cutout. It’s about three quarters of the way done, “ he says as he describes a finished piece that will incorporate collage of actual vintage Aqueduct posters from the past and themes relating to horse husbandry and the thrill of the race.

Tomorrow, Saturday the 23rd a reception will be held for the artists at the Aqueduct Racetrack to celebrate “Aqueduct Murals”. The event is free and open to the public. Click HERE for all the details.

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Images of The Week: 11.17.13

November 17, 2013 Artists

A beautiful week weather-wise in New York – a brisk and sunny week that was great for discovering your city without sweating like a hog. Before we all get clobbered by the holidays and start piling on pounds it has been stupendous just to wind through the streets and burn off the calories and see lots of good new pieces popping up.

Also, we see a lot of street related movies and videos pretty regularly and were fortunate to attend the NY premiere this week of a documentary by Cheryl Dunn that you’ll probably dig too. It’s called “Everybody Street” and it floods you with decades of NY street photography by so many great shooters in this every-changing weird and wooly city we all love. Photographers include Bruce Davidson, Elliott Erwitt, Jill Freedman, Bruce Gilden, Joel Meyerowitz, Rebecca Lepkoff, Mary Ellen Mark, Jeff Mermelstein, Clayton Patterson, Ricky Powell, Jamel Shabazz, Martha Cooper, and Boogie, and also featured are historians Max Kozloff and Luc Sante. Yes, this is a short list of all the great photographers who have been capturing the NY scene, but its a cool collection. Look it up while it is here and if you aren’t living here it’s also on paid Vimeo too.

So here is our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Axel Void, Bunny M, Danielle Mastrion, Don Rimx, Icy & Sot, Invader, Kitty Kitty, Labrona, LMNOP, Mr. Toll, Nepo, Pixel Pancho, Reka, and Robert Janz.

Top Image >> Icy & Sot create a stenciled image based on the Hollywood adage about the good cop and bad one. See Slate’s full examination of the technique and whether it is actually a real thing – plus they made a video compilation of scenes from many movies here. Also, here’s some clip art that looks familiar doesn’t it? (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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(VIDEO) 2012 Street Art Images of the Year from BSA

December 19, 2012 Artists

Of the 10,000 images he snapped of Street Art this year, photographer Jaime Rojo gives us 110 that represent some of the most compelling, interesting, perplexing, thrilling in 2012.

Together the collection gives you an idea of the range of mediums, techniques, styles, and sentiments that appear on the street today as the scene continues to evolve worldwide. Every seven days on BrooklynStreetArt.com, we present “Images Of The Week”, our weekly interview with the street.

We hope you enjoy this collection – some of our best Images of The Year from 2012.

Artists include 2501, 4Burners, 907, Above, Aiko, AM7, Anarkia, Anthony Lister, Anthony Sneed, Bare, Barry McGee, Bast, Billi Kid, Cake, Cash For Your Warhol, Con, Curtis, D*Face, Dabs & Myla, Daek One, DAL East, Dan Witz, Dark Clouds, Dasic, David Ellis, David Pappaceno, Dceve, Deth Kult, ECB, Eine, El Sol 25, Elle, Entes y Pesimo, Enzo & Nio, Esma, Ever, Faile, Faith47, Fila, FKDL, Gable, Gaia, Gilf!, Graffiti Iconz, Hef, HellbentHert, Hot Tea, How & Nosm, Icy & Sot, Interesni Kazki, Jason Woodside, Javs, Jaye Moon, Jaz, Jean Seestadt, Jetsonorama, Jim Avignon, Joe Iurato, JR, Judith Supine, Ka, Kem5, Know Hope, Kuma, Labrona, Liqen, LNY, Love Me, Lush, Matt Siren, Mike Giant, Miyok, MOMO, Mr. Sauce, Mr. Toll, ND’A, Nick Walker, Nosego, Nychos, Occupy Wall Street, Okuda, OLEK, OverUnder, Phlegm, Pixel Pancho, Rambo, Read Books!, Reka, Retna, Reyes, Rime, Risk, ROA, Robots Will Kill, Rone, Sacer, Saner, See One, Sego, sevens errline, Sheyro, Skewville, Sonni, Stick, Stikman, Stormie Mills, Square, Swoon, Tati, The Yok, Toper, TVEE, UFO, VHILS, Willow, Wing, XAM, Yes One, and Zed1 .

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