BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAYOptimism Straight Outta NYC
BSA doesn’t spotlight too much graffiti because we’re not very smart about it, and there are a lot of geniuses on graff out there. Plus the S-A part of our name precludes much BS on the graff tip. But some artists straddle the edge of graff and Street Art, and one artist who keeps catching our eye because of his placement and the light-hearted comedic quality of his character is Optimo, sometimes referred to as Werds (depending where you are surfing).
Optimo. Werds (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Short for Optimo Primo (best cousin), the graffiti artist Optimo grew up as a boy in Chelsea in the 1980s excited and ignited by the colorful graffiti he saw on trucks and trains around him. As a true original New Yorker, he names some of his stylistic influences as 1990s graffiti writers including Wolf1, Revs & Cost, Seen, Reas, and Sabe. His signature character has been on the streets since 2006, the American flag bandana as a symbol of free expression and the First Amendment, and the showman top hat something the artist likes to wear as well.
Now a full time artist selling his stuff on the streets of Soho, Optimo has showed his work in a gallery setting with a 40-piece show at Revolution Studios in Chelsea last summer and in a group show at Brooklyn Fire Proof in Bushwick as well as Culture Fix on the LES in the fall. His soft spot is box trucks, which he says he’s painted over 100 of, according to his bio on Tumblr, and he aspires to retain his signature style of “optimism”. Here is a BSA collection of images of work in New York and Miami by Optimo NYC.
Optimo. Werds (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Optimo. Werds (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Optimo. Werds (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Optimo. Werds (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Optimo. Werds (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Optimo. Werds (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Optimo. Werds (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Optimo. Werds (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Optimo. Werds (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Optimo. Werds (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Optimo. Werds (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Optimo. Werds (photo © Jaime Rojo)
238
138
45
Other Articles You May Like from BSA:
f Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities. Now screening : 1. Graffiti on the Berlin U Bahn 12. SWOON'S "CICADA" Opened at Deitch Projects 3. Hedof &...
Dang! The birds are singing! Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near? An uptick in politically based street art in New York and elsewhere as people are waking up to the reality that ...
Curated by Mirko Pierri of the a.DNA project association When Evolution Splashes onto School Walls: The E.C.O. Mural Unfolds Let's dive into a story where fish climb out of the sea and onto...
Japan’s Mina Hamada has just completed her mural for the 2020 edition of Avant Garde Tudela in Spain. Curated by artist Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada and organized by Tudela-Cultura, the northern Spanish ci...
This is the third year for Northern Norway's UPN Festival and this year it's on an Island called Røst and includes a collection of artists eager to do site-specific and environmental works - one e...
