I know we’ve extensively covered Hyuro‘s recent mural in Copenhagen, but I’ve got one more thing about it to share. Skip to 1 minute and 45 seconds into the above video to see her mural animate as it is shown frame by frame. Such an interesting way to tackle a massive but not particularly tall wall.

Nychos and Persue. Click to view large.

Nychos is in Detroit at the moment and he’s making the most of the trip. First, there’s his solo show opening this Friday evening at Inner State Gallery. I’d Like To Meat You! opens on Friday, runs through July 18th, and sounds like it will feature lots of his trademark dissection works on paper, canvas and wood. And today 1xRun released their latest print by Nychos. Longtime Nychos fans will recognize the rabbit in the print as a dissected version of the Rabbit Eye Movement throw-up. The print is almost sold out though. There’s just 7 left out of 100 as I write this. If that print isn’t to your liking or it sells out too quickly, Nychos is currently in the midst of an Indiegogo fundraising campaign to get some money to make a documentary film and there are some great prizes (including prints) for that. Finally, Nychos and Persue just finished the above mural in Detroit.

On a related note, I really want to get out to Detroit sometime soon… So much interesting stuff going on out there.

Photo by Sal Rodriguez courtesy of 1xRun

Honestly, when I see a time lapse video of street art or graffiti, I usually watch about half of it and then skip to the end to see the finished piece. I often then discover that the filmmaker has neglected to include the finished piece at all which is kind of upsetting, and when the finished piece is included, I’d still rather see a photo. Time lapses can be great, but the usually go on for too long. We get it. You use spray paint. What does the end product look like?

Well, this video of Sofles is a time lapse of sorts but it completely blew me away. I don’t think I missed a single frame of the nearly 4-minute piece except to blink. It’s extremely difficult to capture graffiti as the performance that it is, but this video comes close. It may not really capture the performance of graffiti in the purest sense, but it does turn the act of Sofles painting into a performance of sorts. Such an amazing piece. I’ve seen things a bit like this before, but never anything at this level of complexity. Kudos to Ironlak, Sofles and filmmaker Selina Miles for keeping me watching a time lapse video of painting for about 20x longer than I normally would.

I really dig these new pieces in Shoredtich by Peter Drew. The locations, right along the routes of all the street art walking tours, are a bit played out and blatantly self-promotional, but it’s not like he’s the only one getting up in these spots. Most street artists who spend any time in London are gonna do the same thing. At the end of the day, I think this work is interesting regardless of the location.

Photos by Peter Drew

Caleb Neelon & Katie Yamasaki. Photo by Lois Stavsky.

For the fourth consecutive year Ad Hoc Art has brought dozens of artists to the Welling Court community in Astoria, Queens, transforming it into a first-rate open air museum. Here’s a small sampling of what could be seen this weekend:

Queen Andrea. Photo Lois Stavsky.

Veng at work on collaborative mural with Chris, RWK. Photo by Tara Murray.

Kimyon Huggins. Photo by Lois Stavsky.

Kosbe. Photo by Tara Murray.

JC. Photo by Lois Stavsky.

Mata Ruda & ND’A. Photo by Lois Stavsky.

Icy & Sot. Photo by Lois Stavsky.

El Kamino. Photo by Lois Stavsky.

If you are anywhere near NYC, a visit to Welling Court is a must!  The diversity of the works and the responses of the local residents to them are astounding. And if you’d like to help fund this project, check this out.

Photos by Lois Stavsky and Tara Murray

“Pintar Rejas” by Tester

Latin America seems like a treasure trove of street art and graffiti. I could spend hours on end looking through these works through groups on Flickr. But for people like me who can’t see it in person, that seems to be the only way to tap into that vibrant and energetic scene. In the last 2 years, I’ve come to know and love a few Argentinian street artists (a few of whom will be featured in this show) but I’m aware that there are so many others who I have yet to come across!

The Talking Walls of Buenos Aires is a group show curated by Graffitimundo, which is based around just that – bringing works by a few of Argentina’s leading street artists to a gallery in Washington DC. Opening July 13th at 6pm at The Fridge gallery, you can catch the work of Buenos Aires Stencil, Cabaio Stencil, Chu, Defi, Ever, Fede Minuchin, Gualicho, Jaz, Malatesta, Mart, Pastel, Pedro Perelman, Poeta, Prensa La Libertad, Pum Pum, Roma, Stencil Land, Sonni, Tec and Tester.

Mart

Photos courtesy of Graffitimundo

One of the most pivotal aspects of street art is the democratization of public space. Whether people choose to engage or not, graffiti and street art are a way of reminding the everyday pedestrian that they have the power to manipulate their environment (sometimes at a price). Many residents of Balitmore have come to accept dilapidated neighborhoods as their everyday quality of life. The structures around them are literally falling apart due to neglect from city government property owners and has resulted in a massive property-vacancy problem. If Broken Window Theory has anything to do with it, that  “If the city doesn’t care, why should I?” mentality has fostered one of the highest crime rates for any city in the country.

What does street art have to do with Baltimore’s structural issues and decline in living standards? Over a dozen street artists have taken on the task of bringing attention to these issues in a grassroots effort, through installing large pieces on some of the city’s dilapidated, vacant houses. Nether, Gaia, LNY, Noh J Coely, Mata Ruda, Nanook, Harlequinade and others have joined their forces as a non-profit organization called Wall Hunters have teamed up with Baltimore Slumlord Watch to put up large-scale murals on these eye-sore structures with QR codes alongside which informs viewers of who owns the vacant property. Simultaneously, they are creating a documentary with Nether and Carol Ott at the forefront, showing this massive issue corroding Baltimore and their relatively small effort to combat it. They’ve received a bit of funding to make their project possible but not enough, so they’ve created this Indiegogo campaign to bring it to fruition.

“Bodega Window” in Tokyo’s Harijuku fashion district

Specter is a rare and fascinating thing; his acrylic, hand-painted wheatpastes are detailed enough to emulate the real thing, and subtle enough for passersby to not even notice them. Really, it’s quite a gift and a curse. In the last year, he’s worked on projects around the world and is finally back to his hometown of Brooklyn to share some of his latest installations.

While in Vladivostok, Russia he put up his “Chromatin Structure” in the Sister City Park. In Tokyo, Specter put up his piece “Bodega Window” in the Harijuku fashion district. Before leaving for this trip, he also installed his “Brooklyn Windows” at King and Grove in Williamsburg. “Brooklyn Windows is a documentation of Brooklyn’s changing life examined through windows. Each painted window is a representation of actual windows from various long-standing buildings in the Williamsburg area. The placement and concept of this work comment on the abundance of windows surrounding the space that reflect on each other and on the painting.This reflection of the painted windows is a reflection of the past in the current where each old window represents a new replacement,” says Specter.

“Chromatin Structure” in Sister City Park in Vladivostok, Russia

“Brooklyn Windows”

“Brooklyn Windows”

Photos courtesy of Specter

Pixel Pancho – work in progress

For the last few days, the first MURAL Festival edition has taken over more than 20 walls in Montreal, Canada, located around the oldest boulevard of the city called “the main”, namely Boulevard Saint-Laurent. Running from June 13 to 16, MURAL offers to the public the opportunity to see some of the big masters of street art at work. Street artists, graffiti artists and muralists have been bringing all their energy and their incredible talent to refresh the streets. Among amazing international artists are the best Canadian ones. The list is long, but impressive: Pixel Pancho, ROA, Phlegm, Escif, Reka One, Gaia, LNY, Ricardo Cavolo, FinDAC & Angelina Christina, Labrona, Troy Lovegates (aka Other), Omen, Jason Botkin, Chris Dyer, EnMasse, Stare, Squid called Sebastian, Le Bonnard, Paria Crew, A’shop, Wzrds gng.

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Upon entering the studio of illustrator Jon Burgerman, you are transported to a space entirely devoted to a world of extreme sights and sounds that connate the artist’s work. Contrasted by the days of rain surrounding New York, the shuffles of crowds and warm hues shone through the bleak emptiness outside. Holding cups of English Breakfast tea, coming from his native country, we spent a few drenched mornings discussing the observations that have led to this body of pieces, produced for Hot Girls and Hot Dogs, opening tonight at 17 Frost Street.

From the warmth of the tea to the sound of the weather outside, the layered lines seen in his more complicated pieces are echoed in the sensorial experience that was visiting his space. As he opened up an oversized canvas in his studio, the end hitting the ground, and Jon a hapless face reminiscent of a befuddled cartoon character. He eventually gives up, retreating to a larger space to properly lay down the monochromatic painting before placing it back against the wall. While his pieces contain a frenetic, hectic energy, his studio remains dutifully organized, as various types of paint and mediums of art are placed in sperate bins.

A series of onomatopoeias emerge from Jon as his internal monologue is enacted for props he produces from past shows. Cardboard cartoons, two-page illustrations, and Vine provide movement to how he invisions characters prior to putting pen to paper. As the pages flipped in the sketchbook, an illustration of a dog bites into a cupcake, Jon mimicking the exaggerated effect heard on Nickelodeon. The bustling imagery that populates the artist’s larger paintings is reproduced on a smaller scale through the immediacy of these works. A tertiary focus, these simple ten second animations represent the individual parts that make up his more complex compositions.

The central focus of his exhibition, and this visit, was a new series of mixed-media pieces being produced for Hot Girls and Hot Dogs. Ranging from simple 8 1/2″ by 11″ studies to canvas spanning several feet, Jon draws viewers in with what he believes to be the two subjects most enticing, attractive women accompanied by man’s best friend. Being from England, and thus an outsider, the artist draws combinations of girls and dogs from a removed perspective. Termed his “pastoral pictorials,” each piece is an expression of how he interprets American culture during his time in New York. Having previously tackled the true New York experience, pizza, with an exhibition in New Jersey last year, the subject has since shifted to the city’s quintessential obsession with pooches.

Illustrating a variety of real-world scenes, the artist shows owners who dutifully clean up after their pets, while others not so much. Alongside the swooping abstracted curves of hot women walking their hot dogs, the artist created a series of quick, messy portraits, which focus solely on women in movement. At first these illustrations convey a haphazard sense of color and movement of line; backgrounds are sketched in to suggest a bobbed haircut, sunset hues move through the arms of several figures, undefined by outlines. By giving defining some aspects of each figure with a watery fluidity and others with hard, contrasting colors, Jon draws viewers to these intimate pieces with through these small contradictions. One final layer is added to the portraits as Haring t-shirts, patterns, and miniature tattoos are dotted throughout. By forcing viewers to closely examine the details of these sketches, the artist gives viewers insight into the processes behind his more elaborate canvases.

The individual animals, patterns, and women from his studies congest in these larger pieces in the same way that sidewalk traffic stops to a halt around New York’s tourist destinations. The viewer can almost feel the internal tension of being surrounded by crowds of unmoving people in the summer heat. Each of these more complex compositions was given ample room at the 17 Frost space to breathe and allow visitors to stand and examine the different kinds of hot subjects permeating the works. After spending some time attempting to see the individual parts of the paintings rather than the sum of the parts, I began to experience what I can only describe as the How and Nosm effect. When visiting the duo’s solo show in New York several months ago, RJ expressed his fatigue over trying to examine the pieces to the point of his brain shutting down. With the work of How and Nosm, the paired down color palette and crisp lines aid in the processing of imagery for some viewers, in contrast to Jon’s unlimited realm of colors and movement. I simply could not imagine viewers could disassemble and process these overlapping compositions, let alone what mind could create such complexities.

By placing sketches alongside mixed media paintings that spanned several feet, viewers can comprehend the gradual that led to the ability to illustrate dozens of figures in scenes that span several feet. When asking Jon about these steps, he echoed the sentiments of spoken word poets saying, “these are a monologue. You just get up there and give it a shot.” In describing his body of work with this terminology, a theme was illuminated that transcended Hot Girls and Hot Dogs and transcended to describe Jon as a person. Throughout the two-day interview with the artist, I was transported into his realm of imagination. From the moment I stepped across the threshold of his building Krink markers began to make fart noises as the artist described the first layer of his paintings beginning with a simple line. Jalapeños with sombreros and cupcake eating dogs echoed the same strange sounds. In bringing his illustrations to life before my eyes, Jon was openly and honestly himself, a trait that is a rare occurrence in New York’s world of facades. His approach to art making, of giving it your best one shot, applied to my interactions with Jon as he crossed his eyes for pictures, added audio to his illustrations, and made me laugh.

Hot Girls and Hot Dogs opens tonight at 17 Frost Street, Williamsburg, NY from 7pm-10pm.

The artist has crafted an area for your dogs adorned with banners made by Skewville for your VIP (very important pooches). Please be sure to come along and bring your pet dog because the artist will be drawing small portraits to remind you just how important your pooch is.

Photos by Rhiannon Platt