I know I just mentioned Roa about a week ago for his work in Poland, but this piece is pretty special. Roa has been in London and painted a number of pieces and this is my favorite. It’s outside of Cordy House (where MuTate Britain used to be when they were in East London).
You can find some more from Roa’s latest trip to London on Unurth.
Photos by RomanyWG
At Primary Flight, I happened to see Daryll Peirce painting the above mural with The London Police and others. Later that evening, I had the chance to chat with him and see some more of his artwork. Very talented artist IMHO, but have a look and decide for yourself.
I love pieces like these on wood without any background except the wood itself.
Here’s some info from Daryll’s bio:
Focused on exploring the connectivity within humanity and its claims of control over social systems, habitat, nature, and
future, Peirce’s artwork pendulates between the satiric and esoteric, optimistic and pessimistic, scientific and spiritual,
bold and poetic. Grotesquely exaggerated human forms, arterial-botanic city organisms, and flowering interconnected
building clusters currently inhabit his work. On a more intimate level, his influences instinctively stem from his past and
current environments, travel, exploration, skateboarding, surfing, dreaming, philosophy, and interacting with all forms of
the human animal with a focused lens on the social outcast.
This piece was painted for Primary Flight last year, but unfortunately it isn’t there anymore:
All outdoor photos by Jeremiah Garcia
Within my post-colonial theory readings I chanced upon the street work series entitled “Dialogue” of Zhang Dali, which utilizes the classic graffiti trope as a conversation with the city but also engages the now familiar practice of deconstructing portions of ruins to establish new frames. Most of these interventions were executed a decade ago, but it is always interesting to visit the street work of artists who do not necessarily classify themselves as Street Artist. Please forgive the poor quality of the images, but the are all derived from Google Images.
So maybe this is the first of a few posts with street art related gift ideas, maybe not. Here are some prints that are available online for a very low price (but they aren’t cheap. Right Zeus?).
1. Logopops by Sickboy. Last night was Sickboy’s one night only show, Logopops. Lots of hand finished prints are available online for as little as £35 (though you are meant to get a few of them to create a custom cluster of prints).
2. Storm Clouds by Jeff Soto. I must admit that I am becoming more and more of a Jeff Soto fan, especially the watercolor pieces. At just £75, it costs a lot less than I expected.
3. Sprout by Josh Keyes. I am very very wary of recommending this. Josh Keyes is an amazingly talented painter and I do like his work, but I’m not sure if you get the same feel for it through a giclee print. You kind of need to see the originals in person to see what sets him apart from all the other guys painting post-environmental-apocalypse art. Could be awesome though, and it’s a book and (very large editioned) print for $85 so that’s nice.
4. Tempo Boxer by Ace. A staple of the London scene (Blackall Street in particular), Ace does some nice work and a nice print from him goes for between £50-55.
5. Dalek Blue by Dalek/James Marshall. Dalek has two “Space Monkey” prints available on his site, both very nice, but I prefer the blue one.
6. Homeless, Not Hopeless by Above. I mentioned this print the other day, but it’s worth showing again because all the profits go to a good cause.
7. Better Than Nothing by Kid Acne. I suppose you either like his warrior women or you don’t. I do.
8. Make Room For The Emptiness by Jim Houser. This is the print that I want to buy with my grandma’s Christmas money. Love it. And at just $75, I can’t believe it hasn’t sold out yet.
9. Mama Quilla by Fefe Talavera. Another beautiful and affordable print from The BLDG.
10. The Answer by Hera. This lithograph by Hera looks great and comes with my book The Thousands: Painting Outside, Breaking In. It’s £100 for the set, and since the book retails for about £25, that’s an affordable print if I ever saw one. The print is of a sketch by Hera, and she really knows how to sketch.
A little diary entry sort of thing from me went online today on Drago’s website. Of course, I encourage you to have a read of the full thing yourself, but here’s a sample:
I went to Miami for Art Basel and the satellite events there. The experience has made me realize how mainstream some street art and graffiti has become. Primary Flight and Deitch’s Wynwood Walls projects introduced the city of Miami and the art tourists to over 100 talented artists and writers who pretty much took over the Wynwood district with their murals. Inside Basel, there were a surprising number of galleries showing artwork by street artists, and the Deitch Projects booth was probably 50% street artists. The Artwhino, SCOPE, Aqua and Fountain fairs were full of low-brow, street and urban art and there were projects like BKMIA and Graffiti Gone Global that showcased street art and graffiti (or perhaps my favorite new catchall term for the street/urban/graffiti art genres: urban folk art).
But that paragraph is very misleading, but because my conclusion to the post suggests that not all hope is lost for the underground nature of street art.
Check out the rest of the post on Drago’s website.
One great piece from Primary Flight that I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet is the series of two large silos that Depoe painted. Instead of your typical boring grey silos, Depoe has added a bit of color to the Miami skyline.
And of course, with all that paint dripping down, it creates some some interesting things down on the ground.
Photos courtesy of Depoe. More on his flickr.
Labrona just sent me some pictures of his newest work, painted with oil stick and spray paint in the back alleys of his hometown, Montreal. I love the muted colors and the subtle expressiveness on each character’s face.
Collab with Gawd (above) and Sloe (below).
If you’re in London, you can see new work from Labrona in “Mixed Signals” at Signal Gallery, which runs through December 19th. Otherwise, check out more photos here.
– Elisa
It’s always nice when an artist’s painting process is as interesting as the end result. Here is a live painting video of Marco Grassi aka PHO which caught my eye:
Marco Grassi aka PHO from stylemag on Vimeo.
BrewDog sponsored The Thousands with a very generous donation of their Punk IPA beer, so in return I want to take some time out from writing about street art to mention their (very tasty) beer and PunkDog, a site to create custom labels for BrewDog beer.
On PunkDog you can design your own beer label with words and pictures and even fill your bottles with one of three of BrewDog’s beers. I can only vouch for the Punk IPA, but from what I hear, everything else they brew is just as good. I think I’ll have to give these a try for my next Vandalog event. It would be cool to have good beer with the Vandalog logo on it.
Order by the 18th and you can have your PunkDog beer in time for Christmas. A 6 pack is just £18.99 plus shipping.
What are you waiting for, try out the PunkDog label designer now.
This show looks like it will be good! I’m really looking forward to seeing pictures of it coming together – I like Dem (check out his awesome piece for Fame Fest) and, as anyone who knows me well knows, I am a gigantic fan of Ericailcane (here’s some of what he did at Fame).
You can see a few more representative pics for the whole group in Prescription Art’s flickr set.
– Elisa
