Great In ’08: Jef Aerosol Says…

As part of Vandalog’s “Great in ’08” series, which will be running every day for the rest of the month. Check out previous posts here. Street artists from across the world have been offered one post to “gift” to one artist that they feel has been doing great work recently. Today it’s Jef Aerosol‘s turn.

Who is one artist doing really great work right now?

I’d say that the artist that impressed me most, recently, must be Claire Fahys.
I discovered her work thanks to Caroline Leluel of the French Art studio.
I work with them and Claire does too.
I really love her art and can’t believe how mature it is considering she’s only 24 years old.
I hope she’ll very soon get the broad recognition she deserves.
You can see some of her work there.

See more of Claire’s work after the jump…

Continue reading “Great In ’08: Jef Aerosol Says…”

Great In ’08: Ame72 Says…

As part of Vandalog’s “Great in ’08” series, which will be running every day for the rest of the month. Check out previous posts here. Street artists from across the world have been offered one post to give away to one artist who they feel has been doing great work recently. Today it’s Ame72‘s turn.

Who is one artist doing really great work right now?

Asbestos.

Chess Thinking at the Old Truman Brewery. Photo from Asbestos
Chess Thinking at the Old Truman Brewery. Photo from Asbestos

See more photos of Asbestos’ work after the jump… or read an interview with Asbestos here. Continue reading “Great In ’08: Ame72 Says…”

Vhils at Lazarides

Vhils has some new work on Lazarides’ website. First, there’s three screenprints with edition sizes between 11 and 17. They are individualized and £375 each, which sounds like an amazing deal given that I just got a Vhils print from POW this week for £335 and that’s an edition of 65. I do think the POW print looks nicer though.

Corrosion by Vhils
Corrosion by Vhils

And for those with a bit more cash, there’s also one Vhils original on Laz’s site for £14,000. One of the cutout pieces like Vhils did at Cans2.

Via artbleat

Week of The Tag

I’ve been a bit light on posts this week. Schoolwork has been piling up a bit, and I submit my university applications next week, so I’ve been working on those. I have been following the news though, and it seems like everybody is talking about tags this week.

Photo by RJ
Photo by RJ
  • Hooked has released a zine called Tags: East London, and you can probably tell what it’s about from the title. 30 pages full color photos of some of London’s best tags. Get a copy for just £3.50 including UK postage here.
  • Beautiful Crime sums up “The Great Debate” about “the merits of paste-ups, graffiti, street art, tagging and photoshopping” based on this flickr comments exchange between Mike Marcus, nolionsinengland, HowAboutNo! and redalert51.
  • Fecal Face has a Q&A with graffiti photographer Martha Cooper. Fans of ’80’s graffiti should definitely have a read. Cooper has a new book out called Tag Town: The Origins of Writing, available here.
  • There’s also been some great news in the world of character tags:
    UK Street Art reports that The Toaster has put out a couple of fairly cheap prints over at Nelly Duff. Just £50, but they aren’t very large.
    Hooked announces the release of new Sickboy prints from his recent Stay Free show (I wasn’t able to go, but Graffoto’s got a review)

Great in ’08: Gaia Says…

As part of Vandalog’s “Great in ’08” series, which will be running every day for the rest of the month. Check out previous posts here. Street artists from across the world have been given one post to give away to one artist who they feel has been doing great work recently. Today it’s Gaia’s turn (if you missed it, he was L.E.T.‘s pick yesterday). This response was actually taken from a larger Q&A with Gaia that will be posted on Vandalog as soon as I get my university applications in (I’ll hit “submit” this Friday).

Who is one artist doing really great work right now?

Gaia: The one person who has been really making a splash is the writer Booker/ReadMoreBooks/Rancour/HoodRich. While he has been getting up for quite some time now, his recent slew of rollers that he has pulled off in the past year are astounding. Always imaginative, always clean, and he has such a unique and free style.

Skulls by Booker. Photo by Danny Dawson
Skulls by Booker. Photo by Danny Dawson

See photos of Booker’s work after the jump… Continue reading “Great in ’08: Gaia Says…”

Great In ’08: L.E.T. Says…

As part of Vandalog’s “Great in ’08” series, which will be running every day for the rest of the month. Check out previous posts here. Street artists from across the world have been given one post to give away to one artist who they feel has been doing great work recently. Today it’s L.E.T.‘s turn.

Who is one artist doing really great work right now?

L.E.T: The artist who’s great right now is Gaia.

By Gaia
By Gaia

Gaia has a piece at Ad Hoc Art’s Brooklyn Block Party which opened last night. It has work from nearly a dozen artists working with wood or lino blocks.

See photos of Gaia‘s work after the jump… Continue reading “Great In ’08: L.E.T. Says…”

Great In ’08: Armsrock and PaintGoggles Say…

As part of Vandalog’s “Great in ’08” series, which will be running every day for the rest of the month. Check out previous posts here. Street artists from across the world have been given one post to give away to one artist who they feel has been doing great work recently. Today Armsrock (whose show with elbowtoe opens at thinkspace gallery today) and PaintGoggles have both picked the same artist.

Who is one artist doing really great work right now?

PaintGoggles: One artist making great stuff right now is C215. C215 creates work that is beautiful and seemingly personal. He consistently makes paintings that are both delicate and aggressive. The use of light in his work is truly amazing. He is also crazy prolific.

Armsrock: One of the people who’s work in the streets continues to impress and inspire me, is C215.
To me he seems to be constantly exploring the idea of what stencil art can do and could be. His pictures have a wonderful way of acknowledging and integrating themselves in their surroundings, taking in regard the space and the people who inhabits it. There is something deeply compassionate and honest in his pictures, and I greatly admire him for that.

C215 has a show opening tonight at Ad Hoc Art‘s project room. See more photos of C215’s work after the jump… Continue reading “Great In ’08: Armsrock and PaintGoggles Say…”

Great In ‘08: Grafter Says…

This is part of Vandalog’s “Great in ’08” series, which will be running every day for the rest of the month. Check out previous posts here. Street artists from across the world have been offered one post to “gift” to one artist that they feel has been doing great work recently. Today it’s Grafter‘s turn (on a completely unrelated note, I hope to see some of you at the opening of Urban Angel‘s Art Lounge tonight, where Grafter will have some work for sale).

Who is one artist doing really great work right now?

There is a lot of great work going on at the moment and some fantastic shows being produced on a regular basis. The recent Eelus show at Electric Sheep was outstanding and some of the work displayed showed, I felt, a real change in direction for a well established artist who could easily have stayed within the comfort zone of his previous work but was brave and confident enough to explore new avenues within his work and show us all a much darker approach to his art.

An artist I have kept a close eye on and have been impressed by his recent efforts is K-Guy. The “Love Hate” print was of outstanding quality and showed a massive step up from “Lislam” which I felt was rather weak. The installations he left around the City of London after that were very nearly a stroke of genius.

The artist I feel that is busting everyone out of sight at the moment though has got to be Vhils. The piece he did at the 1st Cans festival, where he chiseled the image out of the brickwork of the wall, was innovative, fresh and helped to breathe new life into the portrait genre. In amongst the real big hitters of the scene he managed to completely steal the show and I couldn’t wait to see how these works would translate to paper/canvas. The 2 paper releases he issued through POW were simply stunning and the technique of forcing bleach through the screen to the image was again an innovation that helped to make it a whole lot more than just a simple screen print.

The 2nd time at Cans he showed us another new technique were he peeled layers of posters off of a billboard to reveal the layer underneath and produce an image from the different colors of the revealed posters. A truly innovative and creative artist who obviously enjoys exploring various mediums and techniques in order to produce class imagery.

Vhils at Cans Festival. Photo by RJ
Vhils at Cans Festival. Photo by RJ

See more photos after the jump…

Continue reading “Great In ‘08: Grafter Says…”

Great in ’08: Poster Boy Says…

This is part of Vandalog’s “Great in ’08” series, which will be running every day for the rest of the month. Check out previous posts here. Street artists from across the world have been offered one post to “gift” to one artist that they feel has been doing great work recently. Today it’s Poster Boy‘s turn.

Who is one artist doing really great work right now?

Poster Boy: I think lately it has been Ellis G.

See more of Ellis G’s work after the jump… Continue reading “Great in ’08: Poster Boy Says…”