This show looks pretty interesting. Eine and Zeus together at Ink_d Gallery in Brighton. November 27 through December 24th (I feel really bad whoever is dismantling this show on Christmas).
For our next show at Ink_d Gallery we bring together two urban art heavyweights; Eine & Zeus.
Both are prolific street artists and innovators in typography and both have pushed the boundaries in a way that has redefined how we see graffiti as an art form.
Eine is best known for his alphabets and letters on shutters and Zeus for his three dimensional images and sculptures based around his writing style.
They come together at Ink_d for ‘Crimes and Punishments’ where their collaboration has produced a heavy hitting alphabet in Pen & Ink.
The show will feature beautifully framed original work on paper combining illustrations of crimes and punishments with Eine’s inimitable fonts and drawings of Eine’s hands by Zeus.
There will also be our usual affordable screen printed show poster and an exclusive low edition print release available during the show.
Fire extinguisher tags are great. In fact, they can be amazing. Gaia put together a series of photos fire extinguisher pieces a few months ago on Vandalog which is well worth checking out. But it’s not easy to get fire extinguishers to spray paint properly, and they aren’t that cheap. Now, there’s a away to get that same effect (though maybe on a slightly small scale) for a lot less money and with a very simple design. This video from Just Straight Photos has the solution:
This piece, The Fool by Dale Grimshaw, appeared recently in Shoreditch. First of all, it’s a cool piece. But it is part of a larger point I’d like to make/question I’d like to ask. It seems like woodblock and lino-blocks are pretty popular in the USA, particularly NYC, but almost unheard of here in the UK. On the other hand, stencils seem much more popular in London than elsewhere. Why is this?
I think it has to do with Banksy and Swoon. Swoon is an American artist and she’s probably more popular in New York than London. She’s been wheatpasting for a long time now, and a lot of artists have been influenced by her. And in the UK, Banksy is a household name, and a lot of street artists picked up stencils after seeing Banksy’s work. But that’s just my take.
There are two sides to every coin, and we all know two wrongs don’t make a right but somehow when it comes to filming a video in reverse then reversing it, it makes total sense? Confused? Watch the video to get a better idea. If you still don’t understand, I can only suggest to try and watch it in reverse?!
The reverse side also has a reverse side. -Japanese proverb.
And it’s also time for another print release from Above. Today 4 new prints went on sale, all screenprinted and signed by Above himself. Each print is $45, or the set of 4 arrows together is $150. They are an edition of 100 each. The prints are for sale on Above’s website.
The last time I mentioned the Represent show was towards the start of October, so if you happened to forget about Thursday’s opening, I’ll forgive you. But if you’re in London and you don’t make it to Represent before the show closes November 11thupdate: the show has been extended and now closes November 20th, well I’m just not so sure.
Represent has been curated by Matt Small and it’s a show of portraiture. Matt is one of the artists and people that I most respect, so I was curious to see what this show would bring. You figure that a talented painter should be able to identify other talented artists. Well Matt definitely can.
The line up includes some names that I’m familiar with like Swoon, Best Ever, Elbow-toe and Case, but there were plenty of people I was either less familiar with or whose names I had never heard before like Peter Michael and Yuko Nasu.
While I can’t say that every painting was a winner, it the most refreshing show I’ve seen in London all year and maybe the best group show.
Matt Small
Of course, there were two original paintings from Matt Small in the show, including this one which is the first time I’ve seen him paint glasses.
David Walker
I like this piece by David Walker just enough to not call him on for using paint drips to look “street.” Sometimes drips make a painting look better. I would be curious though to see what this painting would be like without the drips, the girl could have more of that really cool metallic look which is sort of hinted at in this piece but overshadowe by drips.
Swoon
This is one my all time favorite pieces by Swoon. It’s certainly in the top 5 pieces on wood that I’ve seen. I don’t have the cash or wall space for this, but I hope it finds a good home.
Best Ever
Okay so the name might be a bit presumptuous, but the duo Best Ever get better with every painting.
Case
Sometimes it feels like I’m the only person in the world who realizes how amazing Case can be. This painting, Rosemary, is even better in the flesh. So many photo-realistic graffiti writers just end up making portraits of dead hip hop stars or doing commissions for Nike, but Case actually has an artistic mind behind his talents.
Represent is at Blackall Studios on Leonard Street, London and closes on November 11thupdate: the show has been extended and now closes November 20th. Get there while it’s still open! I may even go back for a second look.
Everybody’s been talking about KR’s Mini Cooper and this video:
I don’t get it. What’s so cool here? How many times is KR allowed to just drip ink on a surface and get away with it? If I’m not mistaken, KR used to be a respectable graffiti writer.
Aw who I am I kidding? It might not be logical, it might be nothing more than advertising, but that car looks awesome. Too bad they painted all the windows too, it would have looked great driving around.
Thursday night was the opening of Dan Witz’s Dark Doings show at the Carmichael Gallery in LA. At first I wasn’t sure how Dan’s street work (especially from this particular series) would work indoors, but then I realized, the one piece of art in my house that my mom bought is an old Moroccan door and it’s great. So why should Dan’s door-sized work be any different? Maybe you don’t get the same element of surprise that spotting one of his pieces in the wild would have, but they still look damn cool and the man can paint. Can anybody who has seen this show in person shed some light on what it’s like to see these pieces in a gallery?
Those 3-minute wonder videos that were made off of City Road in London can now be watched online. Which is great for me as I missed their original broadcast on Channel 4. Here are the videos for Burning Candy, Pure Evil and Blek le Rat. And if you want to see these pieces in person, check out my video of how to sneak into the space.
