It makes me proud to see Melbourne-based artists traveling the world showing off the awesomeness of Melbourne street art and graffiti. Reka is doing a bit of a world tour at the moment, he’s currently in London and he is KILLING it! Check out these fresh pieces:
Continue reading “Reka in the UK”
Lost & Found is HOTTEA‘s latest project. It took place in Minneapolis, where HOTTEA had found a disused tennis court without a net. With a bit (okay, a lot) of yarn, HOTTEA was able to at least temporarily make the court usable again for tennis. Here’s a timelapse video of the piece being made:
But the story doesn’t end there. HOTTEA’s work actually seems to have made a bit of an impact on at least two local residents. Here’s the story in HOTTEA’s words:
After the net was complete I rounded up some of the local youth to come try it out, tennis racquet’s and all. They loved it! Mission complete. 🙂 I ended up giving the tennis racquets to one of the locals that had a sincere interest to play tennis. I came back a few days later to check up on the net and I happened to run into him again. His name is Abnan. He told me this wonderful story about what had happened to him earlier that day….
He and a friend were playing tennis with the newly installed net and a gentelman stopped by and told Abnan if he and his friend came back later that day at 4:00 he would give them both new racquet’s to play with. Sure enough Abnan and his friend showed up and the man kept his word and gave them both brand new racquet’s and a few tennis balls. I couldn’t have been more excited after he had told me the story.
After hearing Mike Lydon speak about tactical urbanism at Living Walls last week, it’s great to see a street artist trying it out a bit and succeeding so fantastically with such a simple intervention. Street art that improves public space is pretty much the best kind of street art.
Photo courtesy of HOTTEA
Continuing the work that Pawn Works, 25th Ward Alderman Danny Solis (who is paying for these murals), The National Museum of Mexican Art, and the Chicago Urban Art Society have been bringing to Chicago, Gaia and Roa both recently painted in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago.
Gaia painted a piece called Quetzalcoatl and the Stork, about the neighborhood transitioning from mostly having Polish immigrants to now being home to many Mexican immigrants.
Roa‘s piece is a nice illusion of sorts and utilizes the space absolutely perfectly. Some of the best placement of a mural or piece of street art I’ve seen all year. Remember folks, learn from Roa and always practice good placement.
While in town, Gaia also painted another piece independently of the Pilsen project called Afro Cuban Siblings.
Photos by Gaia and Brock Brake
The walls outside Bushwick’s new Low Brow Artique have evolved into first-rate open-air gallery. Now alongside the mural fashioned by the Yok and Sheryo, is an exquisitely intriguing piece crafted this weekend by Chris and Veng of Robots Will Kill. Here are some earlier images:
Photos by Tara Murray
Based out of Hawaii, Cryptik is known for brining popular Eastern philosophy iconography to Western walls. The hand-painted script by this man, who is described by the Huffington Post as “reclusive, fastidious and soulful,” apparently stems from a background in “gang graffiti.”
Photos courtesy of Cryptik Movement
Sometimes when I’m making these Wild Style Wednesday posts, I have a difficult time deciding whether I can include a piece because I can’t distinguish if it is “graffiti” or really just “street art”. For some reason, that matters. I ask myself questions like “Does the work have arrows?” “Is there reference to a 3-letter-name graffiti crew?” “Was this done with a legitimate risk of arrest?”
Instead of WSW this week, I’ve decided to compile some photos that didn’t make it into a previous WSW post, and assign them to more fitting ‘subcategories’ of graffiti/street art.
Let’s play a game.
VIEWERS DECIDE FIVE: Street art? Graffiti? Subcategory?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Photos by Cranio, Ed Mun, FunkandJazz, GhettoFarceur, Graphis1, Heavy Artillery, Merciful Fate, Nardstar and Startape Photographe
Over two days, artist ND’A was invited to paint a tall narrow space nestled between Nick Walker and Jay Shells at Bushwick 5 Points. At the crossroads where St Nicholas, Troutman, and Scott meet, Joe Ficalora has created a street art oasis. While his family have owned the buildings for years, Joe has taken it upon himself to breathe new life into them. When speaking to Joe, you can tell the passion he has for the artists with whom he shares his walls. This passion has created a space where artists from other countries as well as the New York area can have a more permanent home than the temporal streets that surround his buildings.
Since his visit to Mexico in June with LNY, ND’A’s style has shifted from text-based to the symbolic. Originally incorporating lyrics from various sources including music, the artist has moved towards a more universal meaning for his murals. Rather than having the text connote a specific reference, he is using symbols to create an appeal for the general public. For example, “drunk or sober never lose your composure,” as he used in his Bushwick Open Studios panel, will divide viewers as either those who understand the RZA line or those who are left feeling outside the reference. However, when removing the lyrics and leaving only the symbols behind a crown, a wolf, a bike lock, and a foam finger can take on a number of meanings for those who venture to Bushwick 5 Points.
Photos by Rhiannon Platt
This new mural by Andreco is more than just a nice painting of a tree in Bologna, it actually helps the environment by reducing air pollution. Andreco used a special kind of photochemical paint that reduces the amount of nitrogen monoxide in the air. Andreco’s mural is part of the Frontier project, curated by Claudio
Musso e Fabiola Naldi and coordinated by the City of Bologna.
Photos by Andreco
Know Hope has gone in bit of a different direction lately with his street work. As we saw during the Brandalism project, the text/poetry that has long been in Know Hope’s work has come to the fore and the characters have (at least for now) disappeared. Of course, he’s not the first to write short quips or poems on the street, but they are nice. What do you think of this sort of new direction for Know Hope?
Photos by Know Hope
One of the most active artists to grace the walls of Tel Aviv, Dede Confidential’s work is increasingly moving indoors — as well — to a variety of alternative spaces and galleries. Here’s a recent sampling of work in both settings that Dede shared with me:
Outside:
Inside:
Photos by Dede Confidential
