Acrylic Walls: A Love Letter to South Africa

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Beginning in late December of 2012 and stretching into the new year, Freddy Sam brought together a group of artists known for creating art that engages their surroundings. The project, titled Acrylic Walls, is associated with his organization A Word of Art, which has been fostering contemporary art in the area through community outreach since 2009. While this project has the familiar ring of other blockbuster mural programs, such as Open Walls Baltimore, Freddy Sam has added a component that hopes to reach a larger audience than those who will immediately come into contact with their murals: a diary-like Tumblr for all on which all of the artists can contribute.

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The Tumblr for Acrylic Walls allows all of the participating artists to post photos from their adventures as they travel from city to city painting and engage themselves with their surroundings. Whether they are recounting adventures in stick and poke tattoos, museums, or sharing stories of people they encounter, each artist brings a dimensionality to not only themselves, but this program through their photography. By sharing funny moments alongside those of poverty and historicism, Acrylic Walls gives an intimate and insightful view of personalities of the artists as well as the cities where they find themselves.

More photos after the jump. Continue reading “Acrylic Walls: A Love Letter to South Africa”

Living Walls curates walls at Miami Art Basel

In collaboration with Fountain Art Fair and Samson Contompasis’ The Marketplace Gallery, the people of Living Walls have been given 175 ft. of wall space to divvy out amongst artists at Fountain. From December 6 to the 9th, 22 street artists including Rone, LNY, Trek Mathews, Jaz, Ever, Dal East, Faith47, Pixel Pancho, Never 2501, Joe Iurato and more will be painting Fountain’s outdoor courtyard.

The rise in success of Living Walls over the last 3 years has been fascinating to watch. This is their second year at Miami Basel but their first year there curating walls. Indoors they’ll have a booth, showing the works of a few international artists like La Pandilla, Interesni Kazki, and some of the artists listed above, as well as a few Atlanta favorites. Definitely looking forward to seeing their contribution.

Video courtesy of Living Walls

Weekend link-o-rama

Hyuro

Happy reminder that we’re less than a month from Christmas…

Photo by Hyuro

In San Juan, PR — “Los Muros Hablan” Part III: Jaz, Eyel, Pun18 and Hello Again

Jaz — from Argentina — at work

During our brief visit to Puerto Rico, we had the chance to view Jaz — one of our favorite artists — at work and discover the enchanting aesthetics of Mexican artist Eyel and local artists Pun18 and Tony Rodriguez, Josue Oquendo, Aslan Uno, and Esteban Ruiz of the Puerto Rican arts collective, Hello Again. Here are some more images:

Eyel — from Mexico — at work
Pun18 in progress
Pun18, close-up from completed mural
Hello Again, close-up in progress

Photo credits: Jaz and Hello Again by Lois Stavsky; Eyel by Dani Mozeson; Pun18 in progress by Lenny Collado and close-up courtesy of the artist

Weekend link-o-rama

Veni

Here’s some stuff I missed this week while sitting under a giant stack of books and papers to read, mostly stuff I was supposed to read for school but avoided because I was at Nuart last weekend.

Photo by Colin Chazaud

Weekend link-o-rama

Aryz in Næstved, Denmark. Click to view large.

Just a question: Anyone wish an air-conditioned home want to trade places with me until things cool down? Anyway, here’s some linkage to what’s been going on with art this week:

Photo by Henrik Haven

New wall and a handfinished prints from Jaz

Click to view large. Photo by Jaz.

Jaz‘s latest wall continues his experimentation with using different materials for his paint. Eleccion was painted in Buenos Aires with coal and lime paint, the same kind of super-long-lasting paint that is used by politicians who hire crews of people to illegally paint ads for them all over the city. Here’s an example of one of those ads.

Jaz also has a print release this week with StreetArtNews. The print, Observadores, is a handfinished 1-color print depicting wrestlers in the ring. It will go on sale on the StreetArtNews website this Thursday. More info here.

Observadores. Photo courtesy of StreetArtNews

Photos by Jaz and courtesy of StreetArtNews

ParisFreeWalls

Jaz

ParisFreeWalls is a mural program in Paris that have organized 11 walls since last November, including contributions from some of my favorite artists. It’s being curated by MSAGallery. Here are a few of the highlights from the program so far.

Ever
Rone
David Shillinglaw
Roti

Photos courtesy of ParisFreeWalls

Do not miss: Jaz in Barcelona

Jaz at his show

Franco Fasoli aka Jaz has his first European solo show on right now at RAS Gallery in Barcelona. It looks absolutely stunning. I was fortunate enough to see one of the canvases from this show while it was being finished recently in Baltimore, but I’m extremely jealous of anyone who is lucky enough to see this full show in person. SUBEN, who produced the show, have more info about it as well as available works on their website.

Here are just a few of my favorite pieces from this show:

This piece, like many pieces in this show, was painted primarily with tar

More photos after the jump… Continue reading “Do not miss: Jaz in Barcelona”