Roa in Paris – his first solo show

Photo by urbanartcore.eu

Some very exciting news today for fans of Roa: His first solo show show opens February 4th at Galerie Itinerrance in Paris, thanks to Samantha Longhi at Stencil History X.

Photo by Heart of Oak

Roa opens a door to a twilight zone by settling in the heart of the city wandering animals such as crows, hares and rats that live close to humans, in relative agreement. He portrayed them in static positions, waiting or sleeping with a disquieting realism in black and white. Roa come to his painting in different ways, either as abandoned places, town, or gallery, and develops more and more the effects of anamorphosis, also in a goal context. After distinguished journeys in the streets of New York, London, Berlin and Warsaw in 2009, Roa now takes possession of Paris.

February 4-28th 2010.

Opening on February 4th from 6PM.

Galerie Itinerrance – 7bis, rue René Goscinny 75013 Paris

Photo by watz
Photo by unusualimage

Roa in Warsaw

Roa has just sent me a bunch of photos from his recent trip to Warsaw, Poland. More can be seen on his fotolog, but here are two of my favorites.

roa

And maybe his biggest piece ever?…

roa2

Video from The Brick Lane Zoo

The first (along with the time lapse video of Roa painting) in a series of videos I’ve started to make for Babelgum.com is this tour of The Brick Lane Zoo, a show that just closed at The Brick Lane Gallery. Every week there will be two new videos going online: one will be a sort of different video like a time lapse or an extended interview, and the other will be me checking out the latest street art gallery openings.

In this video, make sure to listen to what Pure Evil says toward the end about street art and graffiti. And hey, there’s an interview with Roa so that’s awesome.

Roa visits London

Roa

Roa has spent the last week or so in London, and he’s been doing quite a bit of painting. He’s maybe the most prolific street artist I can think of. I went out this afternoon to take photos of the pieces I knew about and discovered 3 new ones walking around Brick Lane. These are most, but not all, of the pieces Roa has painted while in town.

Roa

Roa

Roa

Roa

Roa

Expect a time lapse of Roa painting plus video interview with him coming soon…

The Brick Lane Zoo

Zoo

Normally I don’t post about shows at The Brick Lane Gallery, but this is an exception. Zoo has work from Bortusk Leer, Pez, Snub23, Roa and El Bocho.

The Brick Lane Gallery is proud to present “The Brick Lane Zoo” where exotic and wild animals fresh from the city streets cross the globe to showcase at The Brick Lane Zoo.

15 international Street and Urban Artists from the UK, France, Spain, USA, Argentina, Belgium and Germany come together under one roof armed with spraycans, paste ups and stencils to unleash their wild beasts into our urban jungle. Feral animals will roam the gallery walls and stray between the visitors. The upper canopy will be adorned with a striking array of animals ranging from skeletal rhinos and grizzly bears to happy fish.

Combining the exceptional talents of our street artists the walls of the gallery will come to life.

The Brick Lane Zoo
8th – 19th  October 2009
Private View Wednesday 7th October 6:30 – 8:30 pm

Organised by Daphne Polski
Curated by Daphne Polski and Y-NOT
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Roa versus Best Ever at Prescription Art

If I weren’t at Fame Festival this weekend, I would have been in Brighton enjoying Prescription Art‘s latest show which is a 3 person show with duo Best Ever and Belgian Roa. Best Ever have only been around as a street art duo for about a year and have already made a strong impression on the London scene, and without Roa I can’t imagine that Ghent, Belgium would even have a street art scene (no offense to other painters in Ghent, but Roa just seem to paint something new every day).

Here are some pics:

Best Ever
Best Ever
Roa
Roa
Roa
Roa
Best Ever
Best Ever

All photos by Prescription Art, and you can see more on their flickr

Roa – somewhere in the urban jungle of Belgium

This is a guest post by KrieBeL 

Somewhere in the urban jungle of Belgium, the animals of Roa live and die on the beautifull old walls of buildings in decay…    Some of them are endangered specimens (building projects) but others are allowed to stay a while.  Some of them make it to the streets too and are respected by the local people.

Roa - urbex graffiti - photo by KrieBeL

Roa urbex graffiti - photo by KrieBeL

Roa urbex graffiti - Photo by KrieBeL

Roa Urbex Graffiti

Roa urbex graffiti - photo by KrieBeL

More photo’s here

video here

if you have found some Roa animals in your city too, feel free to add them to the Roa animal graffiti pool on flickr.

Introducing… Ripo

I found Ripo through Roa, as the two have done some pieces together. Ripo is just one of those artists who can make me smile with slogans like “Steal This Space?” painted over a billboard or “Misunderstood” next to some graffiti. His use of simple designs and classic “storefront sign” fonts reminds me of ESPO and Above (whom he has collaborated with in the past). Anyways, I’m not so great at explaining exactly what makes work great, so just have a look.

Roa (left) and Ripo (right)
Roa (left) and Ripo (right)

Ripo Stairs

Ripo’s very first solo show, “is what I meant to say…”, is opening in Brussels on March 27th at the Mr. Ego space. Check out the flyer:

Is What I Meant To Say

Check out more of Ripo’s work after the jump… Continue reading “Introducing… Ripo”