“People say graffiti is ugly, irresponsible and childish. But that’s only if it’s done properly.”

-Banksy

A fairly new development in contemporary visual culture is art that is developed in public spaces often referred to as Street art. This is sometimes referred to as Post-Graffiti. Street art is a term used to describe a wide variety of art in public spaces not limited to traditional graffiti as vandalism. This title can refer to many aspects from graffiti, stencil work, sticker art and more. This underground culture is seen all over the world but has become mainstream as of recently. Artists such as Banksy, an artist included in this exhibi-tion, has sold some of his work for thousands of dollars and contin-ues to gain profit from his works. Other artists included in this exhibition do not have an inter-est in money and create purely for the love of creating. They all do share a love for creating art and express a passion for what they do. The focus on this exhibi-tion is Street art in its various forms. Some artists are specific in medium or techniques used for their work while others express wide ranges of creation from tagging to complex installations. The common bond between these artists is not only the labeling of their work as “Street art” but the passion and expression behind their work. While each has their own sense of style and personal mes-sage or beliefs they all show much love for art for the public. Their reach is to a much wider audience while in the streets rather than in a traditional gallery. Many of these artists do indeed have gallery exhibitions but continue to extend their work to the broad audience that is the public population.

The artists included in this exhibition are well known in street art culture. Some have been creating for years while some are just beginning to make a dent in their influential contribution in street art. Each artist has their own background in the arts that has led them to where they are today. All of them express themselves through street art in their own means of expression. Some express their work through the traditional graf-fiti, some through stencil art, some through mosaics, and some through photography. Their mediums vary, as do their intentions. Some hope to reinvent ways the streets are viewed while some culture jam the public to question things. While each artist holds a unique style or intention, they all contribute to what is street art and post-graffiti.

The international artist since 1995 known as Above began his career creating traditional graf-fiti on fright trains. Above chooses to keep his identity a secret but is still well known for his trademark arrow shape often used alone or incorporated into larger pieces of his work. Above is a Californian native but has traveled all over the world in pursuit to spread his art. In the early 2000’s Above changed his name from the writ-ten word “Above” to his trademark arrow symbol. His works became more notable while living in Paris where he continued to spread his arrow symbol through out Europe and other locations worldwide. Above’s work takes shape in different ways. In addition to his ar-row decal, he will create traditional graffiti word play and also highly detailed stencil work. Above’s de-cal style incorporates bright loud colors, pattern design and his arrow shape. These arrow shapes will usually include a four-letter word relevant to the location of the arrow. In addition to his simple decal work, his word play composi-tions are often much more complex. Above combines simplistic text with complex detailed illustration. His stenciled artwork tends to be more complex and eye catching. Detailed stencil figures are used in some

of his most clever compositions. Above has an often positive and optimistic message through himself and his artwork. The name “Above” itself signifies rising above challenges in life and acknowledg-ing that one falls down and needs to get back up. Above often incor-porates inspirational quotes with his photography of his selected works. In a fundraising campaign Above sold prints which he donated 100% of the proceeds to homeless shelters. The artist expresses that he enjoys creating his artwork, that executing it in the streets creates an adrenaline rush as he often cre-ates his artwork in broad daylight. Often incorporating his arrow mobiles in high locations he is obviously a thrill seeker. The artist believes that in experiencing these life or death situations helps in the appreciation of life, never letting fear interrupt his passions. While Above presents a very optimistic and humorous works, his works may sometimes be political and serious. He recently took a trip to Cuba presenting his stencil art to promote the aide of Cubans to Haiti. In Germany’s Berlin Wall he painted hopeful stencils of a child reaching for flowers escap-ing a crack within the wall. Overall Above approaches his art passion-ately and creates from the heart.

Above

AlexandreOrion

The Brazilian street graffiti artist and photographer Alexandre Orion goes by his surname rather than a pseudonym. After attend-ing art school he began his graffiti career in the late 90’s through to 2001 where Orion became involved in photography. He continues to create and exhibit his work while winning awards for his stencil and photograph combinations. The style of this artist is very similar to many stencil street artists. Orion uses latex paint and spray paint while utilizing a hand cut stencil to create his street art. The colors he uses are only black and white to take advantage of the little time he has to create his work. Orion will quickly create his work to then document with his camera interactions of the public. The goal is to create a contrasting environ-ment between the photography of humans interacting with these inanimate stencil figures. While the stencils are very realistic at first glance, the detail is actually very minimal. The stencils are intention-ally cut with less detail to accom-modate the time frame in which the stencil is placed and painted and then photographed. The most im-portant element in Orion’s work is the public. The overall affects of his

pieces have no relevance or mean-ing without the interactions of the viewer within the photograph itself. In addition to his stencil works, Orion is very well known for his participation in reverse graffiti in a Sao Paulo tunnel where he cleaned a grimy surface of the tunnel wall in specific areas to create a mural of highly detailed skulls taking up a good portion of the tunnel. The use of reverse graf-fiti in Orion’s work shows an active view of pollution. In addi-tion to his views on pollution, he has also expressed a great concern for global warming. The intention of his reverse graffiti work in the Sao Paulo tunnels was to have the government clean it. Most street art is eventually cleaned; in this case the intention was to have it cleaned. The government was to clean the entire wall of soot just to elimi-nate the created skulls. Combin-ing both stencil and photographic elements he seeks to expose the public’s reactions and interactions with his work. He believes that so many people are unable to see and interact with graffiti as it is often very quickly removed. In this endeavor he hopes to show that interaction, patiently waiting for the right person to come into his frame.

BANKSY Banksy, whose real name is unknown, is the pseudonym name for the British street graffiti artist. An internationally known artist, Banksy is also considered by many to be a political activist, and his work sprung from the underground Bristol scene. His identity has been a cause for a lot of debate, but despite his anonymity he some-times communicates to the press through a mediator or through his website. His start as a graffiti artist began in 1992, and his works have become very valuable, often selling for thousands of dollars. Many people also credit him with a gain-ing interest in street art, and his following is large and considered a kind of cult following. Controversy follows him often for his anti-establishment messages and the branding of his art as vandalism. As a street artist, Banksy works primarily with traditional graffiti street art tools such as stencils, paint, and spray paint and often creates his work in public places and notable international locations. In his work, Banksy often toys with perspective and often makes specific references in relation to the location the graffiti is near. He uses primarily black and white paint rarely incorporating another color. This may be due to the loca-tion and the time in which it may take for him to accomplish this task.

His works tend to be very detailed and realistic similar to a high contrast photograph. While some claim he uses computer-generated images, Banksy works primarily by hand. He hand draws these figures and then continues to hand carve the stencils. Banksy devised a way of minimizing time spent on his work but creating stencils and overlaying layers of paint. Banksy is famous for sneaking paintings of his own into high-profile museums and recording the length of time it takes for them to be removed. He has also published books that showcase his street and canvas art, along with details about the various adventures his street art has gotten him into. He is known for using his art to draw attention to various political and social causes, with his art making statements about topics such as the effects of war, critiques of celebrity culture, glacial warming, racism, critiques of capitalism, and pop culture. He has painted on the wall of the West Bank Israel/Palestinian barrier, and has snuck a blow-up doll resem-bling a Guantanamo Bay detainee into California’s Disneyland. Banksy has strong political views he believes he should address which he displays often in the majority of his works.

Beginning his artistic career in 1985, the Dutch artist best known under the moniker Ces53 has become one of the most well known street artists from Europe. Originating from the Netherlands Ces53 began creating graffiti paintings on trains in Germany, Holland, and Belgium. In 1987 he perfected his craft while studying classical oil painting at the WDKA art academy. By the mid 90’s he was also pursuing to create impres-sionistic and expressionistic work while pursuing modern concep-tual art as well. Ces53 is currently known worldwide for his street art graffiti works. Ces53 has a very distinct style. He uses his roots in train bombing graffiti style with humorous cartoon-like illustrative figures such has is trademark skull character. He will also incorporate his technical knowledge of classical oil painting in many of his works. Like most graffiti and street artists he will often incorporate his tag indicating his work and many times the tag alone being the composi-tion. He tends to gravitate towards bright color combinations often including neon colors with subtle pastels to heighten contrast and create depth. In addition to this color scheme he often works with

repetition, more specifically polka dot patterns. The polka dot pat-tern is seen in many of his works, more often incorporated with clown figures. The artist will often use illustrated cartoon-like forms to create his letterform to spell out the tag Ces53. Figures often incorporated are reptiles (snakes, dragons, etc.), skeletons, clowns and sometimes birds. His illustra-tive designs tend to be outlined in a solid color incorporating comple-mentary color schemes. Pink or red will often be seen in many of Ces53’s works as well as light blue. The comic book and car-toon influence is very apparent in Ces53’s work. The humorous and artistic approach seems to be the artist’s intention in creating such pieces. The artist intends to cre-ate beauty in public places using traditional graffiti elements but still incorporating his own sense of humor and design aesthetic. Ces53 will often include the word funny in many titles of his work expressing his humorous approach. Most of the figures he includes in his work such as the clowns, skulls and the sugar skull type figure he names “Lord Life” are often depicted smil-ing. The overall message of this artist seems to be a positive one.

CES53

The Italian artist known under the pseudonym Blu began his artistic career in Italy in1999. Residing in Bologna, Blu creates much of his work in Europe while also exploring Central and South America. Little is known of this artist but his work is very recognizable through his style. He paints large-scale murals on the sides of architectural structures, predominantly bare building walls and run down public spaces. Blu’s style is very notable in his dramatic cartoon-like illustrations of human figures interacting in strange surroundings and odd situations. While feeling constricted by traditional means of graffiti, Blu replaces the use of spray paint with the use of house paint. Using modified paint rollers instead of a spray can, he covers the entire side of the surface of a large building. Using an architectural structures shape as inspiration, he envisions a composition using the nega-tive spaces as reference and then creates it surrounding that nega-tive space. He often uses minimal combinations of color and primarily incorporates only monochromatic or black and white grayscale. The majority of his works consist of a primarily white figures outlined in black. He plays with emphasis in his

predominately white compositions with a splash of color. Blu’s work as a whole seems to be influenced by surreal paintings and comic book illustrations. Blu tends to focus on the human anatomy and paints his figures physical appendages with altered uses and existences. Themes of his work can be interpreted as humorous or sometimes hor-rific. Some of his works illustrate deconstructed or mutilated human form. His technique is very illus-trative yet highly detailed in some aspects. Some of Blu’s work can be so detailed that a viewer could see a figure’s pores. Although minimal color is used in some cases, Blu manages to create three-dimen-sional images with highly detailed line and cross hatching techniques.While little is known of this artist one may look at his work and grasp his intention as to purely create art and reinvent spaces. Although the artist makes some profit off of prints, this artist does not seem to have an interest in money as all his wall murals are given to the city and his animated videos streamed on the Internet for free. Blu seems to reject contemporary art conven-tions and intends to present his cre-ative visual culture to many public locations through out the world.

Invader

Neck Face is a Mexican street artist from California. He began creating graffiti tags as a young adult and evolved his style from traditional tagging to a grotesque and often frightening style of illustration combined with humorous text. Brought up in skateboarding culture Neck Face developed a lifestyle in graffiti. Neck Face once attended art school but did not enjoy it so dropped out. His works are primarily seen in public places often portray-ing violence or satanic symbols. The artist’s style is very recognizable. His graffiti works are his primary focus but he also creates watercolor paintings and does some commercial work for skateboarding companies. His wall paintings tend to incorporate basic color combinations including one to three colors. His style of draw-ing is very childlike and scratchy. Reoccurring characters or themes include Satan (or a devil-like figure), disfigurement, violence, and satanic imagery. A very recognizable figure that reoccurs in his works is the hairy winged devil-like figure often incorporated with text or his name. This Satanic figure is often accompanied by

elements often seen in Satanism such as pentagrams and the number 666. Although his style seems very controversial, his intention is hu-mor and not political. The content of his work will often be a humor-ous approach to a dark scene. His works that express violence can be seen as humorous through the means in which he illustrates them. His style of child like drawings changes the mood of something that should not be laughed at into something that is laughed at. Neck Face takes a scene in which he would not normally find humorous and presents it as humorous. Often times the artist claims that even he cannot believe he is laughing at something so evil. His intentions are to alter the viewer’s feelings towards evil as humorous and no longer threatening. The artist himself is very shy and timid and would never be expected to create such grotesque imagery. Neck Face does not consider himself a “tagger” and finds tagging to just be a trend. Although he does not associate with the label, he still enjoys the idea of vandalization of public places and the reactions of viewers.

Neckface

Artist 108 is an Italian street artist with a background education in design. Graduating from his stud-ies in Politecnico di Milano he ex-plored graffiti in large-scale abstract figures on buildings and billboards. Beginning with traditional graf-fiti aesthetic, he later changes his name to 108 being one of the first graffiti artists to exchange letters for numbers in their name. No longer interested in painting traditional letterform tagging he explores non-descript shapes influenced by organic and geometric objects. His works range from different types of medium. 108 uses decals, paint, and sometimes sculp-tural three dimensional elements to compose his work. His early works focused primarily on minimal decals of imaginary organic yellow shapes resembling amoebas. His later street art installations evolved into a more geometric variety of shapes while still incorporating the organic. Overall he incorporates minimal color combinations, using primarily black with a miniscule detail of a high contrasting color. When using wall space in his medium, 108 will interpret the existing space as compositional space and create his work within or surrounding a particular detail. The walls imperfections pose as

inspiration for new design. He often uses random non-descript shapes as central figures in his composi-tions. Often only incorporating black, or a dark color variation, he creates unique negative space to define the figures within. These shapes often crumble or explode into colorful designs and pat-terns. 108 will also incorporate silhouetted shapes of organic or man-made elements in addition to silhouetted human or animal figures. These shapes often are expressed primarily through black with contrasting details in white. The pseudonym name 108 is derived from Hare Krishna. 108 is apparently a line with three circles or rectangle with three squares divisible by three. 108 expresses that the concept behind his work is strictly experimentation. He works in spaces without permission, like many street and graffiti artists, and prefers to create for passion not for money. 108 will often find inspira-tion in the organic shape of trees in winter time. This proves a great influence in his creation of organic and geometric shapes. Although 108 poses no direct message within or surrounding his work, he poses to be a very important artist within the street art scene.

108

Os Gemeos is the pseudonym for the Portuguese duo of twin brother street artists of Sao Paulo Brazil. Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo go by the name Os Gemeos that in Portuguese means “The Twins”. They began painting graffiti in 1987 while heavily influenced by Hip-Hop break dancing culture of Brazil. In the beginning they imitated American style graffiti similar to New York’s early style. Since then Os Gemeos has evolved their work into something truly unique. Influ-enced by their culture, Os Gemeos often paints large-scale figures in traditional Brazilian wardrobe. The twins have a variety of different types of work. Some works are very surreal and psychedelic, some are abstract letterform typical in graffiti, and some is illustrations of human form. They use latex wall paint as opposed to tradi-tional spray paint but will often incorporate spray paint as well. A reoccurring element in Os Gemeos’s works is the color combination of yellow and red. The yellow tends to be fluorescent while the red will often be a dark red. Os Gemeos will also incorporate other colors but the predominate colors are yellow and red. These colors are incorpo-rated in almost all of their works.

This is one of the key factors in the identity of Os Gemeos’s works. The twin’s work is not limited to just one type; they interweave their letterform with the illustra-tive surreal elements. The illus-trated paintings will often be accompanied by a written letterform of their pseudonym. Their illustrated human figures are very detailed and intricate. The figures are often exaggerated with large heads and small faces or wide bodies and thin fragile arms and legs. The theme of their work tends to relate to Brazilian culture and poverty. Os Gemeos creates street art that is imagina-tive, creative, and very expressive. Otavio and Gustavo express a strong message through their powerful images. The artwork of Os Gemeos is very political and expresses many issues in Brazil. Os Gemeos expresses strong opposition to Brazilian government and voices issues of poverty and money. While holding a very strong belief in politics, they also are very spiritual and hold a strong belief in God and the Bible. Although very in touch with both God and the Bible, Os Gemeos does not associate with a religion or consider being religious. They believe in peace, civil rights and equality.

Os Gemeos

The Italian artist known under the pseudonym Blu began his artistic career in Italy in1999. Residing in Bologna, Blu creates much of his work in Europe while also exploring Central and South America. Little is known of this artist but his work is very recogniz-able through his style. He paints large-scale murals on the sides of architectural structures, predomi-nantly bare building walls and run down public spaces. Blu’s style is very notable in his dramatic cartoon-like illustrations of human figures interacting in strange surroundings and odd situations. While feeling constricted by traditional means of graffiti, Blu replaces the use of spray paint with the use of house paint. Using modified paint rollers instead of a spray can, he covers the entire side of the surface of a large building. Using an architectural structures shape as inspiration, he envisions a composition using the nega-tive spaces as reference and then creates it surrounding that nega-tive space. He often uses minimal combinations of color and primarily incorporates only monochromatic or black and white grayscale. The majority of his works consist of a primarily white figures outlined in black. He plays with emphasis in his

predominately white compositions with a splash of color. Blu’s work as a whole seems to be influenced by surreal paintings and comic book illustrations. Blu tends to focus on the human anatomy and paints his figures physical appendages with altered uses and existences. Themes of his work can be interpreted as humorous or sometimes hor-rific. Some of his works illustrate deconstructed or mutilated human form. His technique is very illus-trative yet highly detailed in some aspects. Some of Blu’s work can be so detailed that a viewer could see a figure’s pores. Although minimal color is used in some cases, Blu manages to create three-dimen-sional images with highly detailed line and cross hatching techniques.While little is known of this artist one may look at his work and grasp his intention as to purely create art and reinvent spaces. Although the artist makes some profit off of prints, this artist does not seem to have an interest in money as all his wall murals are given to the city and his animated videos streamed on the Internet for free. Blu seems to reject contemporary art conven-tions and intends to present his cre-ative visual culture to many public locations through out the world.

BLU

Posterchild

The Toronto native known by the pseudonym Posterchild has been creating graffiti art since 2001. It was not until 2003 that he took the name Posterchild and found his persona in street art culture. Posterchild has been keep-ing a blog of his work titled “The Blade Diary” since 2006. This blog expresses his day-to-day progress in street art and other projects. While the artist works in traditional graffiti tagging, Poster-child’s work is primarily stencil art while also incorporating other inter-active installation elements as well. His stencil art works can range from simple patterns or symbols while others can be complex detailed human form. In Posterchild’s sten-cil works he primarily uses black and white. Reoccurring elements seen in Posterchild’s work is the skeleton, astronauts, scantily clad women and famous figures. He incorporates these elements in all aspects of his work from stenciled spray paint to sticker postings. Posterchild is most well known for his project incorporating the ques-tion mark cube from the popular Nintendo entertainment system video game Super Mario Broth-ers. The cube is arranged like a mobile, hanging from something to

imply the idea of flight or float-ing. This piece is set up in pixilated squares creating a question mark on a brown cube. Posterchild has collaborated with different artists in more interactive works like the Magic Spikots. This project involved installing water spikots onto adver-tisements with a stream of whatever the ad was portraying spilling out from within. Posterchild’s style is very humorous and often hopeful. Posterchild intends to reinvent the way the population views public spaces. His works are intended to be playful and interac-tive in some cases. His work will make one think twice and question what it is they are looking at or why it is there. Posterchild feels he is giving back to the city. He recycles materials that were intended to be thrown away in his work. Aside from his limited budget, he does this as a ritualistic process of his work. He continues to create thought-provoking work to inspire the public. His question blocks were encouraged to be reproduced by others. They began to spring up in small towns and locations that Posterchild has never been. His works are never intended to upset the public, just to make them think.