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Guest Post: Street art and street artists in Rome

12 Mar ’119 Mar ’11

Street Art London has a very international flavour this week and we are delighted and priveleged to bring you this guest post from Jessica at RomePhotoBlog. Here, Jessica gives us the lowdown on the street art scene in Rome:

Though Rome isn’t the first city that comes to people’s mind while thinking about street art, that is slowly changing as the city’s artists continue to grow and become recognized on an international level. While plenty of international artists have hit up Rome over the past few years – Invader, C215, Above, and Zilda to name a few – I’m going to focus on the local artists whose work I’ve seen up on a consistent basis since I started photographing street art in 2009.

Before I get to the artist’s, however, I want to break down some of the peculiarities of Rome street art. People often ask me where they can see stuff while in town and though it’s found everywhere if you keep an eye out, some key areas to focus on are San Lorenzo, Pigneto, Ostiense, Trastevere (though less and less it seems). If you’re really adventurous and can figure out public transit, hit up Strike off the via Portonaccio, as its walls are covered with works by writers and street artists and a revolving doors of shows happen in the Pub, normally open Thursday nights.

Sten + Lex – Both started their artistic careers separately, but now form one of the most recognized duos in Rome with an international career. Their work mainly focuses on portraiture, increasingly of anonymous figures. Sten’s invention of the “hole school” technique for stenciling created their distinctive style, which they continue to evolve, most recently into the stencil poster. Here’s an old school photo from a poster they hung outside the Rialto centro sociale in 2009.

Street artist interview: Michael De Feo, ‘The Flower Guy’

12 Mar ’117 Mar ’11

NYC 2007 (photo by Gavin Thomas)

Legendary street artist Micheal De Feo, aka, The Flower Guy is “Coming in from the Outside”, an appropriate title for this New Yorker’s first solo show in London. Michael De Feo’s street art career spans nearly two decades. His iconic flower – in simple rainbow hues – has been spotted on brick walls in NYC, gritty stairways in Hong Kong and statues in Buenos Aires. A few years ago, life changes led his work into an outward exploration and public display of his inner thoughts in the form of scribble-style self-portraits.

Michael took a bit of time away from exhibition preparations to chat with Street Art London about the cycle of life, some insight into award-winning children’s book that incorporates his street art and his bond with daughter Mariana who once went on a pasting spree with him in the South of France.

Micheal will be in London this week and hopefully we will get to see some of his street art in London’s streets. He is also exhibiting some of his latest work at The Orange Dot Gallery (details of the show which runs from 9 to 15 March are over here). Head over early to Orange Dot on Saturday 12 March to snap up one of 50 free prints that Michael will be giving away (more details below). (All photos are the artist’s own except where indicated otherwise.)

Miami 2009 (photo by Geoff Hargadon)

It all started with the first flower mural on East 23rd Street, NY in 1994. What prompted you to put art up on the street?

It actually started about a year earlier; that piece was the first time I painted one that size; remarkably, it’s still riding high on East 23rd Street. Back then, the idea of putting my work up on the streets came rather naturally. Having grown up here, I’ve always loved New York and wanted to be a part of the fabric of this great city. Street art was a way that I could literally do just that. Also, I realized that I could show my work to the widest global audience with no barriers by side-stepping the gallery system. I felt why wait for their approval to share my work with a narrow few when I can put my work up anywhere I like and share it with everyone?

Streets: Street Artist Bortusk Leer all over London

6 Mar ’116 Mar ’11

Bortusk Leer is once again at large around the streets of London again and his neon monsters have been appearing everywhere. It seems like his alter ego ‘Rots Rulebek’ has also been getting around London with a peculiar line of cosmetics consisting of “Eau de Toilet”, “Jizzy Palm” and “Pork Sword Shaving Foam”. Check out some of his monsters below. Check out the monsters and cosmetics below:

Streets: Italian street artist RUN hits the Foundry

7 Mar ’115 Mar ’11

We were lucky enough to catch up with Italian street artist RUN painting at the Foundry today. For more of RUN’s work check out his website here. Check out our pictures below:

Street art exhibitions – Stik, Slinkachu & Michael De Feo

12 Mar ’112 Mar ’11

There are some great shows featuring street artists opening in London in the coming days from Londoners Slinkachu and Stik and the old school New York street artist Micheal De Feo. All the details are below:

Stik

Stik’s solo show is at the Subway Gallery which, as it names suggests, is situated underground in a subway! Stik is currently one of the most prolific street artists in London and his Stik people can be found all over. If you are not familiar with Stik’s work then check out Street Art London’s collection of his pieces from around London and our recent interview with him.

Where, When:
Subway Gallery – Kiosk 1, Pedestrian Subway, Edgeware Road/Harrow Road, London w2 1DX.
3 – 26 March

Street artist interview – The Toasters

9 Mar ’1121 Feb ’11

You’ve inevitably spotted the ubiquitous orange toasters, stuck to the escalators in the tube, on pub toilet doors, massive paintings on walls in the East End…The Toaster is an icon that is as well recognised as the logos of major corporations. The Toaster works with the same mentality as advertising, only it’s a bit more subtle and a lot more intriguing.

Read on to meet the crew who have been dedicated to sticking their favourite kitchen appliance all over the streets of London and around the world for the past 12 years. They share the story behind the reason they chose the toaster, tell us some tales from a few of their more adventurous toastering experiences and give us a sneak peak at what to expect from their first film to be released this spring. Images below courtesy of The Toasters.

Toasters have been appearing on streets around the world since 1999. Tell us what the Toaster Crew is all about and how it started.

Three people, one image and a mission to get it as big as possible starting from New Year’s Day 1999. At first we thought we’d paint one stencil a day for a year and clock where we were at. In hindsight, that quickly became an unrealistic New Year’s resolution. The project rapidly turned into putting a multitude of stickers and stencils up every week.

GUEST POST: Bristol Graffiti & Street Art

18 Feb ’1118 Feb ’11

This is guest post from the folks over at Bristol Graffiti & Street Art, catch up with them over at their facebook page and at their blog.

A review of 2010, by Bristol Graffiti & Street Art

The Bristol graffiti & street art scene is internationally known. It all kicked off with the likes of 3D, FLX, Inkie and Deed, Shab, Cheo, Turo, Jody then came along the second generation of writers & artists from Lokey, Sickboy, Banksy, Kato, Soker, Rowdy and Acerone just to name a few. After these guys we have what we could call the 3rd generation, 3Dom, Haka and Sepr, amongst others.

You cannot forget the music, which has played a big part, and continues to do so today. Bristol is known both for its Graffiti and Music and some of the most famous Graffiti & Street Artist’s, DJ’s and Bands have all come from Bristol. One of the events that can’t be forgotten is Operation Anderson, which took place on 20 March 1989. In Operation Anderson, the homes of 72 suspected Graffiti writers were raided including that of the Barton Hill youth worker John Nation. The raids took place in Bristol, Bath, Exeter and Cardiff and at the time it was the biggest anti-graffiti operation in the history of British policing. Many of the Graffiti Writers & Artist’s were arrested, most of whom had their Blackbooks, photo’s, paint etc. taken by the Police. Most were lucky enough to get a slap on the wrist’s, whereas others received harsher punishments. All of this for their love of self expression… However, this has just made the scene in Bristol even stronger, we have Writers from all over the UK and abroad who come to Bristol, just to paint.

Boswell, Pen and 3rdEye

Roa hits London

3 Mar ’1115 Feb ’11

We were lucky to catch up with Roa painting a huge wall in East London today. The wall is only half complete and he is coming back on Thursday to finish the job. Check out Street Art London’s photos below:

Street artist interview: Cityzen Kane

23 May ’1114 Feb ’11

CityzenKane’s impressive sculpture of Lord Jagannath glistens and glitters against the wall of Brick Lane. Around the corner, a gun pops out from another wall and if you wander through London’s East End, you’ll catch a glimpse of CZK’s kissing fish, spirit masks, bugs and other colourful creatures standing out in 3-D amongst the rest of the spray paint and posters.

Read on for Street Art London’s conversation with CZK on how house music and a bloke with a pipe inspired him to be the street artist he is today and what look out for from him next on the South Bank. Plus, don’t miss out on the background story of that well-loved Lord Jagannath piece.

Give us a short history of your artistic background and how you first got into street art.

Since a very young age I have been drawing and making sculptures. In the late 80s, the house music revolution changed my life. Being very much involved with the scene, I considered it to be a very enlightening and spiritual experience for me. I would have amazing visions of organic shapes and colours in symmetry, so I decided to express these visions through my art. I became prolific with my drawings and making sculptures out of expanding foam and Fimo. I was living in Brighton at the time and there was a stencil artist whose name I don’t remember, who had stencils of a bloke with a pipe. His work was everywhere and this inspired me to start putting stencils up too.

Slinkachu’s street art, ‘Concrete Ocean’

13 Feb ’1111 Feb ’11

The street artist known only as Slinkachu has been abandoning little people on the streets of London since 2006. His first project, ‘Little People in the City’, saw minature men, women and children living their lives on the streets of London and was immortalised in the 2008 book entitled Little People in the City”. Since then, Slinkachu has done a number of other projects, notably ‘Whatever Happened to the Men of Tomorrow’ which documented the decline of a tiny, middleaged and balding super-hero on the streets of London and ‘Inner City Snail – a slow moving street art project’ which saw Slinkachu ‘customising’ a number of London snails which then presumably went about their business none the wiser. So, next time you are out and about in London, look down, for you might be missing out on the drama undolding below.

Dear Son

Street Artist Interview: Stik

23 May ’118 Feb ’11

This is Stik, paint-splattered and hard at work in the Mile End Arts Pavilion on some material for his solo show back in 2010. He’s been creating Stik in various forms for 10 years now. You’ll find his work mainly around Hackney Wick, Dalston and Shoreditch – Stik people resting, dancing, entire Stik families bringing life to neglected walls or empty billboards. Recently, Stik’s been branching out, with people in other parts of London asking him to graffiti Stik on their walls, working at Glasto and putting up a few pieces in Bristol. He even did a campaign for British Waterways.

Stik tells us how his art has seen him through his toughest times on London’s streets, about the beauty of language and movement and a little story about a woman in Mayfair.

What is the significance of Stik?

Quite often, simple images are the most noted. If I’ve got too many lines, I kind of lose track of what’s going on. I like to have very few things going on, but a lot of data compression in that. This arm’s got three bends in it (pointing to one of the figures he was painting) and I think about the way it conveys movement. Beauty is in movement. That’s what it’s about. Beauty is about the way that someone moves their body. You can tell by someone’s walk if they’re angry, whether they’re happy or if they’ve just eaten. You can tell a lot about someone just by the way they’re moving their back or their eyes. There doesn’t need to be a great deal of detail there. You can see it from across the road. You can see someone silhouetted against a white wall in the night and check whether they’re walking in an aggressive way or if they’re someone you know. That’s what I’m trying to capture in my work – that direct recognition. Before writing, before speech, it’s the language of toddlers, the language of cave people, body language. I think it came from trying to speak to people I don’t share a common spoken language with, just trying to find a way of conveying complex emotions without speech.

Street artist interview: C215

23 May ’1125 Jan ’11

C215’s street art represents an exploration of animals, architecture, freedom and those forgotten about by society all in incredible detail and against a backdrop of overlooked places. C215’s real name is Christian Guémy but he goes by his artistic identity, ‘C215’. He has put work up all over the world in India, Israel, Poland, the USA, Senegal, Russia, Morocco, his home-country of France and of course, London.

C215 talks with Street Art London about the subjects and themes that have inspired him to become a full time artist. He tells us about Nina, his daughter, who is already becoming a street artist in her own right and he lets us in on a pretty crazy Friday afternoon stunt he pulled in the middle of London.

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