Daily Art Fixx

visual arts blog, painting, drawing, sculpture, illustration and more!

Know Hope: Street Art

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“For the past 4 years, Israeli artist Know Hope has been showing his work in galleries and exhibitions worldwide, but mainly on the streets, in their natural urban settings. Know Hope deals with the short lived aspect of not only the genre itself, but also as a subject – the need of momentary connections in the everyday reality, and the common denominator that is the human struggle.

Through site specific installations, murals and paste-ups, Know Hope attempts to create situations that happen in real time, and are accessible to the public on a day-to-day basis, with intentions of creating some sort of a dialogue.

For the past year, Know Hope’s work has been revolving around the story of an un-named figure, following it and creating some sort of lifeline through its observations, mishaps and eventually its commentary. The figure is the visual manifestation of the human vulnerability addressed in all the pieces.

The re-occurring figure is used as a way for the viewer to create a “long-term relationship”, so to speak, with the character. Through different stages and situations of despair, hope and discovery, the narrative is an ever-developing one. Through the use of a vocabulary of iconography such as electricity poles, tree stumps, broken televisions and billboards, a whole world is created and is used as a visual metaphor of the world in which we live. In the gallery pieces the photographic backgrounds function as a substitute for the urban background which is provided organically in the street works.

The majority of the pieces are made out of cardboard, a choice based not only on the aesthetics of the medium, but on the essence of the material. Cardboard is often used to make boxes, to contain objects and transfer them from one place to the other, only to be discarded immediately after- it is always available, somebody else’s trash. The use of cardboard makes the content of the pieces physical- the urgency of creating temporary art for the street, and the liability and rough fragility of the same struggle addressed before.

Know Hope has garnered much attention over the past year with his paste-ups and installations as well as successful exhibitions in the UK, LA, Norway, San Jose and recently New York , Rome, Tokyo, Toronto, San Francisco and Los Angeles.” (bio from Show and Tell Gallery)

Ekundayo: Painting

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© Ekundayo

Ekundayo (Dayo) was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1983. At the age of 5,  his father snuck him out of the state without his mother’s knowledge, and for seven years Ekundayo and his father moved from place to place living a life on the run. With hopes of finding her son, Ekundayo’s mother helped start Hawaii’s first clearing house for missing children. In 1994, suffering from lung cancer, his father took him to live with his sister in California. In early 1995, his father passed away; Ekundayo was eleven.

While living in California with his aunt and and her family, Ekundayo discovered his love for art. One day he found one of his uncle’s, who wrote for a graffiti crew in L.A. called C.H.B, black books. Ekundayo became obsessed with drawing and copied every page in the book.

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice had located Ekundayo at his sister’s home and returned him to the custody of his mother. Ekundayo went back to Hawaii but his drive to create continued. Shortly after graduating high-school, Ekundayo moved back with his father’s sister and brother in-law in California where he attended Pierce College, practiced his craft, and worked on his portfolio. In 2003, he was accepted into the Art Center College of Art and Design on a scholarship. Ekundayo dropped out after completing his foundation courses in order to create his own path in the fine art world.

“Ekundayo combines both subversive graffiti aesthetics in combination with art-historical erudition using acrylic, gouache, watercolor, ink and various carving techniques. Ekundayo’s work expresses the struggle of life and how those struggles and burdens can either inspire us to change in a constructive way or weigh us down by our own inability to change.”

To see more of Ekundayo’s work, visit Ekundayo.com. There is also a great selection of his work on the Thinkspace Gallery website.

Nick Georgiou: Paper Sculpture

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Paper Sculpture - Nick-Georgiou

These cool paper sculptures are by Tucson, Arizona based artist Nick Georgiou.  Georgiou’s work is inspired by “the death of the printed word/world, economic collapse, political and environmental uncertainty.

Georgiou states: “Books and newspapers are becoming artifacts of the 21st century. Whatever we used to read off paper, we’re now reading off digital screens. Our way of interacting with text is changing. My work is not only about the decline of the printed word in today’s society but its rebirth as art.”

Georgiou recently opened a new gallery/studio space in downtown Tucson.  He is also completing a documentary about the decline of the printed word, and is working on a series of sculptures for a solo exhibition in Cyprus and Greece.

For more information, check out Nick’s blog: MyHumanComputer.blogspot.com.

Sources: Juxtapoz Interview 1, Juxtapoz Interview 2

 

Claudio Ethos: Urban Art

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Claudio Ethos

The pool of talent coming out of São Paulo, Brazil seems endless and it’s no wonder it is considered by many to be the centre of the street art /urban art movement. The images featured today are by Brazilian urban artist Claudio Ethos.  Born in São Paulo in 1982, Ethos currently lives in Birigüi, in São Paulo state.

Ethos began working with spray paint as well as ballpoint pen at around the age of 15 and still uses these mediums today.   Influences include Brazillians Os Gemeos, Vitche, Onesto, and Herbert Baglione. His stunning large scale murals usually originate from his small ballpoint pen drawings and the intricate detail of his work has gained him recognition from his peers, art enthusiasts, and galleries around the world.

“Ethos’ characters have undeniably become some of the most recognized all throughout Brazil with his ephemeral work at times straddling the line of the figurative and abstract. His elongated, flexible, and strained figures have an almost liquid quality to them; one foot firmly in the school of the surrealists. He also displays a solid grasp of textiles in the use of patterns. Huge black balls serve as eyes for the exhausted and maligned residents of the concrete jungle. These characters are a mixture of dreams and fragments of everyday life within the city.” (from Juxtapoz)

As well as being seen on the streets of São Paulo, Ethos has exhibited internationally including Studiocromie in Puglia, Italy, San Francisco’s 111 Mina, and the Christopher Henry Gallery in New York.

To see more of Ethos’ work, visit ClaudioEthos.com or see the source links below.

Sources: Juxtapoz, Ekosystem (images)

Elbow Toe: Collage/Mixed Media

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Growl-but-Never-Bark © Elbow-Toe

Growl-but-Never-Bark © Elbow-Toe - Cut Paper on Birch Panel

Today’s image is by the versatile Brooklyn, NY based artist ELBOW-TOE. “ELBOW-TOE has been creating introspective urban art for several years. His artwork for the streets is grounded in myth, symbolism and poetry and is primarily executed  in woodcut, stencil or large-scale charcoal drawings. His oeuvre is a study of human gesture as communication and he utilizes public spaces as stages for private moments. He is particularly interested in the ability of environmental forces outside his control to create a timeless quality to the work thereby allowing it to feel as if it has been memory and is part of the collective unconscious.

ELBOW-TOE’s gallery work focuses on portraiture and abstract narrative and is primarily executed in collage. These intricate collages at first glance might be mistaken for paintings given that they have a fluidity rarely seen in collages. Whilst his work has a very unique style it draws on a rich history of figurative painting and has qualities reminiscent of Freud, Bacon and Soutine.” (bio from artist’s website)

Check out more of Elbow Toe’s work at Elbow-Toe.com or see his photostream on Flickr.

Labrona: Painting/Street Art

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© Labrona

Today’s images are by Canadian painter and street artist Labrona.  Based in Montreal, Labrona is well known for his work on city walls and freight trains, and he is quickly gaining international recognition for his striking figurative paintings on canvas.  Inspired by 80’s skate culture, rundown industrial areas, and German Expressionism, his work stems from his fascination with and desire to convey raw human emotion.

When asked why trains?, Labrona says: “I love the rush of painting trains. Pulling of a really nice drawing in a limited time. I’m not much of a talker so I use my art as my voice. I send my thoughts and emotions on to the railways for people to see.  A train yard is like a forever-changing outdoor art gallery.”

In the last several years Labrona has begun to make a name for himself in the fine art world with gallery exhibitions in the United States,  Canada, and the UK. To see more of his work, visit his photostream on Flickr.

Labrona-wall Labrona-train The Cycle © Labrona

Sources: Camp Barbosa

 

Berlin Wall Art: 20 Years After The Fall

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der-bruderkuss-dmitry-vrubel

On November 9, 2009, Berlin will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Numerous events are going on around the city including the restoration of the East Side Gallery – a 1.3km long section of the wall located along the bank of the Spree River. Initially created in 1989/1990, the wall is a memorial for freedom and is thought to be the largest open air gallery in the world, containing about 106 paintings by artists from all over the world.

Over the last 2 decades, time, weather, pollution, and vandals have taken their toll and the wall has been crumbling and the paint peeling and fading.  Since early 2009, almost 90 artists have worked to repaint their original creations, restoring it to it’s former glory.

The painted wall “is a document that allows future generations to picture for themselves … what the wall meant,” Mayor Klaus Wowereit said at an inauguration ceremony.

The artists “have conveyed a second time their genuine euphoria from 1990,” said Kani Alavi, who heads the East Side Gallery Artists’ Association and was a driving force behind the restoration. “Twenty years after the fall of the wall, the East Side Gallery stands for democracy and human rights”.

The wall is a popular tourist attraction and the Berlin City Government contributed more than 2 million euros to help fund the restoration.

For more information about the East Side Gallery, visit the East Side Gallery website. You can also find more information on BerlinWallArt.com. (Note, both websites are dated and do not contain information about the current restoration.) For more information about the Berlin Wall, visit Wikipedia.  CBC News also has an interesting interactive history of the Berlin Wall.

Sources: CBC, The German Way (images), Life According to Plan (Theirry Noir images)

David Choe: Painting

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david-choe

The images shown today are by American artist David Choe. Born in 1976 in Los Angeles, California, Choe is is one of the most diverse and prolific artists working today. His art, photos, and writing have been featured in Giant Robot, and Vice magazine among numerous other publications. His client list includes Marvel Comics, Levi’s, IBM, and Nike.  

Choe has spoken and lectured at Princeton, DUKE, Dartmouth and other art colleges. He has designed and created fine art, murals, movie sets, movie posters, album covers, shoes, t-shirts, toys, calendars, commercials, cars, magazines, books, illustrations for porn, children’s story books, comics, and animation. He has curated art shows, art directed books and magazines, as well as self-publishing all his own books which have all won numerous awards.

Choe’s art has been exhibited all over the world and he is one of the youngest artists ever to have a solo show at the Museum of Contemporay Art in Los Angeles. His work is in museums and galleries but he still sells art out of his parents’ garage and his mini van.

For more information about David Choe, visit DavidChoe.com. A trailer of the new documentary “Dirty Hands: The Art and Life of David Choe”, is available on view at DirtyHandsMovie.com.

david-choe2 david-choe-exodus-from-land-of-play david-choe-obama

Sources: Jonathan Levine Gallery, No Walls Gallery, The Agency Group

Doze Green: Street Art to Fine Art

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Doze Green-Ancestros Totemic Series-Cuba-2008

Today’s image is by New York artist Doze Green.

“Green was born and raised in the upper west side of Manhattan, New York City and was one of the pioneers of the Hip-Hop culture. He first started writing graffiti in his neighborhood in 1974, and started painting subway trains in 1976. The following year he joined the Rock Steady Crew. The Rock Steady Crew were pioneers of a new style of dance known as break dancing or B-Boying. The crew first started dancing at art exhibitions and galleries of Soho and the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

During this time Doze Green was also attending the High School of Art and Design, where some of the most talented and well-respected graffiti artists came from. In 1982 Green showed his artwork in a well-known group show at the Fun Gallery. At this same time after appearances in major movies such as Flashdance, Style Wars, and Wildstyle, the Rock Steady Crew was launched into action and the limelight.

From B-boy to graffiti legend, Doze Green has gone to tagging the hallways of South Bronx projects to designing for clothing lines like Kikwear and Ecko. In the process, he’s become a proponent of the avant-garde “fusionistic” art movement. Best known for his characters, Doze Green has begun to concentrate on canvases that blend wildstyle techniques with metaphysical concepts. Doze Green is also known for his live painting performances. Doze Green’s work is in many public and private collections throughout the United States, Japan, Europe, and Australia. His works have been published in BlackBook, Anthem, Juxtapoz, Tokion, and Vibe and reviewed on CNN.” (from Jonathan Levine Gallery)

To see more of Green’s work, visit Doze Green.com