graffiti

ZEPHYR

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(New York, US)

ZEPHYR, born Andrew Witten, is a graffiti artist, lecturer and author from New York City. He began creating graffiti in 1975 and first signed using the name "Zephyr" in 1977. He has been identified as a graffiti "elder", who along with Futura 2000, Blade, PHASE 2, CASH, Lady Pink and TAKI 183 invented styles and standards which are still in use.

His works can be seen in the hip-hop culture documentary Style Wars and he was featured as himself in the landmark hip-hop motion picture Wild Style. He is co-author of a 2001 biography of fellow graffiti artist, Dondi White: Dondi White Style Master General: The Life of Graffiti Artist Dondi White. He is interviewed in the 2005 DIY graffiti video The Art of Storytelling, where he talks about fallen graffiti artist Nace. He was featured in the documentary Bomb It.

His name was inspired by a brand of surfboards and skateboards. Many of his most popular pieces have been done by simply redesigning his trademark name "Zeph" or "Zephyr". Sharp contrast in the edges of the letters are also featured throughout his artwork.

Watch this video by Walrus TV:


STEVE LOPEZ

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(Los Angeles, US)

Born in Los Angeles, Steve Lopez was heavily influenced by hip hop culture and graffiti art. He is a painter who has emerged from the graffiti subculture and academic influence. While attending the University of Oregon Lopez studied under the guidance of master sculptor, Dora Natella and design theorist, Leon Johnson. Lopez absorbed attention to form associated with Natella’s sculptures, while refining his conceptual vocabulary through Johnson’s critique on visual continuity.

In 2000, Lopez Received his B.A. in Fine Art. His work can be found within a myriad of corporate and private art collections both in the United States and abroad. He currently lives and works in the City of Los Angeles.

SMITHE

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(Mexico City)

Smithe has been making art since he was 12 years old. Born and raised in the streets of Mexico City, he got an appreciation for the street art around his neighborhood and it developed into a full time lifestyle / career. 

Art has opened doors for him and allowed him to travel to different countries and practice his passion. With art shows in England, Belgium and Germany, Smithe has already made quite a name for himself in the international street art and graffiti scene. His talents don’t stop with a spray can either, Smithe is a fantastic illustrator and sculptor and he plays in a band in D.F., “Punto Stendal”.

Watch this video of Smithe's battle for the big apple by All City Cavnvas:

RICH JACOBS

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(1972, California, US)

Rich Jacobs is an American artist and curator who currently lives and works in Oakland, CA. Jacobs has exhibited in the United States, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. In 2008 his work Minor Threat Family Tree was featured prominently along with other works by Jacobs at the London Ontario Live Arts Festival in Canada.

Inspired by graffiti, psychedelic and folk art, Jacobs' raw, colorful work frequently appears on a broad range of materials such as magazines, books, CD and LP covers (including most of the albums for Salt Lake City-based group Iceburn), footwear, apparel (such as parkas, skirts and dresses), skateboards, buildings, pillows and so on.

Watch this video of Rich painting on Culture Catch:


REVOLT

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(New York, US)

Dr. Revolt began his practice in 1977 as an original member of the historic New York City graffiti crew, The Rolling Thunder Writers (RTW). Known for doing both tags & elaborate & colorful pieces, he developed his reputation by taking over the Broadway #1 line with his colorful psychedelic & comic art influenced stylings & later, taking it "all-city". With his contributions to the seminal classic hip-hop films "Wild Style & "Style Wars", various music videos & his tour of duty in Baltimore where he, like a "messenger of style" single handedly kick-started a graff-scene that still feels his influence today, his place in the history of graff-dom is secure. 

Today, Dr. Revolt's accomplishments far surpass his early NYC beginnings. In addition to designing several t-shirts, album covers, & logo work for various artists including: THE FUN LOVIN' CRIMINALS, THE BLACK CROWS, CAMP LOW, GRANDMASTER FLASH, SLY-n-ROBIE'S TAXI DJ. LINK, SKARhead, etc. & creating the classic "YO! MTV Raps' logo, his work has been, & continues to be seen in various publications & art galleries globally.

Watch this video of Revolt and Zephyr:


RETNA

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(1979, Los Angeles, US)

RETNA (Marquis Lewis) is a contemporary artist, primarily recognized for graffiti art. He was born and raised in Los Angeles, and started his career in the early 1990s. 

He cites eclectic artistic influences, such as illuminated manuscripts, Renaissance imagery, and contemporary text-based art. Religious architecture and décor have long been a focus of his. He has mentioned Degas, Klimt, Basquiat,Haring and the Art Nouveau movement as historical references. Particular to his graffiti writing, Saber and David Choeare cited as influences, among others.

Retna has developed a constructed script which he uses in much of his work. Each block of text is a system of hieroglyphs, calligraphy and illuminated script that has been influenced by Arabic calligraphy, Egyptian hieroglyphs,Hebrew, Blackletter, and Native American typographies. Retna's script communicates personal messages and poetry which are not immediately decipherable to a pedestrian audience.

Watch this video interview by MOCA:


PEZ

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(1976, Spain)

Pez started painting in 1999 in his hometown Barcelona. Specifically, he got into street art writing his signature, which soon took the shape of a fish. Little by little his tags turned into the shape of a smiling blue fish, and he became a celebrity throughout Barcelona.

Writing that peculiar signature, and influenced by comic and urban subcultures, he was interested in searching for a character whose language was universal. This was the birth of his famous character; a fish with a huge smile. 

His works appear in the best-known street art books: Street Logos, Art of Rebellion, Street Art, Bcn New York, in specialized magazines and internet websites. Last years, Pez has been creating several characters, not only his fish character, but also demons, angels, giraffes, and Martians. There is one thing they all have in common: a huge smile.

Check out this video by 55tvc:


PEAT WOLLAEGER

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(St. Louis, MO, US)

Peat 'EYEZ' Wollaeger has been drawing and painting ever since he was a kid. He started doing commercial art in the 90’s and continued for almost a decade, creating urban designs for such clients as Coca-Cola, R. J. Reynolds, M&M Mars, Anheuser Busch and some lesser evils. Burned out with the graphic arts scene and not creating any personal art, he started using stencils and spray enamels to reproduce his illustrations, and now it’s his medium of choice. 

Internationally known for his whimsical, raw, and brightly-colored stenciled characters that include, Mr. Teeth, the Dead Fat Comedians, Albino Alley Cat, and the Luchador series, Peat Wollaeger is one hard-working artist. His work can been seen all over the globe. His Luchador room at Hotel Des Arts in San Francisco, his massive wall tribute to Keith Hairing at Art Basel in Miami, the 700,000 aluminum bottles of Mountain Dew with emblazoned with his original design, his recent exhibit in Melbourne, Australia, Peat Wollaeger's art is everywhere. 

Watch this video of 'Opening Eyez on the Street' by TEDx Talks:


PAUL INSECT

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(UK)

Paul Insect is a street artist, who is most famous for his 2007 solo show Bullion exhibition at London's Art gallery, Lazarides Gallery. Damien Hirst is reported to be a fan of Insect, having purchased the show days before it opened. Insect, who also goes by the name of PINS, worked alongside well-known artist Banksy at the Cans Festival, Santas Ghetto, and on the separation wall in Palestine.

Insect is well known for his collective named 'insect' which started in 1996, and disbanded in 2005. Insect held an exhibition at a disused Sex shop in London's Kings Cross area in 2008 in partnership with Lazarides Gallery. This contained 12 bronze skulls with colour enameled bunny ears.

Watch this video of Paul Insect with BAST:


NYCHOS

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(Austria)

Nychos is a renowned Austrian Street Artist. One of the most prolific of the European scene. His style is characterized by pop surrealist and often has a sordid and critical content, particularly on media and society. He is a wonderful illustrator and he dissects and disembowels animals that fill his compositions to put them better into light.

He was born into an Austrian hunting family in South Africa and spent much of his childhood seeing things which many ‘normal’ people would consider cruel or even brutal. For Nychos though, it was a fascinating world. At seven he was bitten by a boar while he was playing in the forest close to home. Just a little while later he had boar meat for lunch. In another instance he saw a dead baby lamb being consumed by maggots the same color as its fur. Instead of being horrified, he was fascinated. He studied the hidden insides of animals and noticed the way life often grows from other life. At the same time he was also a child of the 80s, growing up watching cartoons and being influenced by their flashy bright colors.

Nychos has done collaborations with international giant urban art scene as Roa, Aryz, Satone, Zedz and Wany.

Watch this video by Hypebeast:


MR. JAGO

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(1972, UK)

Duncan Jago is considered a veteran of the urban art and design community. He has been described as a pioneer of the Scrawl Movement. Growing up in the small village of Eye in Suffolk, Jago had an intense interest in graffiti, which led him to study illustration in Bristol.

He graduated from the University Of The West of England in Bristol in 1998. It was there that Jago met Steff Plaetz and Will Barras, which led the way to the start of the now renowned Scrawl Collective agency. Mr. Jago’s skills lie in everything from painting and illustration to creating artwork and designs for some of the biggest international brands.

Watch this interview by BBC Blast:


MISTER CARTOON

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(Los Angeles, US)

Mark Machado, better known as Mr. Cartoon or more commonly just Cartoon, is a Mexican American tattoo artist and graffiti artist based in Los Angeles, California. Since the age of eight, Mr. Cartoon realized he was an artist and went on his first paying art job at the age of twelve. Having grown up in the Harbor area of Los Angeles County, young Cartoon began airbrushing t-shirts and Lowrider cars before adopting the legendary "Fineline Style" tattoo art, which was developed in the California prison system.

Machado designed the logo for Cypress Hill. He has tattooed the bodies of Kobe Bryant, Dr. Dre, 50 Cent, Eminem, Method Man, Xzibit, Prodigy, Travis Barker, Scott Raynor, Bow Wow, Fredrik Ljungberg, Justin Timberlake, Beyoncé Knowles, Danny Trejo, Adil Omar, Mena Suvari, Jules Jordan, Emilio Rivera, Kurt Sutter, Redman, Lewis Hamilton, and Gabriel McDonald as well as Snoop Dogg. 

In addition to tattoos, Machado's work has been used by Nike, Toyota, T-Mobile, MetroPCS and in Grand Theft Auto. Machado appeared in the documentary Scarface: Origins of a Hip Hop Classic and is a contributor to Mass Appeal Magazine. Together with friend and frequent collaborator Estevan Oriol, he owns Joker Brand Clothing. He is affiliated with Soul Assassins.

Watch this interview by Young & Reckless:


MIKE GIANT

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(1971, New York, US)

Acclaimed worldwide for his prolific work in graffiti, illustration, design and tattoo, Mike Giant is one of the most complete artists of his generation.

As a child he moved to Albu­querque, New Mex­ico, where he stud­ied archi­tec­ture and later he landed in San Fran­cisco, where he was offered a job as a graphic draw­ing artist at Think Skate­boards. Even when he was very young, he worked as a writer in the world of graf­fiti and skate sub­cul­ture, becom­ing at the end of the nineties a tat­too artist, motor­cy­cle and bike cus­tomizer and, lastly, cre­ative mind of the lifestyle brand REBEL8. 

Mike Giant, who defines him­self as an “old hip­ster”, is known inter­na­tion­ally for the extreme pre­ci­sion and rig­or­ous black and white of his lines, that is affected by the influ­ence of pop­u­lar Mex­i­can art and Japan­ese illus­tra­tion. In his pro­duc­tion, that mixes styles and sym­bols of dif­fer­ent nature, we see a con­ver­gence of reli­gious iconog­ra­phy and death alle­gories, tribal sym­bol­ogy and Bud­dhist doc­trine, let­ter­ing and old school ele­ments, in a con­tin­u­ous inter­sect­ing of sacred and pro­fane, love and death. Seduc­tive pin ups and wink­ing femme fatales, BMX bikes, skulls, snakes and Cal­i­forn­ian urban visions pop­u­late his work, all made with extreme care, regard­less of the sup­port, whether it’s leather, paper, metal or cement. His draw­ings and mul­ti­ples have been shown in numer­ous spaces and gal­leries all over the world, from WDWA Gallery in New York to Mis­an­thropy Gallery in Van­cou­ver, to Magda Danysz Gallery in Paris to Mon­ster Chil­dren Gallery in Aus­tralia. Fur­ther­more, his works have often been used by lifestyle and cloth­ing brands, among which the bike com­pany Cinelli and the brands Tribal Gear and Upper Playground.

Watch this video by LandOfChrome:


MARS-1

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MARS-1 (aka Mario Martinez) is an artist who spends most of his time in the right side of his brain, communicating through a visual language. His unique imagery explores possibilities of otherworldly existence through highly developed, multi-layered landscapes. Often employing a fuzzy-logic aesthetic, Mars-1’s artwork has a sentient appearance, like a tulpa—which in mysticism, is the concept of a materialized thought that manifests into physical form. His unique style has been described as urban-Gothic, sci-fi abstracted, quasi-organic form.

Early inspirations include: graffiti, animation, comic book characters, ufology, extraterrestrials, unexplored life, mysteries of the universe, alternate realities and the abstract quality of existence. At the age of 13, Mars-1 began writing graffiti in his hometown of Fresno. He later attended Academy of Art in San Francisco, where he currently lives and works, remaining heavily active in the city’s contemporary art scene.

The true meaning of Mars-1’s imagery is ultimately left to the viewer’s interpretation. The artist feels this brings his creations full-circle, encouraging his audience not only to decipher the messages he wishes to convey but to receive thoughts and ideas of their own, as well.

Watch this video of his studio visit in San Francisco by Friends We Love:


LONDON POLICE

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(1998)

The London Police started in 1998 when big English geezers headed to Amsterdam to rejuvenate the visually disappointing streets of the drug capital of the world.

The motive was to combine travelling and making art to create an amazing way of life not seen since the days of King Solomon. From 2002 onward TLP started sending missionaries into all corners of the globe. Known for their iconic LADS characters and precision marking TLP have recently celebrated 10 strong years in the art world and their work has graced streets and galleries in 35 countries during this time.

London policemen have come and gone but founding members are still known to walk the streets of every city in the world spreading love with pens and stickers.

Watch this video of The London Police painting a mural at Art Basel 2007:

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LOGAN HICKS

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Logan Hicks is a New York-based stencil artist whose work explores the dynamics of the urban environment. Originally a screenprinter, Logan's work has gained notoriety due to his ability to capture the sometimes mundane cycle of city life in a haunting, yet refined way with his hand-sprayed stencils.

Stenciling started as a substitution for screenprinting, but quickly morphed into Logan's medium of choice. A perfect union was conceived by spraypaintingstencils his subjects: the dirty and gritty nature of the spraypaint thoroughly depicted the decay of the city while the muted shine of metallic paint mirrored the faint glimmer of hope and life within it. It is this symbiotic relationship with the city that fuels his work.

With his photorealistic style, Logan draws a parallel between the cold, harsh city and a warm, vibrant organism. It is alive; a breathing creature where the ebb and flow of people washing over its sidewalks act as cells circulating through its veins. Buildings block passageways, walls block views, doors hide openings. The outside world is effectively shut out while the city creates its own reality. Confined spaces on subways, honeycomb living structures; it is a labyrinth of working systems limited only by its border, its 'skin'.

Logan uses his art to explore the microcosm in which he is a cell, just part of a whole. The nuances of city life that epitomize the urban existence are what he dwells upon.

Watch this video of Logan Hicks exploring the nautical in his latest stencil paintings:


KRUSCH RHOADES

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(1982, US)

Krusch Rhoades spent the formative years of his youth in the “armpit of New York, the shoulders of New England and on the polluted teat of New Jersey.” Since then, Rhoades has travelled all over the country, and currently calls Santa Cruz his home. He has painted, drawn, molded, and scrawled for as long as he can remember.

Rhoades enjoys large scale work, especially when working with spray paint, which he calls the “closest synthesis of dance and paint.” That being said, the artist produces work of all scales regularly, and even paints bicycle frames.

“Paint and bicycles have been the most consistent relationships in my life and have therefore becomes the pillars of my existence,” said Rhoades.