REVOLT

(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:

QUICK & SEEN

(1958, New York, US) / (1961, New York, US)

Lin Felton aka QUIK is a painter and graffiti artist from New York. He was born in Queens in 1958 and started using graffiti to display his art in subways. He is known for his comical and satirical style that is known to be arrogant. Felton started tagging the walls of Queens at the age of 10, taking the name Star10. His fascination for this world started when he saw the metro trains in movement covered in tags. He then changed his name to QUIK and signs wherever he can.

Richard "Richie" Mirando, known as Seen UA, born 1961 in the Bronx, New York City, is one of the most well known graffiti artists in the world, often referred to as the Godfather of Graffiti, although he did not pioneer the movement.

Seen first started to paint on New York City subway system in 1973. His crew United Artists (or simply UA) quickly gained the reputation for producing full-color throw-ups on whole cars with members such as Pjay, Duster, Sin, and his brother Mad.

Watch this video by Walrus TV:

POTES

(1977)

Dave Potes' primary aesthetic is in documentary photography, focusing on people and landscapes. In 2001, after many years of producing small, limited edition zines, David, his brother Ray Potes and Stefan Simikich began publishing a quarterly black and white photography magazine called Hamburger Eyes.

Alongside his work as a commercial, editorial, and art photographer, David continues to focus his attentions on publishing limited edition zines and books. He is currently based in New York.

Watch this video about Dave Potes self-portraits by Dominick Volini:

MIKE GIANT

(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:

FAB FIVE FREDDY

(1959, New York, US)

Fred Brathwaite, more popularly known as Fab 5 Freddy, is an American hip hop pioneer, visual artist and filmmaker. He emerged in New York's downtown underground creative scene in the late 1970s as a camera operator and a regular guest on Glenn O'Brien's public access cable show, TV Party. There he met Chris Stein and Debbie Harry. He was immortalized in 1981 when Harry rapped on the Blondie song "Rapture", "Fab 5 Freddy told me everybody's fly." In the late 1980s, Fab 5 Freddy became the first host of the groundbreaking and first internationally telecast hip-hop music video show, Yo! MTV Raps.