urban

SASU

in ,

(Tokyo)

Sasu's work fuses natural and urban elements with her graphic yet balanced style. Her sensibilities, rich colors and feminine lines create a unique world never seen before.

Sasu believes that her instinctual sense of balance, as seen in her more characteristic paintings symmetrical, mandara-like shapes and figures truly reflect her personality. Mural being the center of the scene, she pursues new areas of artwork. 

The wishes for the endless glow is created into shapes, and the process is crystalized into fine artwork.

Watch this video:

 

SANER

in ,

(Mexico City)

Edgar “Saner” Flores is an urban artist, illustrator and graphic designer. Raised by his parents in Mexico City and surrounded by rich color and tradition, Saner developed an interest in drawing and Mexican muralism early on. He began expressing himself on paper and through graffiti art, later going on to earn a degree in graphic design from the Universidad Autónoma de México. His creations are influenced by Mexican custom and folklore, color, mysticism, masks and skulls. A mix of these lifelong interests and passions has led him to become the artist he is today.

Saner’s work has been featured in galleries in Mexico, the United States, London, Berlin and Barcelona. He has collaborated with Kidrobot, Vans, G-Shock, HQTR Canada, Pineda Covalin, Persigna Store, Bacardi, Adidas México, Televisa, and many others.

Watch Saner give a tour of Mexico City and talk about other muralists by MOCA:


PEAT WOLLAEGER

in ,

(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:


MARCO ZAMORA

in ,

(1981, California, US)

Marco Zamora received a BFA from California Institute of the Arts in 2004. His work is inspired by the working class, the chaos of city life, and personal discomfort.

He uses photographic reference for the landscape in his paintings and afterwards improvises figures. The desired result is ‘a beautiful and complex tension between humankind and the urban landscape,’ he says.

Zamora currently lives and works in Los Angeles California. His work has been exhibited across the west coast and in Barcelona, Miami, and Copenhagen.

Watch this video by Converse:


LOGAN HICKS

in ,

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:


EVOL

in ,

(1972, Berlin, Germany)

With a degree in product design, street artist Evol has become known for his urban installations and paintings made on reclaimed cardboard. Evol is interested in depicting the urban lives of ordinary people in decaying buildings. For his public practice, he turns electrical boxes and street fixtures into miniature architectural models of austere apartments, using a process that combines pasting paper, stenciling, and painting. 

He also stencils and paints urban street scenes and buildings onto cardboard and incorporates its tears, markings, and folds into his compositions as part of the buildings’ facades. Evol believes that the character and history of any space is manifest on its surface, and many of his works are narrative or suggestive of the turbulent history of Berlin.

Watch this video of his work:


DIET

in ,

(San Francisco, US)

Tim Diet began painting in the 80's, sneaking out of his parents' house at night to "tag" alongside his older brother. The graffiti lifestyle immediately drew him in and influenced not only his craft, but his persona and idea factory as well. Diet has traveled across the US, Europe and Japan, just to paint. His recognizable work can be found on streets across the globe, in numerous books and publications, and now in galleries as his unique style continues to develop.

With childhood icons and trademarks representative of current day urban experiences, Tim Diet creates colorfully striking narratives through his juxtaposition of nostalgic imagery. His paintings are cleverly playful, evoking a non-judgmental yet multidimensional perspective of varied modern lifestyles. 

Drawing inspiration from his extensive collection of iconic relics from days past, his work communicates through fresh visual language that vividly connects to a broad audience. 


DALEK

in ,

(1968, Connecticut, US)

Dalek is an American artist and designer based in Raleigh, North Carolina. He has published two books featuring his artwork, as well as being included in many other books and magazines.

Merging animation, Japanese pop art, and an urban aesthetic, James Marshall 'Dalek' is best known for his Space Monkey character -a strange, vaguely humanoid mouse that he would depict in an array of bright colors and twisted circumstances, often wielding a butcher’s cleaver. Working under the name Dalek, Marshall expressed his ideas through the Space Monkey character until 2007, when he began working in a purely abstract style. 

He has always been engaged in skateboard and graffiti subcultures, and Marshall cites his two-year assistantship in the studio of controversial Japanese artist Takashi Murakami as a formative experience.


Watch a timelapse video by Hurley here:

ARMSROCK

in ,

(1984, Coppenhagen, Denmark)

Armsrock is an urban-artist and activist who, for the last several years, has been working with the human condition in the urban environment. He has been working with the medium of drawing in various ways to explore and comment on the city and the society that’s housed within it. He has been trying to question the role of art and artist in society by making art that is ephemeral, for free and for everybody. 

By creating hundreds of unique drawings of his fellow citizens, and placing these original pieces on the walls of the city, in an attempt to generate a critical understanding of the stories and fates that houses around and in all of us, he hopes to send a signal or raise a question about the details and mechanisms of our society.

Watch a visit to Armsrock studio by Daniel Lahonda here: