Drawing Inspiration: Graffiti, Street & Urban Art

Good news for all urban-inspired artist who always wanted to exhibit their stuff in Berlin: Berlin’s finest Idrawalot Gallery and Showroom is hosting an art exhibition contest, rewarding the top three artists with a group show at Idrawalot Gallery later this year! The contest is open to all artist from around the globe allows any 2D piece of art, drawing, illustration, screen printing, painting, etc to be submitted… Instructions - Once received by email they will be added to a photo album called "Idrawalot Exhibition Contest - 2012" at our Facebook Fan page. - Voting for the Exhibition Contest will be measured by "likes" on each artwork. - Have your facebook friends go and "Like" your artwork. - The three artist with the most "Likes" on their artwork will get a group show at Idrawalot Gallery / Showroom in the fall. Artwork Email Submissions Deadline: April 15th, 2012 Voting by “Likes” Deadline: April 30th, 2012 Top 3 Winners will be announced in May, 2012 ...

Fortunately, Jeff Soto has a friend in Paris, who is urban explorer and urban art enthusiast. Otherwise the US-based artist would never have had the chance to create those nice chalk drawing in an exhaust vent above the Metro line underneath Paris! Chalk Underground Drawings Jeff is not the first urban artist who went exploring the almost hidden ways under the French capital: Not long ago, a team including C215, Futura 2000, Conor Harrington, How & Nosm, Saber, and SheOne explored and repainted the Parisian tunnel system (one of the most spectacular throughout Europe!), creating Underbelly Project Paris. ...

aryz exhibition barcelona Regularly used by computer scientists as a first test output for any kind of software, the phrase Hello World in the context of an exhibition by one of the world’s leading urban artists Aryz means something totally different! Style is the limit. (Aryz) At Montana Gallery Barcelona he is presenting a solo exposition for the first time with a series of oil paintings combined with fabrics and drawings. Although it’s probably quite hard for some who is well-known for huge murals around the world to be restricted to a reduced canvas size he did a fantastic job, as the photos from the opening (which took place only a few days ago) prove! ...

Since he’s living in Berlin, Danish artist Jakob Tolstrup further develops his technique steadily and creates one or other new artwork… Born in 1983 in Denmark, Jakob started to draw in his childhood and hasn’t quit ever since. In the mid 90′s he got introduced to graffiti which had a big impact on his life and work. Well-known for his often humorous illustration works, Jakob is represented by different galleries in Copenhagen and Berlin and finally got a chance to present some of his latest Berlin inspired drawings and paintings at Voo Store. ...

Berlin-based street artist Mein Lieber Prost (or just Prost for short) opened his first solo-show last Thursday at Westberlin Gallery. Like me, a lot of people who know his well-known character tags and minimalistic street art sketches from Berlin’s streets, went to see whether it’s possible to bring this spontaneous works into a gallery space… The 24 hour king of street amusement, whose bold visual statements on society are a crime to miss, is happy to temporarily work within the walls of a gallery filling the space with his message by ironising and criticizing established conventions, and making a positive change. (Westberlin Gallery) ...

Roa: An Introduction To Animal Representation by Mammal Press is the first limited edition book by famous Belgian urban artist Roa! As announced I was able to get some quick photographically insights into it during the opening of Roa’s currently running exhibition in Berlin, for what reason here are the first and exclusive insights… Although the book I looked over was just some kind of a quick prototype (the final version will by slightly different), it felt good in my hands and seems to be a must to have not just for collectors. It includes not just photos of Roa’s murals from all over the globe, but also a great collection of Roa sketches and drawings as well as corresponding text describing animals. ...

Urban Art Show | As already mentioned in the street art news review, Swiss urban artist Tika recently opened her exhibition, the so called Tikathek, at Skalitzers Gallery in Berlin. Now I found some time to swing by and take a closer look at her latest artworks… Moving back and forward between cities, mediums and textures, TIKA’s works display a unique energy, reflective of her extensive travels and perspectives on todays global society, as well as the nearly forgotten traditions and sagas of the past. (Skalitzers Gallery) ...

Banksy is - as you maybe noticed - on a trip through the United States und Canada. Following LA, San Francisco, Detroit, Chicago and Toronto, the worlds most famous street artist recently visited Boston. In addition to that typical Banksy artworks, which work with a lot sarcasm and which you could find following his route, he left behind some very nice and inspiring large-scale painting, which were called the Banksy Child Drawing Series by the Wooster Collective. ...

Alex Diamond has a crazy style. The comic-influenced drawings and paintings are floating around in Europe for some years. In 2009, he was part of the urban art project Artotale in Lueneburg and is in Barcelona for his current exhibition, called Demon Circus, right now. Today, I received an e-mail by Jörg from the Heliumcowboy Artspace including info about this nice video, which gives some impressions of the show, including an interesting stop-motion painting clip. ...

Do you know the British artist Stephen Wiltshire? No? Me neither, but today I read an very interesting article about him and his great Manhattan Skyline drawing… …He is the world’s leading architectural artist! Stephen Wiltshire was born on April 24, 1974 in London. When he was about three years old, he was diagnosed as autistic. The special thing about him is, that he is able to draw intricate buildings and cityscapes completely from memory! And I meen not only small villages or urban scenes, but whole cities or skylines. “In 2005, for example, following a short helicopter ride over Tokyo, Japan, he drew a stunningly detailed panoramic view of the city on a 10-meter-long canvas.” ...