Extinguisher Graffiti Art: Styles, Techniques & Artists

Last Friday, Berlin-based Quintessenz Creation crew (don’t forget their upcoming exhibition together with Danny Doom in Hamburg!) was invited by a somehow popular sporting goods manufacturer to paint a mural at Sage Club in Mitte, which is why Berlin now has another colorful facade… Using nothing more than liters and liters of paint together with several alienated fire extinguishers, the Quintessenz boys bombarded the prepared wall (they previously painted a shoe silhouette using latex-paint) and created in that way meters long drips in different colors which now are visible from long distance. I for one took cover from the paint-rain and tried to take some photos from the roof, documenting the action. ...

You can see a lot of train graffiti in Berlin and I already saw the weirdest things like semi-automated train graffiti devices, other stuff and of course I know fire extinguisher graffiti and ink tank paintings, but I’ve never heard about people using fire extinguishers to paint their trains - until yesterday… High Speed Train Graffiti On my regular way through Berlin I had to wait at Ostkreuz for my train and was pleasantly surprised when that blue dripping babe entered the station. In my eyes this is definitely the next step of train graffiti, taking the fire extinguisher technique to another level! And it perfectly shows what more anti-graffiti cops and criminalization carry through: ...

I well remember that amazing stop motion film “True Colors” by Tomislav Topic about the power of pure color and creative ideas. In about five minutes, which were recorded in almost four month, he and his crew brought color to life and created in that way an urban art showpiece project. Recently the making-of was published which documented the development process and which proves that there’s indeed no digital fake - everything is handmade! ...

True Colors is a brand-new and amazing stop motion film by Tomislav Topic, which shows the power of combining different urban art disciplines in one great artwork! When I saw the video first I was really impressed by the fantastic ideas and the kick-ass outworking. Tomislav mixed wall painting, tape art, fire extinguishers, 3D-objects and some other crazy things and tells in that way a nice and creative urban art story… ...

For graffiti artists around the world, fire extinguishers become more and more popular. Whether Katsu, Moral, KR, or others, everywhere urban artists use the high-pressure tanks to paint their tags in oversize. But there’s at least one disadvantage with that modern technology of mural painting - when the pressure capsule is empty, you can throw away the fire extinguisher… More comfortable is it to use smaller pressure sprayers. Yes, I mean those (pesticide) tanks you can buy for little money in every DIY market. The guys from Just Straight Photos recently made some action with there own ink tank! It’s nice to see, how good this special high-pressure tank works for painting some big tags… ...

Craig “KR” Costello is in Hamburg next week! In cooperation with auto-manufacturer Mini, he will paint a brand new car which will be presented in the “Ersteliebebar” and at Vicious Gallery. KR, who grew up in New York, founded his own company for paint, markers, and other graffiti equipment, named KRink, several years ago. He’s is famous for his abstract and colorful fire extinguisher drip-pieces, which can be found around the globe. Now, he has brought fresh new artworks to Hamburg, which will be shown additionally to the painted car. ...