Painting Walls: Graffiti, Street Art & Urban Art

With large scale murals spread across Australia’s east coast, Shida is a heavyweight of the street art scene down-under. For the Polish Urban Forms Foundation, he brought one of his vibrant, energy-loaded murals to Lodz! Urban Forms fundamental mission is to saturate cityscape with creative, multilayered and modern art, that would allow to improve current image of Lodz, giving it a truly artistic and original value. The main tool to reach our aim is large format painting done directly on the side elevations of buildings, as it changes appearance of a given space permanently. (about Urban Forms) ...

Almost a year after his collaboration show with Stormie Mills, famous abstract graffiti artist Remi Rough is back at Unit44 gallery in Newcastle and just shared some photos of his latest artworks for that recent solo-exhibition! Entitled How to use colour to manipulate people the show presents sculptural work and paintings, that are a big departure from his earlier graffiti paintings… The sculptural work is reminiscent of Serra, his lines and forced shapes brought to life as 3D objects in both wood and clay. ascending to a third dimension seems almost obvious with Remi’s work. Whilst Remi’s new paintings are more referential to his earlier work from 5 years ago, using bitumen and matt emulsion and still maintaining a tight narrative of tension which is a constant in his work. These are abstract works, yet they are firmly rooted in reality. (Unit 44) ...

Hey folks, good news for all the creative heads among yourselves: We’re starting into this week with a small lottery, giving away three Montana Acrylic Marker Sets sponsored by Inflammable.com, your sneaker and graffiti shop! Each Montana Acrylic Marker Set (see teaser photo) includes, in addition to several smaller things like an USB stick and pencils, three markers and refill paint! All you have to do to win is to follow at least one of the following instructions: ...

I just stumbled upon a six month old project by Czech urban art crew EPOS 257 entitled Urban Shooting Paintings! For the Urban Shooting Paintings EPOS 257, who became popular with the 50 square meters of public space intervention in Prague, uses homemade weapon and ammunition… The theme – a gesture signalling an attack – remains the same. Its essence, however, relates more to the very roots of guerrilla art, established at the end of the 1960s in the US by activist groups refashioning billboard adverts.I move around with the weapon in the open urban landscape. In my case, it is not an attack on a particular advert but billboard as a medium in general, which in this context represents a painter’s canvas in the urban landscape. (EPOS 257) ...

Some weeks ago I informed you about the brilliant anamorphic mural paintings by Spanish Boa Mistura crew, now they published the corresponding video documentary! Boa Mistura’s project Luz Nas Vielas has been carried out in Vila Brasilândia, São Paulo, during January 2012. The project is part of the Crossroads series: Boa Mistura’s participative urban art interventions to modify rundown communities using art as a tool for change and inspiration. Between the 4th and 16th of January BOA MISTURA had the opportunity to live in Brasilândia, hosted by the Gonçalves family, having this way direct contact with the community. After preliminary studies and analysis, the defined framework are the narrow and winding streets that connects the urban net, known as Vielas and Becos. The dialogue with residents and their active participation has been decisive for the Project. Beleza, Firmeza, Amor, Docura andOrgulho are the concepts chosen by the collective for the interventions. ...

After his astonishing Point of View exhibition in Berlin, Australian urban artist, photo-realistic painter and writer Matt Adnate is going to open his Lost Culture show in Melbourne! Born and raised in Melbourne, Matt Adnate, has spent years traveling and painting the world. He has contributed to the scene through countless street art murals and exhibitions. In recent years his studio art has been the primary focus with major group, collaborative and solo exhibitions. His work can be seen in cities such as New York, Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, Sydney and Mumbai. (Rtist Gallery) ...

Famed Alex Diamond is well-known but still a nobody. The artist’s artworks are popular but there’s no corresponding face, neither a determined gender. Short, Alex Diamond is a ghost without identity… The Alex Diamond Mining Company was not just the name of the Alex Diamond exhibition in Hamburg back in 2011, it also is the latest chapter in the unusual story of Alex Diamond, an artistic project that has been evading the definition of a fixed personality behind the pictures since its beginnings in 2004. And it is the title of Alex Diamond’s latest book, documenting on around 90 colored, German and English labeled pages the diversity of created artworks, reaching from woodcuts and prints to installations, mixed media projects and photography! ...

Attentive Urban Art Core readers should already know what the somehow cryptic slogan Anamorphic Graffiti describes - those of you who have no clue should definitely check out the brilliant paintings by Italian art collective Truly Design, the latest stuff by Spanish urban art collective Boa Mistura, the murals by Ninja182 or these most current anamorphic graffiti works by French TSF crew! Using anamorphic painting techniques, makes it possible to create impressing murals, which can only be seen in their completeness from a specific angle – otherwise they look strange and distorted. As my Wikipedia-friends know, Anamorphosis is a distorted projection or perspective requiring the viewer to use special devices or occupy a specific vantage point to reconstitute the image. The word anamorphosis is derived from the Greek prefix ana-, meaning back or again, and the word morphe, meaning shape or form. ...

Last week, I followed Berlin-based Quintessenz Creation crew and Danny Doom to their exhibition setup at OZM Gallery in the creative heart of Hamburg city! Entitled …think of all the stories we could have told, the Danny Doom meets Quintessenz show presents a large number of their own canvas works including screen prints, paintings and experimental technique mashups as well as massive canvas collaboration works, combining all their different styles, tastes and color-preferences. This interesting mixture makes the art show a nice starting point for those who want to see the latest urban-inspired art trends from Berlin! ...

A few days ago, the Welcome To Detroit exhibition by Evan Roth (the guy who invented the Graffiti Markup Language) finished and after presenting several new works, combining popular culture with a certain hacker’s philosophy, what persists is all those great short-films, Roth created documenting his Propulsion Paintings series… Evan Roth has been living and making new work in Detroit for the last month, gearing up for a solo exhibition that opens this Wednesday at Eastern Michigan University: Welcome to Detroit. His new series of artworks is called: Propulsion Paintings. As part of his residency at Eastern Michigan University, he’s teaching a course called Art and Hacking where he had the students create their own Propulsion Paintings as their first project. (todayandtomorrow.net) ...