WhoArtNow on Metal

We have been busy beavering away over the last few months working on lots of exciting new ranges of art. We've got the Wall Stickers, as well as the much anticipated range by international artist, BOYD.


So the Metal art has landed after over a year of developing. Part of the successful Plastic Art range that we started this time last year, we are following on with iconic images hand stencilled on high quality stainless steel. The high quality steel is rust proof, and with a coating of clear lacquer, we're able to offer these pieces of hand made art as external art work as well as internal. Mounting the metal on the wall, we are using stand-off bolts to set it 20-40mm off the wall. This means that it has a rock-solid mounting & gives it a slick, contemporary look.

Making a great addition to any interior, we also believe these pieces would look amazing in a garden or courtyard. These exclusive designs are hand-produced, sealed with lacquer and finished with the usual WHoArtNow seal of approval.


To kick the range off, we are launching a range of 12 images, from the Daft Punk, Slash and Darth Vadar you see here, we'll also be adding Scarface, Oasis and R2D2. More will be coming, and as you may have noticed, most of these are unique pieces of art exclusively for out new Metal Art range. If you have any suggestions for some metal art, why not leave us a suggestion in the comments?

There going to be available in 1 size, 62cm by 55cm (24.5" x 21.5") but we hope to offer a selection of sizes for various budgets shortly. The starting price for the 62x55 is going to be £99 (with £11.95 P&P) and that will become our "medium" size.

Sadly these photos don't do the metal art justice. The brushed stainless steel finish looks amazing in the flesh. The black contrasts really well with the soft, yet reflective metal to create a truly stunning piece of modern art.

There is also the possibility of custom "photo2metal" becoming available later in the year depending on demand.

Also watch out for some "exclusive" Metal Art from our resident Stencil Artist Frazier Boyd who's done such a good job on our canvas prints that we're getting him to do more!

Are you on Facebook? If so, why not become out fan? Once you've done that, you can enter our competition to win one of these exclusive pieces of Metal art. All you need to do is answer one simple question. We've opened this competition up to everyone in the world! As long as people outside of Mainland UK understand that a small charge will need to be made to enter. (Roughly £6 Europe and £15 for USA) Good luck!

Also feel free to check out our Plastic Art brochure.

Frazier Boyd: New Exhibitions & new Range

As a bit of a pre-launch to my new range with WHoArtNow (it is coming soon, just fine tuning everything) I thought I'd tell you about some of my work, being exhibited in the public domain.

I've got a some exhibitions cracking off at the in London next weekend, 4th, 5th and 6th December. The Venue is the Shoreditch Town Hall, the exhibition is by the East End Arts crew, and called One Ton Show. The work will be based around the theme of 'London Lyrics'.

I've Also got a Solo Exhibition up at Alley in Nottingham. It's a quality, intimate venue, & I've got some framed prints, in the gold Stately frames, and a selection of BOYD originals too, all produced on canvas. The concept behind the artwork is to try and replicate and re-create what I've been doing on the streets lately and putting it on canvas, so it's all about working into loads of multiple layers of texture, and scratching back into them to create a rough, worn and weathered style..

If you fancy popped down, Alley is a great little Vegan Cafe Bar in Nottingham. Check it out, as the Exhibition is drawing to a close now, been up since October.. So if you want to check it, get down to Cannon Court, LongRow West, Nottingham/// 01159551013 for more info.



Peace out, and I'll be in touch soon, with a new range of exclusive framed prints and canvas art.

Cans Festival 2008 Final Wrap Video

After the massive success of this years Cans Festival, the official video has been posted so you can have a look at the exhibition being constructed.

As you can see in the video, a lot of hard work was put in by a lot of people. Work I think you'll agree paid off, especially when you see the size of those cues! Proving street art, and specifically Stencil art is becoming the current must have art on your walls. Check out our ever expanding selection of stencil art over at WHoArtNow and some specials by Frazier Boyd.

Reverse Graffiti: The Future of Urban Art?

As I walked around our city center yesterday, I couldn't help but notice how much street art is appearing on our streets. There is a great mix of wheat pasting and stickering, some fantastic spray work, and some slightly more immature stencils, but whatever the form of art, there is more of it. And local councils are taking note.

There is an alternative however, British artist Paul 'Moose' Curtis is the pioneer of Reverse Graffiti (also known as grime writing,clean taggin or dust tagging) is a simple yet very effective solution.'Go Gently' was a piece Moose carried out in the grime and dirt of a Leeds tunnel. The stencil is applied to the wall and the reverse is cleaned using either a brush and soapy water (and some elbow grease) or for speed, a pressure washer. The resulting images appear as normal stencil or spray graffiti, yet it leaves no permanent marks.

There may seem like there is no down side to reverse graffiti, yet there is. Leeds City Council still class Moose's art as vandalism and as such, in 2004 he was hit with an ASBO (Anti Social Behaviour Order) with some confusion. The problem they have, is all Moose is doing, is selective cleaning, he's not permanently marking anything.

how likely are you to see some reverse graffiti? Well its not as uncommon as you think because a number of advertisers have realised there is market for this type of street advertising. A while back i remember walking through the center of a town and saw a piece of reverse graffiti on the pavement. It was so subtle I wouldn't be surprised if only 10% of people saw it. Its just such a shame it was an advert for male body spray.
This nature inspired stencil in central San Fransisco was completed at night with high powered pressure washers. The mural was a great commission for Moose as it had backing from the local Mayor and Police. Watch the video to see how this amazing artwork was created.

As fans of all things street art, WHoArtNow are currently looking into the possibilities of one off reverse graffiti Canvas Art. We are currently experimenting with removing inks and paints off canvas and metal to create the art. Expect to see updates on here and over at Frazier Boyd's site.

20th Centuary Art Auction

On Friday (6th June 2008), Christies of London hosted the 20th Century Art Auction with a special few paintings hidden within the catalogue.

LS Lowry, the 'matchstick men' painter was featured, including 'An Old Church' (1943) which was estimated as £1m but sadly didn't sell. (See picture right)

Also failing to sell at the auction was Lowrys' 1938 painting 'Manchester City vs Sheffield United' (see picture below). The painting did however sell after the auction to a private collector for an unknown price.

The biggest seller of the day however was 'A Cricket Match' which went for its top of the estimate at £770,000. I also mentioned in my previous blog about this auction that the canvas 'Seascape' was estimated at £250,000 which looked like a better deal than a house. Well it sold for £313,000, still worth the money, and guaranteed to increase in value.

Christies 20th Century Art collection sold for a total of £11.5 million pounds a Christies spokeswoman said in a post auction press release.

Kelburn Castle Garden Party

For all the aspiring Street Artists out there, Kelburn Castle, near Largs on Scotland's glorious West coast is hosting their first garden party on 4th - 6th of July 2008. Showing off some of Scotland's best Graffiti and street art talent mixed in with international guests and DJs. With music to suit almost any taste, you won't be disappointed, from folk, funk, gypsy and rockabilly to jazz, hip-hop, dub and afro beat. A huge line up of up and coming artists and some old veterans, and all at a weekend price of £55!

For those who aren't aware of Kelburn Castle and their amazing Graffiti Project.

"The idea is simple and original: take the vibrant and often transient art form of Brazilian graffiti out of its predominantly urban context and apply it to the ancient and permanent walls of an historic rural castle in Scotland."

Work on the Kelburn Castle Project was undertaken by Brazilian Twins Os Gemeos, Nina Pandolfo and Nunca, to see how amazing the art work is, check out the 3 day video below! For Street art and Graffiti art on canvas, check out out unique canvas art "Stencil" gallery.


Bands:

Bombskare
Orkestra Del Sol
Super Nashwan
James Yorkston
Underling
Found
A Band Called Quinn
Ash Grunwald
Amplifico
Candythief
Pip Burnet
The Stantons
Gecko 3
Digital Jones
Dave Donnelly
Monkey See Monkey Do
Asazi Space Funk Explosion
The Sorries
Joe Acheson Quartet
The Everything Treatment
Tom Champagne (stripped and unplugged)
Edinburgh Samba School
Das Contras
Mosa Funk Club

DJs:

Steve Cobby (Fila Brazilia DJ Set)

DJ Smoove (Acid Jazz / Wack Records)
Brian D'Souza (Pogo Vogue / Slabs of the Tabernacle)
Mungo's Hi-Fi
DJ Junior (Record Breakin' / Phillidelphia)
Boom Monk Ben + Hint (Ninja Tune / 4-deck set)
No Face
Astroboy (Departure Lounge)
Trouble DJ's
Mr Zimbabwe
Demdranger
Jiminez (Departure Lounge / Four Corners)
DJ Brazilia (Club Du Monde)
DJ Mungbean
DJ Nomad Soul
DJ Breadmark

New Stencil Art Designs from Frazier Boyd

I've just put the finishing touches to some new stencil art that I am very proud of... We have been working on a load of briefs here at the WHoArtNow studios, recently loads of 1920's style art, and trying to mix up stencil art with what we call "Retro" art. It's Germanesque, it's vibrant, minimal, colour orientated, Kitchsy, call it what you want, we call it art! It's a move on from some of our successful, trademark vector designs like "Soul Sister" and "Technocolour", and an attempt to fuse the 60's, bold, vector driven shapes with the rough and rawness of the street art stuff.

So, as I said, 1920's is prevalent in my new art as I'm really into all the movements and styles of that time. Bauhaus changed the world that we live in, and then you have Art Deco, the highly original 20's fonts, and the whole Flapper imaginary, I just find it so iconic, the classic short black bob cuts and black and white photography also make for some stunning stencils.

So 20's aside, there is plenty of retro style and vintage icons thrown into the mix to create a whole new range of canvas art prints. I've been experimenting a bit with scanned stencils on walls and touching them up a bit with photoshop, there is a bit of new experimentation with the real stencils on metal, something for the "Plastic Art" range for WHoArtNow. So, please watch this space, there are plenty more designs to follow.

So in terms of dates, all of the new designs for canvas are due to be put on the WHoArtNow website very soon, May / June 2008. Some will also also be available as frame mounted prints, which is exciting" If you want a sneak preview, please free to check out my art on Deviant-Art, I've just popped some new designs on there & in the last couple of hours alone I've been inundated with comments and messages of positivity - nice one guys and gals.

Breaking News: Location Of The London Cans Festival this weekend.

Following on from the earlier announcement, we can now announce that we have been given the location of the The Cans Festival, A street festival of Stencil Art that kicks off tomorrow in London..

The Venue:

LEAKE STREET, LONDON SE1 7NN

Around Three Minutes from the London Eye, near the Waterloo line. It'll be open to the public [for Free!] from 10am Sat until 10pm Mon.

--------RULES OF ENGAGEMENT--------

This is an open event,coming with your own stencils to produce your own art is encouraged but please note the following:

- This is a stencil only event no freehand lettering or characters
- Report to reception on arrival, they will show you where to
paint, Painting outside the designated area may well result in
prosecution.
- No going over other artists.

A few of us from WHoArtNow are planning to go down for it, I'm certainly getting myself down there armed with some stencils, paint and a few tinnies. Feel free come and say hello!

New "Plastic Art" Range Launched for WHoArtNow

We are very pleased to an announce a brand new range of unique hand crafted art, produced exclusively for WHoArtnow.co.uk. We have been hard at work for the last 4 months, developing art on diverse materials such as 12” vinyl records, perspex and, Metal and textured aluminum that have a superior look and feel, and are like nothing else being produced out there. Feel free to check out the new Plastic Art range.

We are also proud to introduce our "resident" designers, like Frazier BOYD [see Jimi Hendrix Above] who have played a huge part in putting the Plastic art together.

Plastic Art is a move-on from the digital "giclee" canvas prints that WHoArtNow has been producing since 2004, and we have tried to position the new brand, so that it will not detract from the original product, but compliment it. It has been designed to be for the more discerning person that is looking for something completely different for their abode. The textures and imperfections created by stencilling are really what make these art pieces unique, you just can not re-create these with traditional wide-format / solvent printers, and the hand-crafted element gives it a real sense of uniqueness.


On the reverse of the Plastic Art, comes a hand made fir wood frame, similar to the frames we use for our canvas prints. The frame will sit the 12" Vinyl Art off the well by 1", and comes complete with slotted mirror plates, ready to hang. We are running a competition to win a 6 piece Jimi Hendrix, in a special limited mint green colour. It's worth £159 & all you have to do is sign up to our monthly newsletter, or join us as a fan on our new facebook page, please feel free to visit our competition page for more info.