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.
We are just putting the finishing touches to a selection of new canvas art for the site. There will be 85 new pieces of art in total, in a range of categories. Expect to see new Retro, Stencil Street Art, Urban, Organic & Iconic Cult prints in the next couple of weeks. There will be a new selection of ranges too, and not forgetting the long awaited BOYD Street Art range, so watch this space.
So for the new Cult Art selection, we have a new square canvas of Al Pacino, in the Godfather. In classic black and white, on a contemporary red background. On a similar bold and modern background, comes a new Marilyn Monroe, as featured in our Magazine advert for Town and Country Living. Also, a much requested version of the "The Stig", the infamous legend and cult hero, on a deep blue background. You can find this on a limited long and thin box canvas. We've also got a couple of re-works of our classics - a four Piece Hendrix "Quad" and grey scale black and white re-colours of the massive Pulp Fiction canvas. We've also got a brand new two part Coldplay canvas set, in the classic black and white colours.
So, that's it for the Cult art updates for now, if you fancy receiving live updates, feel free to subscribe to the rss feed. It's also an invaluable tool for interior designers or any one in the wholesale and resale industry to keep check of what we are putting out.
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.
With the recent success of joining the WHoArtNow team, the subversive stencil artist Frazier Boyd has finally launched his website www.frazierboyd.co.uk. Boyd is constantly working on new ideas and approaches to stencil art and as such is producing images both on and off the street all the time. With his news RSS feed, you can be the first to see whats current in his world, or subscribe to his Flickr Photostream to check his uploads as they occur.
If your a fan of his work and would like any of his images on Canvas, head over to WHoArtNow or if your in the market for something a little more unique, (See the Commissioned Rossi Canvas print above) , contact us to for a commission piece.
As a fan of street art I'm looking forward to seeing what he comes up with in the future. Its a great time for street art, and WHoArtNow are proud to be a part of it.
This Morning the Tate Modern opened its doors on its first Street Art exhibition even though pictures have been floating around for a few days.
6 of the worlds most influential street artists have erected these monster pieces. In the picture right you can see the work by Sixeart (Spain), JR (France) and Faile(USA).
Italian Blu is also on display (see left) after a great few months for him. Some of you may have seen Blu's recent animation 'Muto' appearing on the internet over the last few weeks. I expect to be seeing more and more of Blu's amazing style of art and can't wait to get some on a canvas soon.
If your planning a trip this Bank Holiday weekend and fancy taking in some breathtaking art, pop down to the Tate Modern. If your lucky enough to be about on Monday, head on up to the level 2 Café and watch Graffiti Research Lab have a fun day with some kids of London. Stay till the evening when Graffiti Research Lab will be projecting the kids art work onto the side of the Tate Modern.
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 (FilaBrazilia 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
I don't think I need to say much about Blu's stunning piece of animation. Its simply stunning and I highly recommend you watch it all. the short was made in Buenos Aires and took several months to complete.
It is described as an "Ambiguous Animation shot on public walls" This sort of future thinking which fuses street art & animation has never really been done, certainly not to this level of complexity. Blu has always been a bit of a pioneer in the field, famous for his enormous wheat paste-ups of his fictitious trademark characters.
For those of you interested to see more of Blu's work, he's appearing in the Tate Moderns exhibition on street art starting Friday May 23rd.
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.
So, you are the Mayor of Drachten in the Northwest of the Netherlands. Many years before a river running through your town was filled in and covered in tarmac. Fast forward to 2007 and you decide you want the river back.
The Mayor of Drachten seems like a friend of art, especially street art, and you can't get more "Street" than this! 1000m long, and 8m wide, its massive, and very, very blue! 4000 litres of blue paint to be exact.
Dutch artist HenkHofstra is the brains behind the project and had this to say, "Art has to touch, excite, amaze and surprise you, make you laugh, cry, angry or happy...because art is emotion. A look at all the comments makes clear that this art project has been successful. We look at it, but we don 't understand."
And to me,(see far left) this beats a "Warning, this road will be a canal in a year" sign any day of my week! Its a piece of art in its own rights. I wonder if the locals understand the point?
By the looks of this lot, yes they do! Is it just me, or would this never happen in England? Sad to think it, but its true! Were just not as open to street art as some of our European Brothers and Sisters!
Following on from successful projects in Paris and Barcelona, the London Cans festival kicked off at the weekend, (Saturday the 3rd of May) following five days of hard graft from an army of some of the worlds leading names in Street Art.
By the Bank holiday Monday, the news had spread like wild-fire, the queues were so big that people were being ferried across the road to another queue, where they were being told that it was approximately 1 ¾ hour wait to get in.. No-one seemed to be fazed by this, even with the scorching sun beating down on the revelling Londoners, in perhaps the hottest day this year. I couldn't help noticing the rich mixture of people in the queue - from Adults, teenagers, kids, babies, even the 70+ made a turnout. The demographic was surprising, It was far more reminiscent of queuing up to see the “Da-Vinci” exhibition in the late 1980's than to get into a dark skanky tunnel to see burnt out cars & graffiti. But in amongst this excitement and anticipation, it dawned on me - Street Art has finally crossed over, and is now appealing to quintessential middle England. Even in a dirty pissy squat of a tunnel [which only a few weeks earlier had been a open plan living quarters for some of Waterloo's more well-to do tramps], its political, subversive, expressive and often comical style drew some of the most unlikely crowds.
One of the reasons I was so excited about it all is because I can't remember when the last time I felt & saw such a buzz about art, not maybe since Andy Warhol's creations the 60's who's original style still get requested for us to produce bespoke artwork, 40 years on. But what exactly have we had to get excited about for the last couple of decades? Sharks cut in half in Formaldehyde, or Unmade beds? I'm not criticising modern art here, after all, the Turner prize last year was officially given for State Britain, an installation featuring all the objects in Brian Haw's anti-war display in Parliament Square since 2001. I just find it refreshing that for the first time, certainly in my life-time, that there is such a huge buzz about looking at good, old fashioned art. We all like art, we love to admire pictures, but there seems to have been a distinct last of it in recent years, now events like the “Cans Festival” have almost regressed back to looking at pre-historic cave drawings on walls. It's funny how things move full circle.
Talking of cave drawings, one of Bansky's new cheeky new installation featured the very same, a representation of a council worker removing some cave paintings. His means of conjuring up thought provoking forms of self-expression through the creation of something beautiful to admire is precisely why thousands of people are queued up outside to try and get into this dark tunnel whilst the sun is out in full effect. Thegraffiti remover piece really is indicative of our current Governments attitude to art, and not just art, anything beautiful or old really. Get rid of it, bury it, build over it. In Leicester where I currently reside, numerous criminal acts occurred in the concrete 60's they built over a medieval Roman Village, and examples of this kind of “vandalism” can be found in every city in Britain. It's such a shame now that our culture seems to value things not on their aesthetics or quality, but just how cheep it is. Our modern architecture is embarrassing, our streets are littered with corporate graffiti in the forms of ugly, cumbersome Billboards.. It's a refreshing change to see something that has values, meaning and soul, and isn't money or profit related.
Perhaps the boldest and most beautiful act of vandalism to the old walls in the bridge at the Festival came from Alexandre Farto aka “Vhils” His Two enormous Murial's of faces were chipped and chiseled away at to take the layer of white paint off the wall in an increasingly popular “reverse graffiti” style. It formed what can only be described as a sculpture, taking on incredible three dimensional proportions.
Run Don't Walk's installation occupied a large section of the entrance on the left, filled with giant bright pink animals, and contrasted with some great attention to detail on the floor with loads of little toads and pigins.
DOLK's had certainly re-affirmed position with his cheeky "Pope Monroe" and another installon a beautiful textured wall featuring Warhol's banana sitting in a chair.
Other stand out installs were Eelus's (famed for his Star Wars Satire stencils) Piss Funny Audrey being malled by her cat, along with the 'Winged Girls' Stencil, you can see them all with a nice little sequence of photos on his website) One of my old favourites, the New York Collective FAILE collective did an install on a Escort Van using their trademark Barking Dog Logo.
It's great that events like this are happening like this in the UK. It can only be good for the entire art & design industry, as it still feels to me like a resurgence in looking at good quality, highly original art.
May I just also add that we;ve had quite a few people getting their photo's of the Can's festival printed onto canvas already, I might as well point out to everyone that we can provide this service, (in 1-2 working days turnaround) you can visit our Custom pages for more info on how to upload your picture to us.
Street Art is a growing trend in the 21st century. Wiki describes it as "art developed in public spaces". Yet I'd prefer to say its a modern artists means of creativeness. Yet its worth remembering, even as street art rises in popularity, the vast majority of work you see on the way to work is illegal.
Art, So what does "street Art" consist of? You maybe asking. Well, street art can be broken down in sub groups, Graffiti, Wheat-pasting, Stickers/Sticker Bombing, Poster Art, Video Projection and my favourite, Stencil Art.
"CeeThreePeeOhhhh" [right] by Frazier BOYD is a brand new piece, commissioned exclusively for WHoArtNow, due for release on the site in May 2008.
So why do people break the law for their artwork? Is it stupidity? or a true love for their art so strong their often willing to sacrifice their own freedom. Political opinions and moral objections are popular expressions on the streets. Going against the "system" is a big part of street art, so is humour.
The image on the left demonstrates the political and humorous side of street art, and also shows the use of a stencil. This image and many like it are fast and easy to post, making it a great way to get your work seen by more people and to limit the chance of getting caught.
Where are you likely to see street art? Well, due to the popularity of street art, you can see it everywhere. From capitol cities, to rural hamlets all over the world. If your in a city and looking for street art, there are some clues to the street art. Areas of increased foot traffic are key. Bridges, foot paths, train stations are all popular, but the best thing to do is keep your eyes open! So how can I get some street art of my own? Well, many art supplies are picking up on the street art phenomenon and you can now get some great graffiti and stencil art on canvas, prints, even on 12" vinyl art!
If however you have a little bit of cash and want to splash out on something original, most graffiti artists can be commissioned for custom work. But as with all commission pieces, it can get very costly.
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.
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.
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..
