street art | FECAL FACE DOT COM

The Rise - Video Interview w/ Shepard Fairey
Monday, 29 August 2011 /// Written by Van Edwards

Greg Roman emailed over this recent video he did on Shepard Fairey... covering how skateboarding/ punk rock/ hip hop had on influencing him and his work.

Shepard talks about the influence graffiti, skateboarding and punk rock had on his life and the ways it shaped his art career. Key moments such as a school trip to NY and the melding of styles by brands such as Shut Skateboards allowed him to develop his techniques. Look out for some classic 90's skate footage as well.

Dabs & Myla Interview
Monday, 29 August 2011 /// Written by Trippe

This Australian couple, now living in Los Angeles, collaborate on every piece of art they create. Splitting their works between acrylic on canvas and the murals in the streets, they're participating in the Australian street art show Young & Free: Australian Contemporary Street Artists opening up at 941 Geary on September 10th. We emailed them a few questions as they wrap up their work for the show.

So you've been in LA via Melbourne, Australia for 2 years now... How has the transition been?

It’s been great! We really love it in Los Angeles...quite quickly it felt like home here, which was something we didn't expect! But the transition was really smooth for us. After a few months to settle, and just once we wrapped our heads around some of the small differences like allowing 40 minuets to get somewhere - even if its 5 miles away -and learning to use inches and feet over centimeters and meters!

What have been some of the pluses and minuses of being in LA?

There is definitely more pluses than minuses! I think the main pluses are the weather and the people. We have met so many great people here that have become very close friends. And the constant sunshine and blue skies is just ridiculous! I don't think we will ever get sick of that!

Do you consider LA your permanent home now?

At the moment, yes. We can definitely see ourselves being here for many more years...But you never know what the universe has in store.

It seems that your works are divided between murals and paintings. Which came first?

It was different for both of us. I started painting graffiti in the mid 1990's. I had been painting pieces for years before returning to Art School and learned how to paint with acrylics.

Myla on the other hand, had been painting with a brush for most of her life, and it wasn't until we met that she started using spray paint.

Which medium works best to translate your work? Walls with spray paint or brushes while creating paintings?

I'm not sure... We really love painting graffiti and it’s such a big part of our overall influence and style. Painting graffiti letters is so important to us, and we love painting big characters on walls too. The way we go about painting with spray paint is similar to our brush paintings, but also completely different.

The characters are the same, and the content, but outside we paint with heavy lines and strong bold colors. Whereas on our paintings with acrylic, its a lot softer and harmonious approach. With subtle colors and no outlines...and we love working that way too!

Young & Free @941 Geary Opening Sept 10th
Friday, 26 August 2011 /// Written by Trippe

Young & Free: Australian Contemporary Street Artists
Featuring: ANTHONY LISTER, KID ZOOM, DABS & MYLA, DMOTE, NEW2, BEN FROST, MEGGS, HA-HA, REKA, RONE, SOFLES, and VEXTA
Opening Reception – September 10, 2011, 6-9 pm
On View through October 22, 2011,
@941 Geary
941 Geary St, San Francisco, CA

A small taste of a great show featuring some of Australia's best street artists creating works from stencil to spray paint on all mediums filling 941 Geary's large walls. Should be a great show that you should get to when SF's art season gets kicked off in a couple weeks. Now go back to sitting on the beach or by the pool while your vacation lasts.

Mik Shida - Mini Interview
Tuesday, 23 August 2011 /// Written by Trippe

Location? Age? Education? Website?

Australia, 21, University Dropout, http://shidaart.tumblr.com/ - http://www.flickr.com/photos/shidaart/

How would you describe your work to someone?

Pictures of Crystallised Fractaly Inter-dimensional mystics.

Influences?

Artist like Rodger Dean and Frank Frazetta, the graffiti scene around me. Australian Street Art Godfathers like Lister and Phibs.

Cheese burgers or tofu burgers?

Cheese burgers

Favorite place traveled?

Loved Vienna a place thats ridiculously cool for young people.

Working routine? Music? Time of day?

Try get to work on something every morning, whether its studio stuff or street work. Listen mainly to rap the cheesier the better and folk music.

How do you pay the bills?

With my art since 16.

Describe your process for creating new work.

Have a good coffee and get going no thought. Figure it out along the way.

The Mercenary from Ludo
Thursday, 07 July 2011 /// Written by Trippe

Paris based Ludo emailed over this recent Paris billboard modification. Looks great. You can view more here.

www.thisisludo.com

Photo of the Day: 6/27/11
Monday, 27 June 2011 /// Written by Trippe

San Francisco between 21st and 22nd on Valencia St the other day.

Photo: Barrett Hird

//////////////////~ submit your photos to: potd(at)fecalface.com ~ make sure they're at least 700 pixels in width.

See more Photo of the Days

T.W.Five Mural in the TL
Thursday, 23 June 2011 /// Written by Trippe

The Luggage Store and t.w.five team up for this vinyl on vinyl board mural in the heart of the Tenderloin here in San Francisco. It can be found on Jones St between Ellis and Eddy. ~Photos (scroll down) from their opening last November at The Luggage Store.

In Canarsie, Street Art Shows Its Softer Side
Wednesday, 22 June 2011 /// Written by Van Edwards

New York 4 New York - With support from the High School for Innovation in Advertising and Media's principal, one of the four high schools on the Canarsie Educational Campus ( formerly Canarsie High School), The Love Movement invited 15 renowned New York City artists to create murals for a permanent installation in the high school's hallways. Beyond beautification, the aim of the murals is to provide a positive, inspiring and empowering learning environment with artwork that can relate to the students. The project is a blueprint for schools to utilize local artists to help enrich their educational environments now and in the future.

Zoltron & The 18th St. Forum
Tuesday, 21 June 2011 /// Written by Trippe

Zoltron emailed over some photos and text of how his wheat pasted Ronald took on a life of its own over the course of a couple weeks. His words below.

Somehow I found myself involved in a spontaneous, public art project that organically unfolded over the last couple of weeks in sf.

For the hell of it, I was drawing a famous clown named Ronald (as a junky villain derelict,) but somewhere along the way, I saw a glint of compassion in his eyes. So the drawing ended up showing Ron suddenly caught in an existential crisis of sorts... Like he just realized that he was solely responsible for the death of hundreds of millions of cows. Maybe he suddenly understood that he was fueling massive rainforest destruction and undeniably accountable for child obesity and onset adolescent diabetes.

So I drew him, printed him out, mixed up some pigment and painted on some paper. Then I pasted him up in a foodie district in the mission. The following photographs were taken over the next 2 weeks.

the aging clown experiences an unexpected moment of clarity.

a few days later, someone (equipped with at least 4 colors of aerosol) wasn't amused. "fuck you, hipster scum." Right on point, oh disgruntled youth.

a public forum concluded that it was obviously the work of a certain masked villain. (humburglar was later arrested for defacing public art)

Only hipsters use words like "Hipster."

a few days later, a stencil party ensues.

followed by a confirmed metric fuckton of unadorned radness.

and finally.... according to the local shopkeep, the entire wall is "archived for historical significance." ..

Join us next week, as we discuss vegan soy lattes and their effect on the youth of America. - Zoltron

Swampy @Fifty24SF (pics)
Wednesday, 15 June 2011 /// Written by Trippe

Last Saturday, June 11th, was Swampy's solo show at Fifty24SF. The show was just a one day art show (a lot of work for one night show), but we were able to get a quick peak today before they started cleaning it up.

A fake wall misleads what you're about to witness. Looks like a tiny gallery space, but there's more than meets the eye.

Lift this painting to be taken to the back room where the magic happens... or should say happened.

Contemporary Urban Bird Houses
Monday, 06 June 2011 /// Written by Trippe

Got an email from Brooklyn based XAM, a former architecture student and 2009 graduate from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, who creates these awesome contemporary urban bird houses equipped with passive ventilation systems, solar panels, LED porch lights to attract insects and "green roofs". The houses pack flat, assemble like a 3-D puzzle and hang from city signage. They attract Wrens, Swallows, Warblers and many other small birds. We asked him what inspired him to create these awesome little feathered homes.

I am a former architecture student with a history in graffiti and street art. I like the idea of building functional objects to scale that can embody similar rules of that of architecture. I also like the idea of participation in art. The viewer participates on a level that questions morality. The units are illegally placed, but are serving a function that many benefit from. I don't bolt them to the signs I simply hang them and if you feel the units don't belong amongst the clutter of city signage, then take them down. I like to play with the idea that street art is ephemeral and it is up to society to decide the lifespan of the units. Also attached to the back of every unit is a QR code that when scanned lists a number of ways we benefit from birds in the urban environment. I don't promote people taking them down, but I would like them to question their reasoning and see if it goes beyond 'well it's illegal'.

CSD DWELLING UNIT 2.0 - Equipped with a "green roof" system that acts as insulation. The unit also has a birdhouse on one side and a food dispenser on the other. There is an adjoining wall that allows the residents to eat from inside the dwelling rather than flying to the other side to feed. This unit straddles city signs.

CSD = Constructive Street Design

Beware The Eyes
Thursday, 02 June 2011 /// Written by Trippe

Might spy some of this around Barcelona these days. The project has just began and here are a few shots, but you'll see much more here in the future. Great idea and soooooo creepy.

ROA @White Walls (video)
Friday, 27 May 2011 /// Written by Van Edwards

White Walls Gallery - San Francisco || April 9- May 7, 2011 || Street artist ROA got his start by painting intriguing murals of animals in hidden places – underneath bridges and on walls that strayed from the beaten path. A darling of the underground street art scene, photos of his work regularly appear on Vandalog, Brooklyn Street Art, Wooster Collective, Unurth, and a fury of London newspapers and blogs running to his defense when a street piece he did in Hackney faced removal late last year. ROA is earnestly repopulating the cityscape with animals, as a way to have them re-enter the contemporary landscape that was once theirs. With a style all his own.

Madre
Wednesday, 18 May 2011 /// Written by Trippe

Madre is a short film that documents artist Wordtomother time at Fame Festival, Italy in 2010. The film features Lucy Mclauchlan, Cycop & Kaf and the man responsible for Fame festival Angelino Milano.

The soundtrack is available to download for free soundcloud.com/?lucasse/?madre-sole

A Telling Tale Production Presents 'Madre'

Camera and Edit - Andrew Telling
Grade - Luke Morrison @ The Mill
Music - Buddy Peace & Lucasse

additional info:
WordToMother - stolenspace.com/?section.php?xSec=42
Andrew Telling - andrewtelling.net
Fame Festival - famefestival.it
Buddy Peace - buddypeace.tumblr.com
Lucasse - listentolucasse.tumblr.com

Pantónio and 4ink in Lisboa
Friday, 13 May 2011 /// Written by Van Edwards

Pantónio and 4ink altered some poster ads in a street of Lisboa. The next day however came with a surprise, when Amnesty International replaced them with their series of posters but left one of them untouched, which played very well with their message. Props to the paste-up guy on this one. -4zero

Fintan Magee
Wednesday, 04 May 2011 /// Written by Van Edwards

Fintan Magee from Brisbane, Australia emailed over a lil' sampling of his trash works. Love the Grouch one.

Above in Melbourne
Thursday, 21 April 2011 /// Written by Trippe

Above emailed over a few photos of some word play from a recent trip to Melbourne... A lot of Australia on FF today.

DABS MYLA with HOW and NOSM
Tuesday, 19 April 2011 /// Written by Trippe

Andrew Hosner from LA's Thinkspace emailed over this gem and text:

Cream Of The Crop - DABS MYLA with HOW and NOSM

This mural is part of over 40 murals populating the downtown Los Angeles landscape that have been curated and produced by Jet Set Graffiti for the LA Freewalls Project.

Paulo Arraiano Mural in Lisbon
Monday, 07 March 2011 /// Written by Trippe

Portugal based artist Paulo Arraiano aka YUP - Pampero Public Art Project ~ Comissioned by Sandro Resende in collaboration with Lisbon Patrimony Department.

Not On My Graffiti You Don't!
Thursday, 24 February 2011 /// Written by Trippe

Yesterday we Tweeted this article, The art of clearing taggers' work in San Francisco featuring Joe Padilla, the paint-shop supervisor for the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department and his job of bouncing about town cleaning up all forms of graffiti when, soon after, we got a Tweet from Philly based jimshreds with a link to this article: Graffiti to Be Removed from Shepard Fairey Mural which struck us as hilarious.

After seeing photos of the tagged mural, Cassady, a professional art conservator, volunteered to come to the corner of Frankford Avenue and Norris Street two days per week to remove the graffiti.

How many people used to think what an eye sore Obey Giant was back pre Obama poster days... Lady, you're cleaning graffiti off graffiti. It's like taking the pianist and double bass out of a jazz trio because the drummer is famous.