Oooh, I love New York, and so it seems does Invader. Deep in the heart of Little Italy in SoHo this magnificent pixelated mosaic by the great French artist resides above a clam restaurant. The piece was given a helping hand by the LISA (Little Italy Street Art) project.
I have only ever seen a handful of Invader pieces in the flesh, and this one is quite the largest. A magnificent present for those who like to keep their eyes open.
Very close to where we were staying in New York was this large and imposing piece by the fabulous Shepard Fairey. The style is austere and seems to bear a resemblance to totalitarian state propaganda branding or dystopian future movie motifs such as in ‘the hunger games. The sentiment though is for the people.
I rather like this highly designed corporate look, and it certainly is a striking piece that yells out at passers by.
Door 24
When I took the picture of this door last October, I was simply capturing an interesting image of street art on a door, nothing more nothing less.
It turns out that there is a lot more to this door that I had thought, which I only found out about when researching for this post. The door is the entrance to Clayton Patterson’s gallery on 161 Essex Street on the lower East Side of NYC.
This is Portal number 7 of an interactive street art experience combining technology, art, urban space and community called ‘13 Portals‘. The project team have created an incredible ‘gamified’ experience that encourages participants to complete tasks and unlock the knowledge of the ancients. The door used to have a QR code in the white space at the bottom that linked up to the experience website.
I’m not sure when all this took place, possibly 2017, but it all looks rather complicated to me. I was just interested in the door.
The artwork itself appears to have ‘borrowed’ a little bit from the Terminator films and combines a skull with features relating to the number seven. This is what the website has to say about this door:
‘The number 7 is Saturn. It is death and transcendence. It is the seven colors of the rainbow, the seven western notes and the seven days of the week. 7. Seven is an exceptionally powerful number and also one of the biggest keys to the mystery. Each color, note or planet, represents a different perspective that we can seek to achieve awareness, clarity and enlightenment. It is the metaphor for the different races and the conflicts before they ultimately find harmony.’
So there you have it, perhaps we shouldn’t simply take things at face value, even a door.
by Scooj
More doors at: Thursday Doors – Norm 2.0
Door 22
I cannot for the life of me remember exactly where in East Village this door was. I had been walking for a long while hunting down street art and had little idea of where I was.
The outstanding feature of this door is the beautiful cast iron panels either side of the entrance. Somehow these panels have survived, but appear to have been forgotten. A reminder of a bygone era. The graffiti is in itself rather unremarkable but adds to the overall appearance of the door. It is interesting that none of the graffiti or tags seem to stray beyond the border of the door, which appears to act as a kind of frame. An interesting doorway.
by Scooj
More doors at: Thursday Doors – Norm 2.0
Allen Street is unofficially known as the ‘avenue of the immigrants’ and this remarkable seven story high piece by Stik represents “A timid giant peering out from behind a column, hoping to make his home in the big new city.” The mural is even more poignant for being very close to the Tenement Museum…so completely recommended if you are spending a few days in New York.
I am a big fan of Stik’s…it is very difficult not to be. The simplicity of his characters hides a deep emotional connection it is possible to have with them. Maybe it is their simplicity that makes them easy to read and empathise with.
Stik began his long and successful journey in a squat in Hackney, London and appears to have a strong connection with those less fortunate in society. He has been consistently telling his wonderful story through his art in cities all over the world. Long may it last. An interesting thing about this piece is that if you look on Google images, you will notice that he started with a white wall, then added the outline, then added the red background. I guess this is what gives the character a brilliant white body.
I took an awful lot of pictures of the street art in New York, and probably only scratched the surface, but I think that these breaks in my Bristol posts will probably be a regular occurrence for a long while to come.
This is a wonderful collaboration called Rat Boi, by Sheryo and The Yok, which was sprayed in April 2017. It was commissioned by The New Allen, an art foundation created by Baby Brasa and Milan Kelez…I read that bit you know.
I don’t know either of these artists, but this is an eye-catching piece that for me has a retro feel to it, albeit in a contemporary context.
This large and impressive wall in Rivington Street is by KaNO. Such a magnificent cartoon character in a very distinctive style, it should come as no surprise that KaNO freelances as a character designer for such studios as Warner Bros, Cartoon Network, and Hasbro.
KaNO was born and raised on the streets of New York and was influenced by cartoon characters on the TV. He then went on to study art and design and animation. His full biography can be found on his website, along with some fabulous galleries of studio and street art.
This really is a wonderful piece from a greatly talented artist.
This is another stunner from Tristan Eaton entitled Big City of Dreams which rises high above a car park, you know, one of those funny little ones in New York that must charge the most extortionate fees, and stack cars in a way we are not accustomed to seeing in the UK.
Tristan Eaton reminds me of an amalgamation of different styles that has elements of PichiAvo and Louis Masai about it, which is of course a great compliment. I think that his work is exceptional and love the piece I posted before of his Audrey Hepburn in SoHo.
I still have a great many pictures from my trip to New York in October 2017, but have had some difficulty finding the names of artists, and the locations of some of the pieces. These difficulties act as a bit of a barrier to writing these posts, as I have limited time to do the research required. The emergence of Street Art Cities, a website and app, has been an absolute godsend in that respect. Street Art Cities allows local street art ‘hunters’ (people like me) to upload street and graffiti art onto a map-based platform with descriptions of the work. I am one of two such approved hunters in Bristol, and in New York, a recent upload extravaganza by the four hunters there is making my job of posting my holiday snaps so much easier. Maybe if they ever visit Bristol they will benefit from the work I have done for Street Art Cities.
Now I can tell you that this stunning piece of Yosemite Sam in Broome Street is by John ‘Crash’ Matos, an artist brought up in the Bronx in the 1960s and 70s. He tends to feature a cartoon character combined with the word CRASH in many of his pieces, a long way from bombing trains in train yards as a teenager. His nickname ‘Crash’ was coined after he accidentally crashed a computer in school…something that was much easier to do back in the old days I can assure you. This is a brilliant piece from a brilliant artist.
Door 14
I forget exactly where in New York this door was, but I think it was in the East Village area.
Artist: Bradley Theodore (Theodoor)
by Scooj
Natural adventures 