Showing posts with label Rae. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rae. Show all posts

Monday 25 May 2020

Diggin In The Archives Pt 8

This week in spite of the latest official guidance to follow unofficial interpretations of the law, there have been no trips to Durham. I have followed my instinct to remain at home to see what scum is floating on the surface of the street art photography archive.

Ludo first put his art on London streets in 2009 and right from the off his Nature’s Revenge project dealt with man vs nature, weaponry, deception and death. Ludo’s work always had scale and awesome eye-catching placement. This weaponised orchid dates from 2011.

Ludo, 2011
Ludo, 2011


Street artist and gallerist Rae visited London in 2013 and left an impressive range of paste ups, stickers, painted surfaces and this wacky sculpture which lasted all of 24 hours.

Rae, 2013
Rae, 2013


Rae, 2013
Rae, 2013


The Battle Of Fashion St pitted Ronzo’s monster, looking very much exactly like a medical diagram of a virus against studio stablemate Conor Harrington’s faceless soldier. Like most of Conor’s art this one lasted a long time.

The battle Of Fashion St, Ronzo and Conor Harrington, 2011
The battle Of Fashion St, Ronzo and Conor Harrington, 2011


Graff snapping mate for many years Joe Epstein aka LDN Graffiti, author of street art book “London Graffiti and Street Art” has teamed up with 9 great street artists to raise funds for Great Ormond St Hospital. Each artist has created a special version of the book by hand painting the cover, so that’s 9 unique versions of the book.

LDN GOSH Lottery


For more images, details and a link to how to support the fund raiser and maybe win one of these fantastic prizes in the LDN GOSH Charity Lottery, click here


One of the featured artists in the LDN GOSH fundraiser is Pure Evil, he doesn’t so much redecorate the book cover as subject it to extreme abuse and reconfiguration, it’s bonkers but brilliant. In 2012 Pure Evil imagined the Hackney Olympics looting squad making off with some Olympics booty, as seen on this Redchurch Street shutter.

Pure Evil 2012
Pure Evil 2012


LDN GOSH Charity Book with Pure Evil art
Pure Evil's LDN GOSH Charity Book


In the happy days when I had a kind of job thing, I did one of my Street Art Photography Workshops in Hackney. I only found out this week thanks to Inspiring City’s Art Related Noise podcast interview that this stencil piece is “Lee P” by Findac. Lee P is otherwise known as street artist Eelus. The second shot was the idea of the photo - to show what Lee P was looking at

Findac, 2013
Findac, 2013


Findac, 2013
Findac, 2013


More than a decade of pasting up street art has left no doubt that Donk has an awesome approach to impressive installations created from his own original photos. It would be very easy to dredge up one of Donk’s huge crowd pleaser paste up images like the Fashion St fence (with the tassels), the Willow Street horse facing POW or the ghetto blaster on Sclater St but with no slight on any of those, sometimes his montages of smaller images show his versatility better. From 2013 this is a selection of hand finished unique Humble Magnificent and B Brave Indian images featuring Donk jr as model. Donk’s paste up’s typically decayed beautifully.

Donk 2013
Donk 2013


Claudia Walde aka MadC is a graffiti writer and book author. She is also another of the artists to have created a unique painting on a book being auctioned to raised funds for Great Ormond St Hospital, details as above.


In culture with such a huge gender imbalance MadC is a rare example of an internationally regarded graffiti writer. In 2011 the Pure Evil Gallery hosted MadC’s first solo exhibition and graffiti writers came from all over to check out her top notch can skills and brilliant colour palette. Her 2013 abstract mural on Chance St in Shoreditch is well known and still running. Less known perhaps is this stunning 2011 graffiti on the old Micawber St launderette, look closely and you can pick out her name in there. It was huge though this is nowhere near the biggest piece of graffiti MadC ever did.

MadC, 2011
MadC, 2011


Mad C LDN Graffiti book cover
Mad C LDN Graffiti book cover


If you are interested in seeing previous DITAs, you can start with the first weekly compilation of the daily DITA uploads of HERE,

Art credits and links are by each photo. All photos: Dave Stuart




Friday 25 January 2013

Rae – Nocturnal Trips


Signal Gallery
Paul St, London
25 Jan – 16 Feb 2013

Photos: NoLionsInEngland except Brooklynite Gallery where stated



This week I had the pleasure of showing Hraq Vartigan, co-founder and editor of Hyperallergic the state of play in Shoreditch’s art. I re-learnt an awful lot myself in the process, not least of which was how enriched our walls are by the work of distinguished foreign visitors. The latest overseas artist to add international colourful and flavour to our grimy east end state is NY's Rae, over for his first solo London show at Signal Gallery.

RAE
Rae, NY, photo by: Brooklynite Gallery


Examination of various flickr feeds reveals a prodigious talent for quirky and ramshackle sculptural assemblages pinned to poles, walls and other street furniture. Chaotic combination of found objects are fixed together to create madcap boxy characters, in RAEs world no material combination or colour clash is off limits. Thus far his contribution to the colour of London’s scenery has been limited to paste-ups. Good friend Hookedblog surmises that to prepare his street work requires a few days scouring the streets for objects and raw materials which he hasn’t had time for since arrival to prepare for the show. Personally I can’t see why a travelling international artist can’t rely on his gallerists for a few weeks advanced dumpster diving ;-)

RAE
Rae, NY, photo by: Brooklynite Gallery


RAE wears his NY influences quite openly, one composition tips its hat to Faile’s dog, the angular arms and indeed intestinal tracts of the characters nod to Skewville and a huge flamboyant swirling waft of the cloak lays at the feet of Basquiat. Dude’s from NY, so why not. To be fair, rumour has it that Rae is a hugely significant figure on the NY street art and gallery scene beyond just his artistic involvement.

tn_DSC_5279 copy
Love Your Bus Driver


The characters are energetic, slightly naive and flat. They cavort and distort in a way that encourages long pleasurable moments disentangling what might actually be happening in the canvas. The chopped up faces with their bent noses and flattened mouths may suggest a tribal cubism with dots.

tn_DSC_5281 copy
Panic

Outline characters which bring to mind nothing more than the NY subway chalk on black paper graffiti of Keith Haring are tiled in many of Rea's prints and canvases. A cluster of them sneak into his version of The Green Lady, aptly if not jauntily titled Tertchikoff Rip Off, as if we might not notice the Haring-esque interlopers.

tn_DSC_5291 copy
Tertchikoff Rip Off


A couple feature a beaten copper border which lend the paintings some kind of iconostasis effect. Rae’s handiness with a bit of sculptural metal on canvas is echoed several other pieces such as this NY Gossip. Is that bucket-helmet echoing the get-my-tin-hat “I’m going to say this just to provoke you” chatroom staple?

NY Gossip
NY Gossip


The big picture is that Rae’s work looks beautiful. Discussing Rae’s visual DNA leads to many quality names being dropped, think Basquiat with fewer words and you have the essence of his appeal. Maybe next time, someone can chuck Rae in a gallery with the contents of a rag-and-bone man’s cart, close the doors for a week and say “install the shit out of that!”

tn_DSC_5305 copy
For Your Consideration


More pics in a Flickr photoset here

Links:
Signal Gallery

Brooklynite Gallery