We've got a few peices of work currently on at a London Exhibition. It's a great oppertunity to Showcase some of our latest stencil art work, and push the whole Street Art Phenominan. There are prints on canvas, and a number of framed prints too. From JaxxStar, we have "Boston Blue", Pegs features "Tiggerrrr" & not to mention, Mr Frazier BOYD Esq with the "White Zebras" (See the flyer on Right)
The Media Village is the Venue - based just North of Oxford Street, and hosting this Graphic Art and Illustration exhibition. Located in the same building as the D&G London offices, the security is a bit tight, however if you ask nicely I'm sure you won't have a problem. The exhibition was a great success on opening day and will hopefully be up for the next 3 months if your interested in popping down, the address is 131-151 Gt Titchfield Street, W1W 5BB.
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
The 'Reinvent' theme is all about colour. Lots and lots of combinations of colour, some of which can be quite risky. The use of woods and greys combined with more retro colours like aqua blues, and bright pinks. The use of miss matched colours and items works wonders. You could even use 6 different chairs around a table, and it wouldn't look out of place. Well used and worn furniture and fixings are king, where brand new and flat pack is far to clean and 'un-inviting'. the use of hand made accessories and furniture is King, and quirky is its Queen. So where does it work, as with 'Optimism', it works well in most homes and rooms, yet its best to pick a feature wall to hold most of the colour, and soft shades of grey for the majority of the room. The bright colours need to be contrasted to bring the room into perspective. Flooring is a key factor, varnished hard wood flooring brings the natural and worn feeling in, yet solid more industrial floors work well too.
Avoid this in bedrooms and possibly living rooms too. Kitchens are perfect because the colours add to the social side of every kitchen. Furniture is best suited to masculine styles, flowers and hens on your chairs won't sit right, wood is great, but so is re used metal. Accessories need to be kept in control, and found and recycled items work brilliant.
If you like what you see, check out our Abstract canvas art section, where you will find a the designs featured in this article, and plenty more canvas prints.
Optimism is not all about white. Its the subtle mix of chalky and milky shades of whites and greys to add depth of layers and texture to a room. Matte and gloss finishes contrast and are a must in this anti-child almost heavenly interior.
Adding to the white feel, the use of soft pinks and yellows add definition to the room, and some subtle abstractcanvas art work using the same shades of whites and greys.
This interior scheme is brilliant for almost any type of room or house, small boxy rooms look fantastic because it opens the room up and adds space. Whereas already large rooms with high ceilings and original moulds end up looking vast and commanding. However, invest in the slightly more expensive wipe clean paints to keep the interior looking fresh.
Eclectic furniture is the thing at the moment, and this pallet works brilliantly with all things eclectic, go nuts, just no vivid colours and plenty of texture from textiles and canvas artwork.This soft and delicate trend will stay popular during 2009 because of its easy pallet and simplicity.
Coming soon to a bachelor pad near you is one of this years must have colour schemes. Invidia is the use of blacks, whites and metallic colours such as gold to speak loudly. Such dark rooms are brought to life with simple additions of yellows and golds on the detail. The only draw back, is you can't do half the job, if your going to do it, your really have to go all out and be as brave as possible or you'll end up with a badly done 80's yuppie flat, and no matter how 'in' 80's is, that look most certainly isn't!
How would you furnish such a room though? would black leather be OK? well yes, leathers and velvets from the darker side of the spectrum work wonders. Small detailing in gold and bronze works well, and accessories need to be vast or understated. Go for huge retro wallpaper sections on canvas or mirrors over-the-top with gold frames. You could use a huge reading lamp in gold, or a small up-lighter in brushed aluminium, or if your feeling really brave, both! Small and large can work wonders together. Take the image above, a relatively small metal lamp, and a large, bronze rubbish bin.
The biggest drawback to this interior scheme is the space you use it in. Small ceilings are a no go area because you need vast rooms to make the black walls work. Original features and moulding are essential. So early 20th century boxes are a definite no-go area.
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.
We've taken on a mammoth project for two of our veteran painters, Steve and Nick. A giant hand-painted Murial, measuring an incredible 80 ft x 16 ft which will be used for Glastonbury & some other festivals for this Summer of 2008.
The giant image is hand painted in a distinctive Lichtenstein style, on up to 50 wooden boards, which will be assembled at the coming summer festivals. Steve and Nick are true Veterans of the Murial circuit, painting professionally as freelancers for almost the last three decades. We are pleased to have them on-board on a more permanent basis.
I have to say the Glastonbury Murial is looking fantastic so far, the sharpness of the painting is second to none, and I really couldn't tell it apart from a screen print. The reality is that you could never screen print anything this big, there are just no screens large enough. And solvent printing may be a little bit cheaper, but they are no way near as durable as these hand-painted panels, each having up to 4 undercoats and a few layers of varnish over the top. This is precisely why a lot of our clients are regressing to using traditional hand-paintings again, it just looks that much more impressive, and gives the art a more traditional feel. We are finding more and more that art and design is turning full circle, with more and more clients choosing hand painted art over more modern Computer aided designs (CADs). When new technologies arrive they can wipe out entire industries, and it would be sad to see the skill of hand-painting to disappear. So we are working extra hard to make sure that it is not lost in the ages, a victim to the modern day computer and Adobe Photoshop. You can expect a lot more hand produced art from us in the future, we are certainly moving that way with are street art prints and Plastic art ranges, as well as bringing new artists on board like BOYD to produce hand produced, hand stenciled real art.
If you would like a quote on any hand produced art, Murial's, film or theatre sets, please let us know - you can email us on the WHoArtNowcontact pages. We intend to keep this news feed going, so watch this space and you can follow Steve and Nick's progress through the 30 day marathon of solid painting that they are undertaking!
Just to let you all know, our latest recruit, Mr Frazier "Boyo" BOYD has some pics on that popular photo sharing application, Flickr.
The subversive Stencil Street artist is our very latest addition to the WHoArtNow team, and we are very excited to have him on board. His work is being prepared for imminent release on the our website, you can expect a whole new section dedicated solely to his work to be launched in May / June 2008. Expect unique stencilled originals on canvas, built up on multiple layers of texture, as well as some more adventurous productions on different materials such as wood, metal, perspex and canvas. Similar to the Plastic Art section we have, but with BOYD's distinctive handwriting. We are looking to stock originals designs, as well as more affordable limited edition signed prints on satin matte lustre paper, and also box framed canvases.
If you can't wait until then and would like a little taster, look no further than right here, we have a little taster for you below. Feel free to check out his deviant art account too, but if you mail him please do not expect a reply, he's a busy chap these days!!
London is to celebrate its first major show of street art at the end of this month. Opening its doors on Friday 23rd of May, the Tate Modern host a free to all exhibition of 6 of the finest street artists in the world.
The exhibition is to feature work from Blu from Bologna, Italy; the artist collective Faile from New York, USA; JR from Paris, France; Nunca and Os Gemeos, both from Sao Paulo, Brazil and Sixeart from Barcelona, Spain.
Also available from the gallery will be a map for the "Street Art Walking Tour". The idea of this is a group of 5 street artists from Madrid will place some location specific art in and around the surrounding area, and its your job, with the help of the map, to find them. I don't know if it will be any good, however, when I head down, I'll pick a copy up and have a browse. Its good to see the Tate Modern thinking on this one, and why not let people see street art on the streets, the name does imply a lot. 3TTMan, Spok, Nano 4814, El Tono and Nuria are the confirmed artists.
On the Monday after the exhibition opens (26th May) the Tate Modern holds a studio day for young people of South London. They get to spend the day working alongside New York artists Graffiti Research Lab. The event is to be held on the level 2 Café, and will also include live bands and music. Graffiti Research Lab have been invited to reface the Tate Modern with a 1 off light projection installation with help from the kids. I'm tempted to go down then just to see what they come up with.
The street art exhibition will carry on till the 25th August and is sponsored by Nissan Qashqai
Any residents of New York into the street art scene will be pleased to know a free live painting event will be held on the weekend of 17th and 18th May.
510 Main Street is the location, were 24 street artist will install their own style of art on an 8ft x 12ft board to be housed in each of the windows of this 19th century building.
All on lookers will also be treated to music from the likes of TAO,DJ Harvey Cliff and TheBig Takeover to name just a few. Sounds like a great weekend. I'll have to settle for some pics over the real thing though.
"Le Pont Du Chemin De Fer A Argenteuil" (1873, see right) by Claude Monet sold yesterday for a record breaking $41,481,000 (£20.9m). Christies of New York ran the auction which set a new record for French impressionist artist.
The previous best for a Claude Monet was set last year when "1904 Nympheas" sold for $36.5m (£18.6m). Christies said the buyer wishes to remainanonymous, yet some sources are reporting the Nahmad family have purchased the painting.
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!
In June Christies of London will see the sale of 4 Lowrycanvases go up for auction with estimates at between £2m and £3m for the pieces.
Among these paintings is "An Old Church" (see left) Which hasn't been seen in public since 1940. The rare painting is expected to fetch £700,000 to £1m yet I expect it will go for a lot more. It may not sell as well as "Good Friday, Daisy Nook" (which sold last year for £3.8m) but £1m does seem a little low.
The second painting estimated at the same £1m mark is "Manchester City vs Sheffield United, 1938" whilst the 2 remaining paintings, "A Cricket Match" (not seen in the public for 10 years) could fetch £600,000 - £800,000. However, if your wallet won't stretch that far, "The Sea" is estimated at £250,000. Sounds like a better bet than a house at the moment!
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.
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 WHoArtNoware 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!
You lucky Londoners! This weekend is the Cans Festival! featuring some of the biggest names in stencil art, the list includes:
Bsas Stencil, Run Don't Walk, James Dodd (dlux), Tom Civil (civilian), Vexta, Prism, Daniel Melim, Altocontraste, Bandit, Roadsworth, 3D Del Naja, Artiste-Ouvrier, Blek, Sten, Sadhu, C215, Lucamaleonte, Lex, Orticanoodles, Kaagman, Dolk, Pobel, M-City, Vhils, Btoy, Coolture, Schhh, Borbo, Sam 3, Faile, Eine, John Grider, Logan Hicks, Pure Evil, Dot Masters, Dan, Eelus, Bansky.
It sure looks like an amazing collection of artist from around the world. I love the way Banksy is posted last on the bill..! If your lucky enough to be free, the location is posted at the Cans Festival website at 10:30 am Friday 2nd May and its free for the public to enter.
I think I know how to spend my bank holiday monday, if you pop down we might see you there..
We've got a few peices of work currently on at a London Exhibition. It's a great oppertunity to Showcase some of our latest stencil art work, and push the whole Street Art Phenominan. There are prints on canvas, and a number of framed prints too. From JaxxStar, we have "Boston Blue", Pegs features "Tiggerrrr" & not to mention, Mr Frazier BOYD Esq with the "White Zebras" (See the flyer on Right)
