German Street Artist ECB recently finished painting this elongated white guys head on a 150 year old building in the heart of Bushwick, Brooklyn. ECB says he likes painting wrinkles and ends up painting men because they have more. Additionally, stretching them out of proportion is a favorite technique, pushing the features and proportions like silly putty to cover as much space as possible. If you have been in Bushwick much over the past two years you’ve seen many of them wrapping around old warehouses and factory buildings.
ECB (photo © Jaime Rojo)
While inspecting the latest ECB, we got to meet the owner of the building, Franz, a senior gentleman who actually was so engaging that he gave an entire tour of it, such is the nature of some friendly people. As you walk from floor to floor seeing how the building is used, it might strike you that Franz could easily be a sitter for one of ECB’s pieces. He explains that this building used to be a family farmhouse an stable and a resting station for horses. Travelers on a long trip from the North would replace their tired team of horses with a new fresh team and continue their journey. On their way back home they picked their own team up and headed back home.
Franz, an emigrant from Austria and a Master cabinet maker, has been working with wood and making custom furniture for over 50 years. He purchased the Bushwick farmhouse 35 years ago for $85,000 once the seller agreed to put on a new roof. Ask him why he still works so hard everyday and he looks at you like you’re crazy. He can build anything you ask, loves what he does, and has a staff of six assistants, one apprentice and an artist for faux wood finishing.
And what about the artists on the street? He said he likes to help out the young artists and is very happy to allow them to paint on the building’s front and sidewalls. He said he enjoys the murals, likes the crumbling paint on the bricks and wants things to stay as they are.
ECB (photo © Jaime Rojo)
ECB (photo © Jaime Rojo)
ECB (photo © Jaime Rojo)
ECB (photo © Jaime Rojo)
ECB (photo © Jaime Rojo)
ECB (photo © Jaime Rojo)
ECB (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Other Articles You May Like from BSA:
The Twins were hoisted into the air again today at PS11, where they are painting a huge kid mural as a gift to the neighborhood - and there were plenty of huge kids around today looking up at their wo...
"A padlock on a bridge is considered as a proof of love in many cultures, but we all know that the key to a successful relationship is freedom," says conceptual artist and Street Artist Aïda Gomez whe...
Of the thousands of images he took this year in places like New York, Berlin, Dresden, Moscow, Marrakesh, Detroit and Miami, photographer Jaime Rojo found that the figurative image still stands prom...
Somewhere between realism and abstraction lies a figurative allegory that plays out in saturated color for the Spanish street artist/studio artist Dan Ferrer. Moving between a loosening of realis...
Piquing the public’s curiosity is a studied art. Dan Witz is now doing it darkly on Roman streets. It's out in the open, but let's keep it between us. Dan Witz. "Public and Confidential" Rome, ...