Australian Street Artist Reka was in town in the wake of the hurricane named Sandy and he found his plans for painting disrupted by flooded train lines, but eventually got up in three places in Brooklyn. On tour from his native Melbourne since July, Bushwick is just one more name to be tacked onto the list of places for Reka (or Reka One or James Reka) along with Amsterdam, Berlin, Bristol, London, Milan, Paris and the countryside in France.
REKA. Bushwick Five Points, Nov, 2012 NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Here he brought his signature abstract portraits rendered in ochre, beige, moss, brown, black, white, rusted crimson and spice red. Typically illustrative of the female form, these figures are full of action with limbs and hands and elbows akimbo, gesticulating into air, flustered and animated with limbs bending from rivets at the joints. With wavelets of the darkest hair spilling and often with breasts barely pinned in or spinning free to make waves, Reka’s ladies in Brooklyn are unhinged consternation, contemplative and concerned, somehow heavy in their cubist side/front viewed expressions.
REKA. Bushwick Five Points, Nov, 2012 NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)
The forms photographed here by Jaime Rojo may be cognizant of the destruction that New York is still dealing with, where homes are being bulldozed, many school buildings are permanently closed, checks are lost in the mail, and many families are reliant on others for food and shelter. Rendered in colors we associate with autumn, these new Reka figures are of this moment in Brooklyn, even as the artist moves on in search of his next spot to paint.
REKA. Bushwick Five Points, Nov, 2012 NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)
REKA. Bushwick Five Points, Nov, 2012 NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)
REKA. Bushwick Five Points, Nov, 2012 NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)
REKA. Bushwick Five Points, Nov, 2012 NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)
REKA. Bushwick Five Points, Nov, 2012 NYC . Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
REKA. Bushwick, Nov, 2012 NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Other Articles You May Like from BSA:
The Brooklyn Artist Talks about Painting, Street Art, and Choking Chickens You’ve seen his cats and dogs and birds and rats and people in wheat-pasted drawings and paintings on the street in Brooklyn ...
New York, New York, in the thick of summer. The heat is heavy with humidity, smells of hotdogs, marijuana, perfume, piss. The flat screen sunglasses now on every sweet face hide the glances and ...
The pronounced disparities and hypocrisies of society are now on display and on parade in our politics, on our multiple screens, in our bank accounts, our hospitals, our music, our schools, our n...
Welcome to BSA's Images of the Week. We decided to dedicate this weekly survey to the artists of "Return 2 Burn", its organizers, and the streets that brought us here. The new "Return 2 Bu...
Recently we brought you coverage of Shepard Fairey's newest work for the Djerbahood project on the island of Hara Sghira Er Riadh in Tunisia. A gradually-building project curated over the last decade...