Hendrik ECB Beikirch “Blurring Boundaries” (photo of book spread by Jaime Rojo)
A respectable and rich first monograph by German Street Artist Hendrik Beikirch, known on the street as ECB, Blurring Boundaries aptly explains the area between his graffiti roots and photo-realist portraiture that makes room for emotion. Discovering the hip-hop world in the late 1980s as so many metropolitan youth around the world did thanks to the cultural export of video, vinyl, books and cassette tapes, Beikirch first began his own exploration in graffiti that mimicked the influence of cities like New York interpreted through the local teen culture of Kassel where he was born.
Hendrik ECB Beikirch “Blurring Boundaries” (photo of book spread by Jaime Rojo)
The intervening twenty years put him on a singular route to develop his own style of using acrylic, emulsion paint, and aerosol in an integrated seamless monochromatic palette technique. His massive portraits of anonymous men (primarily) with creased faces and cryptic maxims have grown onto and into street scenes, evoking emotion in the viewer, and the rare of empathy from a stranger. Now installing his works around the world on ever larger facades in cities like Sao Paulo, Seoul, Delhi, Miami, Kazan, Brooklyn, and throughout Germany, ECB makes an additional looming space for the face of one more wanderer.
Rather than attaching a distinct storyline, ECB gives his sitters a narrative that stretches and ambulates beyond location, sometimes following the passerby to their next appointment. If your imagination was in slumber, an unexpected ECB portrait can awaken it and create the story. At the very least you are introduced to a stranger whom you hadn’t realized could become a confidant, a familiar face in the cacophony of the city.
Hendrik ECB Beikirch “Blurring Boundaries” (photo of book spread by Jaime Rojo)
Hendrik ECB Beikirch “Blurring Boundaries” (photo of book spread by Jaime Rojo)
Hendrik ECB Beikirch “Blurring Boundaries” (photo of book spread by Jaime Rojo)
Hendrik ECB Beikirch “Blurring Boundaries” (photo of book spread by Jaime Rojo)
Hendrik ECB Beikirch “Blurring Boundaries” (photo of book spread by Jaime Rojo)
Hendrik ECB Beikirch “Blurring Boundaries” (photo of book spread by Jaime Rojo)
Hendrick ECB Beikirch “Blurring Boundries” Publikat Publishing
Other Articles You May Like from BSA:
“I don’t have a job and a stable life, but painting and giving life to places that don’t have any is very gratifying,” says the graffiti/Street Artist about his wall completed for in September for the...
Cranio. Detail. Wynwood, Miami. (photo © Jaime Rojo) Brazil based Cranio has a quickly identifiable character – the cerulean blue native in traditional garb who feels entirely outside the modern c...
New York's adopted Street Art brothers Icy & Sot have been spreading their wings in Brooklyn for a couple of years since we first interviewed them upon their arrival in the US from Iran. In that t...
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities. Now screening : 1. Gonzalo Borondo "Merci" Temple des Chartrons2. ELLE in Allentown3. Pejac: YIN-YANG4. “Beyond Th...
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities. Now screening : 1. Portrait of an Artist Guido Van Helten 2. Who's Your Daddy? 3. Shida Bombing - Hong ...