Three members of the French graffiti crew “Da Mental Vaporz” (DMV) just launched a short exhibit at the Villa Alliv during their residency there and today we have some exclusive images of the experimental works they created for the show.
Da Mental Vaporz (DMV) Villa Alliv. Marseille, France. April 2016 (photo © courtesy Villa Alliv)
With improvisation at its core, the graffiti practice over a decade and a half with their larger crew may have helped prepared Jaw, Kan, and Blo for this joint exhibition featuring a three dimensional sculptural abstraction that fills much of the space.
The jutting, bending planes evoke skate parks, alleys, and underground tunnels with unexpected shapes and intermittent illumination that throw shadows and rays that can be enticing and difficult to discern. Capitalizing on the chaos the trio takes turns laying patterns, gestural lines, fills and textures that chop, sharpen, and blur the dimensions as you walk through.
Da Mental Vaporz (DMV) Villa Alliv. Marseille, France. April 2016 (photo © courtesy Villa Alliv)
The temporary built and painted environment and the happenstance of late night illicit art-making moves also onto canvasses of what the artists like to refer to as 6-hand paintings. As each joins in a collaborative improvisation, the results can have a kinetic balance nonetheless.
As Blow and Jaw build using gesture and volumetric shape and Kan overlaying diagrammatic dot-and-line symmetries finished with a layered miasma netting of aerosol, the canvasses can appear as like science laboratory slides that have caught a sample of culture (or cultures) to examine.
Alternately, these works are an ode to a psychological and emotionally fluid state, a practice of discovery, abstraction and collaboration that fuses DMV’s collective memories and an attitude of shared creation.
Da Mental Vaporz (DMV) Villa Alliv. Marseille, France. April 2016 (photo © courtesy Villa Alliv)
Da Mental Vaporz (DMV) Villa Alliv. Marseille, France. April 2016 (photo © courtesy Villa Alliv)
Da Mental Vaporz (DMV) Villa Alliv. Marseille, France. April 2016 (photo © courtesy Villa Alliv)
Da Mental Vaporz (DMV) Villa Alliv. Marseille, France. April 2016 (photo © courtesy Villa Alliv)
Da Mental Vaporz (DMV). Detail. Villa Alliv. Marseille, France. April 2016 (photo © courtesy Villa Alliv)
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