The Site Unscene in conjunction with The Loft Salon & Gallery Present: “Fringe” (Los Angeles, CA)

Fringe
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FRINGE” Street Art Show featuring SMEAR, LEBA and GREGORY SIFF opens June 9th

Los Angeles, California, 2 June 2011 – On June 9th,The Site Unscene in conjunction with The Loft Salon & Gallery brings you the first in a monthly series of art shows to open during the Downtown LA Artwalk. The series will kick-off with street art show FRINGE featuring the work of Smear, Leba and Gregory Siff.

Show opens June 9th, 2011,  6pm – 10pm at The Loft Salon, 560 S. Main Street #8W, LA 90013. The event is free all night, lots of drinks, great music and amazing art.

Smear, Leba and Gregory Siff are three of the most notable street artists in Los Angeles. Each will all be presenting street influenced artwork on June 9th at the opening of FRINGE. Not allowing themselves to be marginalized by accepted norms or considered secondary to any art movement, these three artists all bring a unique voice and style to the public eye.  Never letting fear of adversity, or conformity, influence their artistic visions, these artists persist through their work for FRINGE, a curated collection playing on the concept of ‘marginalized’ society in it’s various forms.


Smear: Cristian Gheorghiu’s (aka SMEAR) visceral, highly personal style of painting emulates the messy workings of the total-information age, layering forms and images with powerful, slashing brush strokes of rhythmic, unifying mixtures and improvised, frenzied lines coupled with brilliant color to achieve a simplified language. Gheorghiu counters his free, muscular brushstrokes by loading his paintings with rags and tatters of cloth, reproductions, fragments of comic strips, and other collage elements of waste and discarded materials to convey maps of mental states. More info on Smear here.


Leba: The artist Leba has been active in the street art scene, from the West to East coast, since the beginning of last decade. He is recognized and admired for combining biting social commentary and fine art imagery into both his street art and fine art.  HE is unafraid to speak his mind with a spray can as on his highly controversial, yet loved, Census billboards and much lauded American Apparel advert takeovers.  His street art is always relevant, exploratory, skillfully crafted, and many times, politically charged. He is skilled in many mediums: sculpting, wheat pasting, stencil cutting, painting and he skillfully conforms each medium to the needs of each individual piece. It is this combination of intelligence and raw talent that has made him one of the most admired and intriguing LA artists around the globe. More info on Leba here.


Gregory Siff: is an American Pop, Street, Abstract-expressionist. He has exhibited un New York City, Los Angeles, London, Itialy, Dublin and Vancouver. His paintings have been featured in Deitch Projects Art Parades, The Standard Hotel, De La Barracuda Wall and Urban Outfitters. Gregory’s work has appeared in Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine, Paper Mag, L.A. Times, Marc Ecko’s Complex, Cool Hunting and Glamour. You can also find his art on the street and HERE.

FRINGE  is presented by The Loft Hair Salon & Gallery located in the heart of downtown LA eight stories up. The 1500+ square foot space offers the perfect view of downtown life while showcasing the best of LA art life indoors. More info here.

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BSA Outside Presents: Skewville “Last Exit to Skewville” (Brooklyn, NY)

Skewville
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Brooklyn Street Art Presents nearly legendary Skewville live in action creating a BRAND NEW artwork on a GIANT Brooklyn wall called “Last Exit to Skewville” for Northside Open Studios!

As part of the Northside Festival and Northside Open Studios June 16-19, 2011, New York’s famous Street Art high rollers Skewville will create a huge new street art cityscape installation on Williamsburgs’ North Side.

With the generous support from local family owned Crest Hardware Store (home of Crest Fest) and Montana Colors, this project is not a dream, but a reality.

To celebrate the 150 studios, galleries, and organizations involved in NOS and to mark the completion of “Last Exit To Skewville” you are invited to the Northside Open Studios Launch Party Hosted by Crest Fest and Brooklyn Street Art at THE END, 13 Greenpoint Avenue in Greenpoint.

Date: 18 Jun 2011
Time: 6:00 PM – 11:00 PM
Where: The End, Brooklyn

Event Details:
Co-celebrated with Crest Fest and Brooklyn Street Art, NOS Launch Party brings together an art exhibition of participating artists including a confessional box by Eva Navon, Rooftop Bikini Reading Series by Boomslang, video screening curated by Sasha Summer, and an interactive rocking chair video & sound installation by Sara Sun. Music performances include Snowmine, Balun, Merrikans, Dinowalrus and Walrus Ghost. Launch Party: June 18th, 6 – 11pm.

The 100 foot long wall called “Last Exit to Skewville” pays tribute to the cityscapes of industrial and everyday blue collar Brooklyn and calls on the smart alecky humor and graphic finesse of one of NYC Street Art’s Finest, the near legendary Skewville.

Presented by Brooklyn Street Art as part of it’s curated walls project called BSA Outside, “Last Exit To Skewville” will appear on North 11th Street directly across from the famous Brooklyn Brewery and right around the corner from Brooklyn Bowl, two solid neighborhood institutions serving thousands of adventurous fun lovers every weekend.

THE LOCATION OF THE WALL:
82 North 11th Street, Between Berry and Wythe

ARTISTS BIO

Skewville is an art collective consisting of twin brothers born and raised in Queens, NY who are known world wide for the thousands of hand made fake wooden sneakers they silkscreened, hand cut, drilled, laced, and tossed over telephone lines around the globe since 1999. Known for their warped crooked sense of irony and humor, Ad and Droo have established Skewville with a specific style of lettering, abstract figures and cityscapes that are instantly recognizable by Street Art fans everywhere.

For nearly 10 years Ad Deville and his partner Ali Ha have shown Street Artists in their two galleries, The Orchard Street Art Gallery on Manhattan’s Lower East Side (2002-08) and Factory Fresh, arguably the centerpiece for the Street Art scene in the quickly booming art scene unfolding today in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

In addition to being Street Artists with a sarcastic running commentary on the hypocrisy and chicanery on the Street Art scene and gentrification of artist neighborhoods, Skewville has continued to stretch creatively with sculptural installations of industrial materials like wire, plastic orange mesh, and found building materials fished out of dumpsters. On the community tip, they created a mural for local North Brooklyn Public Art Coalition to revive part of the Greenpoint neighborhood, and built a miniature golf “Putting Lot” in an abandoned lot as partners with an artist/environmental group educating neighbors about sustainability. In recent years they have developed their fine art practice using their blocky lo-fi labor-intensive vocabulary and have participated in galleries and festivals around the world including London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Norway, Dublin, and Los Angeles, among others.

Skewville http://www.skewville.org/

Factory Fresh http://www.factoryfresh.net/

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Lazarides Gallery Presents: Ron English “Skin Deep” (London, UK)

Ron English
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24th June 2011 – 21st July 2011

Painter, Pundit and Prankster Ron English presents Skin Deep, an exploration of the intersections, discrepancies and synchronicities of personal mythologies on display in our public personas. The exhibition presents multi-layered portraits of some of his most iconic characters, tracing the arc of their inner lives.

Often using his children as models, English chronicles the soul’s sojourn through Pop dioramas of fear and appetite, aspiration and rage. While paying homage to the great art before him, English maintains his very personal point of view, transforming the public to intimate and the universal to specific.

Using a mixture of imagery, medium and process referenced from great masters such as Warhol, Pollack and Picasso, combined with irreverent cherry-picking of populist totems from fast food to cartoons, English creates complex running narratives of his many alter-egos butting headfirst into the Grand Illusion, where unstated cultural norms are exposed and analyzed.

Address :
11 Rathbone Place, London W1T 1HR
Phone :
+ 44 (0) 207 636 5443
Open :
Tuesday – Saturday 11am – 7pm.
Admittance :
Free


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Brooklynite Gallery Presents: Miss Bugs “Parlour” (Brooklyn, NY)

Miss Bugs
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On a summers night in the heart of Brooklyn, Miss Bugs will open the
doors to her new establishment, the “Parlour”. Miss Bugs alias ‘The Madame’
welcomes you to her boudoir, fit for gods and monsters; a place where
delights and nightmares can be played out. You’ll be introduced to the
still-standing ghosts in the woodland clearing who guard the entrance to the
“Parlour” that lies beyond… Here, the Madames’ presence can be felt in
every corner; you can look directly into her eyes and view the story of her
dark desires… Madame advises all who attend the opening to dress
appropriately to honor the spirits and hide their face by donning a
masquerade mask.

“Parlour” is the setting for Miss Bugs’ new body of work; its atmosphere will
unsettle. By placing the prints and large scale collages within a fictional
space, the context of the original sources of found art is changed, making us
view its symbolism in a different, darker light. This distorted world of
installations indoors and out, is an extension of their ‘Cut Out and Fade Out’
street project and the concept of the ‘Parlour’ exploits the idea that the art
establishment plays on people’s desires, whether for money, beauty, sex or
ownership. It’s a twisted environment with poetically warped female forms that
beckon you in and carry you off to the underbelly of Miss Bugs’ soul.

The opening of ‘Parlour’ marks Miss Bugs’ second solo gallery appearance since
their debut outing over three years ago and is their first solo show outside
the UK. Miss Bugs have come together again for their most ambitious project
to-date…

They continue to explore the themes which have been prevalent in their work,
such as the nature of the art establishment. Miss Bugs continues to question
the ownership of ideas, working methods, and the relationship and knock-on
effect that artists have with one another. And while their work often sees the
appropriation of hundreds of contemporary artists; they are all referenced and
recomposed within their collages and silk-screens to make their own newly
reconstructed iconic pieces. Miss Bugs steals from many, but in doing so they
leave their own unique indelible mark; a Miss Bugs calling card at the scene of
the crime!


BROOKLYNITE is located at 334 Malcolm X Blvd., Brooklyn, NY 11233

We are open Thursday thru Saturday from 1pm – 7pm or by appointment.
We are located 2 blocks from the A or C subway to Utica Ave. stop.

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Tony’s Gallery Presents: Burning Candy “Fight Fire With Fire” (London, UK)

Burning Candy
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Fight Fire with Fire
8th July – 25th August
Preview: 7th July

Fighting & Happiness, can they really go together? Well Chris Eubank used to talk about ‘the art of fighting’ and the cat & mouse scenerio endured by Police Departments and Graffiti Crews worldwide might just prove they can. Whilst London’s 2012 Olympics may appear to offer healthy competition, harking back to pitting one individual City or Country against each other, Burning Candy sense this one could be rigged and the only answer is to “Fight Fire With Fire.” The need to strike out or rise above conflict in a recreational sense is something that Burning Candy feel compelled to do. Their Art like most sporting events is defined by it’s location. Take the River Lea host to many a BC production, this may become more of an arena than the Olympic Stadium that it runs alongside. Burning Candy are coming indoors for a moment to take stock before the fight really begins…

Tony’s
68 Sclater st | London |E1 6HR
0203 5565201

info@tonysgallery.com

www.tonysgallery.com

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Seeing Baltimore With Martha Cooper

The Photographer Takes You On a Tour Through Sowebo

Walking in the street with Martha Cooper is part anthropology, part history, part celebrity, and always discovery. Known for 40 years of documenting with a clear eye the emergence of graffiti and hip hop culture and for introducing it to a world audience, Ms. Cooper will tell you that her primary interest has always been to simply observe closely and let the images speak for themselves.

brooklyn-street-art-rams-doke-soviet-arek-jaime-rojo-baltimore-05-11-web-28Mama Kat and White Mike welcome you to B-More. Mural by Rams, Doke, Soviet and Arik (photo © Jaime Rojo)

With a gentle frankness she repels your impulse to canonize her and her work and prefers to talk about the people she meets and her beloved hometown Baltimore, the site of her six-year photography project in the neighborhood of Sowebo. In much the same way her journalistic intuition led her to Brooklyn to meet graffiti king Dondi in the mid seventies, she has slowly earned the trust and friendship of many people in this neighborhood challenged by dire economics and the influence of drugs and guns.

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White Mike talks to Martha about the mural and some neighborhood news. Mural by Rams, Doke, Soviet and Arik (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tailing Martha, and that’s what you do in an effort to keep up with the photographer with yellow shoelaces, you soon hear young voices calling “Picture Lady!”, “It’s Picture Lady!”. Across the street, up the block, on the stoops, clusters of folk cooling themselves turn their collective heads to see Martha with her heaving backpack clipping up the sidewalk toward them. The littlest among them come right up and bob back and forth talking with animation to her and she answers each question and inquiry about her camera and what she’s been up to.

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Man and his best friend in the shade at the Sowebo festival (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Setting the backpack on the pavement under a tree, she unzips compartments and produces printed photos of the neighbors that she made since the last time she came by. With thanks and some storytelling and maybe another pose for the camera, Ms. Cooper smoothly departs up the block, scanning all sides of the street for more photo opportunities. Here we stop for a tour of a garden, there we see an abandoned lot converted to a grassy lawn-chaired community barbeque, and finally we are upon a large graffiti wall installation. “Welcome to Baltimore!” it cries and within moments some passersby greet her to talk about the piece and pose in front of their names on the rollcall – a tribute to some of the folks in the community.

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Napping on a landing at the Sowebo festival (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Your day includes a street fair with crafts and bands and crabcakes and lemonade that Martha thinks is too watery and skateboarders with tattoos and piercings doing a double take and figuring out how to approach this familiar lady with a giant camera and chat for a moment with her. Many times. Graciously. Finally a small crowd gathers as she shoots a new box truck being painted on this leafy street, with youth piled up on stoops and even sitting on the black pavement of the street for a front row seat while a skateboarder does tricks for just the right flick. It’s community. It’s creativity. It’s Cooper.

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A little girl with her puppy pose for Martha (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Three lil’ sweet rascals hop like popcorn when they see the “Picture Lady” (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Action figure in a private garden (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Martha and her cousin Sally take us on a hike over the railroad tracks to a skatepark. One of the riders falls, and Sally digs through her purse to find a band-aid, which he’s too cool to accept. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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An unusual site that is normal for Sowebo; A stable with this beloved cart pony owned by an “Arab”, the old-custom name for local street vendors who sell produce from horse-drawn carts. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Tagged pigeons at the stables (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Street Artist Gaia in downtown Baltimore (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Gaia in downtown Baltimore pays tribute to Martha Cooper by interpreting a photo of hers and pasting it on the street. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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…upon close inspection, Martha approves (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Gaia pays tribute to important people in the history of Baltimore’s downtown  with a retro version of work similar to that of French Street Artist JR. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Gaia in downtown Baltimore (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Gaia in downtown Baltimore (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Unknown artist in downtown Baltimore (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Unknown artist in downtown Baltimore (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Nanook in downtown Baltimore (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Looks like AIKO was in Baltimore (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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As soon as artist Adam Stab got the news that Martha was in town he procured a small truck to paint, and waited until she arrived to begin. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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A little lift helps the reach. Adam Stab (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Adam Stab (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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101 KSW in Baltimore (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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The sky going back to NYC (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Ya’ll Are a Bunch of Fashion Chimps! New Print from Faile

5 PM Today!

Faile, the Brooklyn Based Street Art Collective just released a new print today on Paper Monster titled “Fashion Chimps NYC”.

From Paper Monster’s site: “This brand new print from the guys at Faile was a long time in the making, and it shows.  Based on a piece from their 2010 show at Perry Rubenstein Gallery, this 25 color screenprint is done in their recent “block” style which gives the illusion of its 3D sister from the show.”

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Faile “Fashion Chimps NYC”. Detail of piece in progress (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Faile “Fashion Chimps NYC” (photo courtesy of Paper Monster)

Go to Paper Monster to purchase this print by clicking on the link below:

http://papermonster.net/item.php?item=177

From our previous gallery visit with Faile:

The first New York gallery show in three years for Street Art collective Faile opens tomorrow at Rubenstein Gallery; a heavy graphic quilt of past, present, and “jimmer-jam”. With the 12-piece “Bedtime Stories”, Patrick and Patrick debut a densely packed wood painting show of story, texture and humor in a quite intimate setting.

Checking on progress as they finished final pieces last week, Brooklyn Street Art was treated to completed block tapestries and works in progress in their buoyantly buzzing studio. Long days have turned to long nights at the end of this parsing of pieces, and the output exceeds the storage…”

Click below to continue reading:

http://www.brooklynstreetart.com/theblog/?p=15660

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Street Art Update: From Paris With Love

A city steeped in it’s own history and a deep respect for the cultural arts, Paris has also had a romance with New York – style graffiti since the early 1980s and has a thriving Street Art scene of it’s own making today.  In yet another example of institutional recognition of the contribution of graffiti and Street Art, the city hosted an exemplary tribute to graffiti history two years ago with “Graffiti, Born in the Streets,” an exhibition that took over the gallery space of the Fondazione Cartier. The popular show included the building’s façade and the surrounding garden as well as large scale photos of tags and pieces displayed in the Paris Metro on buses, and of course, trains.

Recently photographer Er1cBl41r did a small survey of the Street Art scene in Paris and shares some images here. In this collection we can see that the techniques of stencils (many one-color), wheatpastes, direct painting, illustration, and of course the glued tiles of local street artist Invader are in many locations around the city.

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Banom (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Ema (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Unknown (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Unknown (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Unknown (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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A classic New York style graff truck from FD Cru (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Ludo (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Invader (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Invader (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Invader meets Bullwinkle (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Unknown (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Popeye (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Unknown (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Unknown (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Unknown (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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Unknown (photo © Er1cBl41r)

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BSA Debut: C215 Tells It Like It Is (Video)

French stencil artist C215 has just released this video, a stylized manifesto of sorts giving his view on his art, his work, and the current state of Street Art.

We are pleased he is participating in “Street Art Saved My Life: 39 New York Stories” this August in LA, and this short but powerful video shows why the stories behind C215’s very personal portraits are some of the most impactful and resilient on the street today.

“I prefer the poetry of small paintings instead of big walls, which are very popular right now in the graffiti scene, but a bit fascistic.”

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Images of the Week 06.05.11

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Our weekly interview with the Streets, this week including images from New York, Detroit, and Amsterdam, and work by C215, Dan Sabau, El Sol 25, Gilf!, Goons, Karma, Nice-One, and Specter.

brooklyn-street-art-c215-jaime-rojo-06-11-webC215 (photo © Jaime Rojo) C215 says he has put more than 90 stencils in Williamsburg in the last three years…we just found another.

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Street Artist Gilf! has been trying something new by adding to her stencils a bit of  toule, which is a departure from earlier work and a hard word to try and pronounce.

Gilf! (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Gilf! (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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El Sol 25 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Dan Sabau (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Goons meditates and levitates (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Nice-One continues with his series of fantastic space ships  (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Nice-One has suddenly appeared in many places in BK, including this large wall directly over a long running Lister (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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A portrait on a postal mailing sticker in marker, cut out. Unknown (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Specter on a flash trip to Detroit managed to paint this stark black portrait on a boarded up building (photo © Specter)

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Specter (photo © Specter)

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Karma in the Chinatown section of Amsterdam (photo © Courtesy of the artist)

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Karma in Amsterdam (photo © Courtesy of the artist)

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Raarrrrhhrhrhhrrr! Veng Chomps Through Another Giant Wall (Bushwick)

Street Artist and burly bear Veng came out of hibernation this spring with a roaring hunger for walls and so far he’s foraged plenty of them in BKLN. From the breezy shores of La Isla Conejo to the rusty thickets of Bushwick, the borough of Brooklyn has a few hundred feet more of aerosol paint since this guy poked his head out of the cave during the thaw.

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Veng (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Just this week we found him placidly smacking his choppers and savoring the last taste of lunch while sitting on a sidewalk and surveying the sweeping Veng Vista across the street; almost one entire block length wall that he’s completing this weekend for the big Bushwick Open Studios 2011.

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Now in it’s 5th year and produced by the volunteer army Arts in Bushwick, the studios and streets are fair game for visitors and artists of all stripes and abilities. Each year it is entertaining and educational to witness who’s moved on, who’s still hanging on, and who’s just arrived to claim credit for it all. Veng is one of the hangers-on; in fact one of the starter-uppers when it comes to Street Art here.

As we reported yesterday, Factory Fresh Gallery has two entries in this year’s festival, a veritable double bill of Indoor and Outdoor. Inside the gallery is “Surrealism,” perhaps in honor of the British-born Mexican Surrealist Master Leonora Carrington who passed away May 25th or perhaps to acknowledge Surrealism’s many currents running through pop culture and street culture today.

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Veng (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The Outside portion showcases the “Bushwick Art Park”, FF’s entry to the New Museum’s Festival of Ideas, which proposes to build an art park on this very block of Vandevoort Place where Veng is painting. No stranger to surrealism himself, Veng often depicts his characters in other-worldly portraits with birds as hats and hats as boats and intricately detailed scenes nested within scenes.

These process shots from Thursday show him trampling along on the immense wall and by Friday he told us he’d be done. You’ll need to check this one yourself to verify. While bears can move fast sometimes, they also tend to favor long naps.

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Veng (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Veng (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Veng (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Veng (photo © Jaime Rojo). Brick walls make Veng very happy as he loves this pattern and the demarcation of the bricks makes his job a lot easier.  He was beaming with joy.

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Ah Summer: At the base of Veng’s ladder this dandelion stood sunny and willful amidst the aerosol fumes and drips and the trash (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Veng (photo © Jaime Rojo)

To learn more about Factory Fresh “Surrealism” Show click below:

http://www.brooklynstreetart.com/theblog/?p=21418

To learn more about “Bushwick Art Park” click below:

http://www.brooklynstreetart.com/theblog/?p=21422

For a complete and detailed listing of all the events taking place at BOS2011 click below:

http://www.brooklynstreetart.com/theblog/?p=21389

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