All posts tagged: Las Vegas

Neon Saltwater Drenched a Gas Station in Neon Las Vegas; “Cherry Lake”

November 28, 2023 Artists

Seattle-based digital artist and color virtuoso Abigail Dougherty, known in the art world as Neon Saltwater, recently unveiled her latest installation in Downtown Las Vegas, an eye-popping spectacle you can appreciate in the images here. Located on bustling East Fremont Street, the “Cherry Lake” project transforms a once-abandoned garage into a vibrant, chromatic fantasy. Curated by the innovative group Justkids, this installation signifies a notable shift from Dougherty’s well-known digital realms to a tangible, immersive experience.

Neon Saltwater, celebrated for her ethereal digital landscapes featuring neon-drenched rooms and malls, has translated her unique aesthetic into the physical world. The installation, infused with a futuristic flair and a touch of Y2K nostalgia, offers a multi-era experience. It envelopes the entire building in a kaleidoscopic gradient, accentuated by large digital renderings and neon lights, reminiscent of the slick, optimistic urbanism found on album covers in the stylized 70s and 80s. Inside, visitors are immersed in a dream-like space where silhouettes of floating balloons glow under a haunting red light, creating an atmosphere filled with mystery and longing.

“The familiar structure of Cherry Lake is sharply contrasted by intense colors, lighting, and candy-like text, reflecting the excess and fantasy that form my vision of Las Vegas,” Dougherty explains.

Neon Saltwater. *Cherry Lake*. In collaboration with Justkids. Life Is Beautiful Festival. Las Vegas, 2023. (photo © Paul Citone)

This extensive installation, a standout feature of the recent Life is Beautiful Festival, pays homage to the dual nature of Las Vegas – its allure and its disappointments. Justkids’ Curator and Director Charlotte Dutoit comments, “Neon Saltwater’s creation captures the fabulous and the eerie, the futuristic and the nostalgic. Abby’s world blurs the lines between time and reality, taking viewers on an emotional journey through a beautifully hazy, melancholic, and peculiar landscape.”

Neon Saltwater. *Cherry Lake*. In collaboration with Justkids. Life Is Beautiful Festival. Las Vegas, 2023. (photo © Justkids)

Discussing her creative process, Dougherty likens her approach to that of a realist painter or photographer, creating images from scratch to depict non-existent spaces. “I intertwine neon light and color with mundane architectural elements, crafting a surreal yet believable environment,” she remarks. Reflecting on the inspiration behind “Cherry Lake,” she muses on the paradoxical nature of Las Vegas, a city teeming with high hopes and letdowns – recurrent themes in her work. The installation presents an ironic take on the city’s iconic imagery, set against the backdrop of a quaint small-town gas station.

Is “Cherry Lake” a sensory expedition into the heart of urban fantasy? It also depicts emotional contrasts, offering a unique lens through which to view the complexities of the urban landscape.

Criola Paints “Black Girl Magic” in Las Vegas

November 24, 2021 Artists

“Nature, colors, spirituality, self-knowledge, beauty and the power of black women and ancestral matrix cultures,” says Criola about the things that inspire her.

The Brazilian muralist is in downtown Las Vegas to paint a bold diptych called “Black Girl Magic,” for the 3-day Life is Beautiful Festival.

Criola. “*Black Girl Magic”*. Justkids. Las Vegas, Nevada. (photo © Justkids Art)

She says she’s happy to pursue aesthetically pleasing projects while being aware that there is always the burden of the past that has formed this Afro Brazilian woman from “a matriarchal family of black women who were forced to be strong and resistant because of structural racism since the colonization of my country.” The portrait that looms above people walking through town here is elegant and proud and full of splendid ideas that pop around her head, like so many cosmically exploding afro-puffs.

Criola says she gravitates toward painting black women “to exalt and represent, in a positive way, an aesthetic that should be positioned in a place of honor and appreciation. It also means being a protagonist in the evolution process of my individual consciousness, and collective consciousness, which involves the use of my power and artistic exploration games to deconstruct systems of oppression that are still very much present in Brazil.”

Criola is invited to Life is Beautiful by the women-led curator group Justkids.

Spidertag Glows Vintage in Vegas

October 13, 2021 Artists

Just after seeing Billie Eilish or Young Thug at the “Life is Beautiful Festival” in September you could wander over through vintage Las Vegas to check out the new fluorescent diptych by street artist Spidertag. It’s an installation that happily recalls a heyday most visitors didn’t experience, but are drawn to.

Spidertag. *“Neon Mural #12”* Life is Beautiful festival. Justkids, Las Vegas. (photo courtesy of Justkids)

The Spaniard has brought his glowing vocabulary here in a way that is evocative of that which once distinguished the nighttime streetscape of Sin City. “Electrified eye candy” is how curator Charlotte Dutoit of Justkids describes it, and in fact, the simplicity of shapes appears romantically nostalgic in a modern time that seems cluttered with visual complexity.

The modern twist is that Spider Tag made his installation interactive, allowing visitors to alter the colors if they want. His installation joins the success of street artist Felipe Pantone’s first-ever-solar powered neon mural here a few years ago – and looking at the poster letter style of this year’s poster – It’s an aesthetic that many are enamored with.

“Street Art Las Vegas” Takes a Tour Beyond the Strip

May 8, 2019 Art Book Review, Artists, Street Art Book Review

Before there was a scene in Las Vegas, there was a scene in Las Vegas.

Not in just the shimmering, drink slamming, dice rolling, pink-fur bikini with a rhinestone choker kind of way – that’s the real Las Vegas scene that you may think of – but in the urban art scene as well.

Street Art Las Vegas by William Shea and Patrick Lai. Smallworks Press. Las Vegas, NV. April 2019.

In this context the Las Vegas graffiti/Street Art scene that existed in the 1990s and 2000s that led up to a massive “Meeting of Styles” in 2012 was lively and varied and leaned more toward lettering, handstyle, and characters. Later, beginning in 2013 with a music/art festival called “Life is Beautiful”, a select group of international Street Artists were paid by public and private interests to help the city tap into a growing interest in urban decoration with eye-popping murals.

You can see both families of aesthetics at play here on the pages of the new hardcover “Street Art Las Vegas” (Smallworks Press) by William Shea and Patrick Lai, local photographers who have studied the city’s scene closely. Presenting documentation primarily from the 2010s, it is a pretty complete overview of the art-on-the-streets divided into geographical sectors of the city.

Suchart. Street Art Las Vegas by William Shea and Patrick Lai. Smallworks Press. Las Vegas, NV. April 2019.

In very personal texts and essays that reference local developments and flavors, the authors give a sense of the changing political and social dynamics in the city. Notably in such a short period of a decade you learn that popular tastes, behaviors, shifts in demographics, and legal regulations evolve relatively quickly regarding art in the streets – in a city where presentation and image are often paramount.

No surprise, Vegas can take on the air of spectacle.

Aware. Street Art Las Vegas by William Shea and Patrick Lai. Smallworks Press. Las Vegas, NV. April 2019.

“With the increased growth of East Fremont Street, the Arts District became a regular destination for landscape and portrait photographers. Many visitors began to utilize the painted walls as backdrops for graduation and group photos and were willing to pay the extra cost just to use the property,” write the authors to describe the near frantic adoration that surrounded the new murals in one part of town at a certain point.

Despite what appears to be a commercial element that bends the aesthetic landscape away from local talent, the choices of work here are additive, good quality, contextual and well framed.

Skul. Street Art Las Vegas by William Shea and Patrick Lai. Smallworks Press. Las Vegas, NV. April 2019.

As long-time urban explorers and artists, we’re attracted to the tales of stuff off the beaten path, which they preserve in a chapter called “Outer Limits”:

“From the back-city streets to the deepest corner of the desert, the vast landscape surrounding the city creates and environment that continues to amaze even the most experience art seekers. Hidden from public view, large-scale projects can be discovered for those willing to venture out, explore and get dirty. In most cases, day trips to these areas yield the greatest finds for those looking for something beyond your average wall.”

We’re ready!

Lords, ALB, Zeke. Street Art Las Vegas by William Shea and Patrick Lai. Smallworks Press. Las Vegas, NV. April 2019.

ROA. Street Art Las Vegas by William Shea and Patrick Lai. Smallworks Press. Las Vegas, NV. April 2019.

Alexis Diaz. Street Art Las Vegas by William Shea and Patrick Lai. Smallworks Press. Las Vegas, NV. April 2019.

Fintan Magee. Street Art Las Vegas by William Shea and Patrick Lai. Smallworks Press. Las Vegas, NV. April 2019.

Indecline. Street Art Las Vegas by William Shea and Patrick Lai. Smallworks Press. Las Vegas, NV. April 2019.

ROA TOWERS : New Shots from UK, Belgium, Sweden, Mexico, Germany, Italy and the US

February 17, 2015 Artists

We’re back with a slew of new ROA pieces as he continues to share the absolute best images with BSA readers while traveling around the globe. The Belgian street artist, who we refer to as an Urban Naturalist, continues his astounding world tour at a pace that few Street Artists can sustain. Right now he in Hawaii for Pow! Wow! but will soon be in New York for what we hear will be a rather amazing solo gallery show.

The prolific painter has so many fresh images for you that ROA is getting two days of postings on BSA this week. Today we go to London (UK), Werchter (Belgium), Bromölla and Nassjo in Sweden, Queretaro (Mexico), Schmalkalden (Germany), Rome (Italy), Lexington, Kentucky(US), and Las Vegas, Nevada (US). Accompanying some of the images is commentary from ROA about the experience, the context in which he created the pieces and the relevance of the subjects he chose to depict.

Werchter (Belgium)

ROA. Werchter, Belgium. North West Walls. 2014 (photo © ROA)

As is often the case, ROA raises consciousness about the deleterious effects our everyday selfishness causes for the animal world, who we crow so loudly that we care about. While ROA could stay with comfortable subjects, he has demonstrated a long lasting dedication to the plight of animals that few social activists doing work on the street can sustain or have the stomach for. Coupled with the ceaseless dedication to honing his craft over the last few years, sometimes the result is so monumental that your jaw drops open.

This container construction is a permanent installation for NORTHWESTWALLS in Werchter, Belgium. He explains how he arrived at the subject when he was given this massive sculpture of shipping containers as canvas. “Thinking about this situation and the given element of the containers, my thoughts were directly connected to freight and legal and illegal animal trafficking of exotic animals: a questionable practice,” he says.

“Illegal trafficking is an ongoing crime and we all know to what it can lead, however in the context of legal trafficking I was thinking about how the colonies exported exotic animals in poor conditions to show in Victorian zoos. I also thought about the ironic repercussions of zoos today: how they export animals for breeding programs and how some species only exist in captivity anymore, which is a paradox. So this is how I got the idea to use the containers as cages and instead of using native animals, it became a pile of exotic animals.”

Schmalkalden (Germany)

brooklyn-street-art-ROA-SCHMALKALDEN-2015-web

ROA. Schmalkalden, Germany. WallCome Festival. 2014 (photo © ROA)

ROA chose this bat as his entry in the WallCome Festival in Schmalkalden.

Sweden (Bromölla and Nassjo)

ROA. Nassjo, Sweden. Nassjo Kommun. 2014 (photo © ROA)

“I took the train to Nassjo, where Nassjo Kommun invited me to paint a bird on the rooftop,” says ROA.

ROA. Tyrannosaurus. Bromölla, Sweden. 2014 (photo © ROA)

“Malverket (the building) is a part of a ceramic factory that makes huge insulators, located in Bromölla, in South Sweden. ‘Bromölla boasts remains from the Stone Age, and even some findings of dinosaurs…‘,” he says, quoting the WikiPedia page I painted a tyrannosaurus. Teresa and Jonathan invited me, and I do know you already shown the reportage of Henrik Haven, thank you for that! That was great.

London

ROA. Shrew in Dulwich, London 2014 (photo © ROA)

“The London shrew in Dulwich,” he tells us, is actually a depiction of a shrew is stuck into a jar. “It happens a lot in nature that shrews crawl into empty beer bottles and can’t get out because of the slippery/smooth bottle end… they die and the rotten smell attrack other shrews to check out the bottle and on tier turn they become trapped in the bottle.”

ROA thanks Ingrid Beazley from the Dulwich Picture Gallery who invited him over to paint the Dulwich wall.

ROA. Flea. London 2014 (photo © ROA)

“Another local animal from London, the flea,” says ROA.

Lexington, Kentucky, USA

ROA. Lexington, KY. 2014 (photo © ROA)

“I also painted in the Bourbon Distillery District,” says ROA of his trip to Kentucky for the PHBTN Festival, “where I painted a chicken wing (as in Kentucky Fried…).”

ROA. Lexington, KY. 2014 (photo © ROA)

ROME, Italy

ROA. Rome, Italy. 2014 (photo © Lorenzo Gallito/BlindEyeFactory.com)

You may recall we did a previous posting on this bear piece when ROA first completed it.

ROA and An Orphaned Bear in Rome

Queretaro, Mexico

ROA. Queretaro, Mexico. 2014 (photo © ROA)

ROA did a number of paintings of animals local to the area while in Queretaro for the Board Dripper Festival, which celebrated its fifth year in September. ROA would like to says thanks to Isauro for the hospitality.

ROA. Queretaro, Mexico. 2014 (photo © ROA)

Las Vegas, Nevada (USA)

ROA. Las Vegas, Nevada. 2014 (photo © ROA)

ROA painted this horned lizard for the Life is Beautiful festival, and he extends his thanks to Rom and Charlotte.

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Please note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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Images Of The Week: 05.04.14

May 4, 2014 Artists, BSA Images Of The Week

Here our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Cabaio, Cern, Chris Stain, Crummy Gummy, Damon, Dylan Egon, Ebaycs, Ellis G., Hot Boys, Hot Tea, Ives One, JB, Jerk Face, Nathan Sawaya, QRST, Rambo, Serban Ionescu, Tec, and Zimer.

Top Image >> Chris Stain for The Bushwick Collective. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

QRST brings the family outside now that the weather is getting nice. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

JB and Hot Boys collaboration in Rome, Italy. (photo © JB)

Rambo gives a shout out to Julian Schnabel (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nathan Sawaya does an installation with multi-colored childrens’ toy blocks for Earth Day in Manhattan. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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BSAPlease note: All content including images and text are © BrooklynStreetArt.com, unless otherwise noted. We like sharing BSA content for non-commercial purposes as long as you credit the photographer(s) and BSA, include a link to the original article URL and do not remove the photographer’s name from the .jpg file. Otherwise, please refrain from re-posting. Thanks!

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Get Up Gallery Presents: Elik “Carpe Noctem” (Las Vegas, Nevada)

June 5, 2013 Afghanistan

Elik

Carpe Noctem : New Works By Elik

Featured Art Exhibit:
ELIK – Carpe Noctem

OPENING DATE WITH RECEPTION
June 7th, 2013 from 7:00-11:00 PM

CONTACT
Derek Douglas : 702-529-3330 | info@getupgallery.com | http://www.getupgallery.com/

DURATION
June 7th, 2013 through June 28th, 2013

LOCATION
Emergency Arts
c/o Get Up Gallery
520 Fremont Street
Las Vegas, NV 89101

CURATOR
Derek Douglas and David Dimartino

ARTIST STATEMENT:
ELIK * Carpe Noctem

Everyone has a story to tell and although his is fragmented, ELIK is no different. Keep your eyes peeled and your head up in NYC and you might be able to grab a glimpse of the work left behind by this legend who gained cult-hero status in the early part of this century. Growing tired of the underground fame and the bullshit of the art world he “went off the grid” and disappeared from the scene in NYC. He decided to call it quits for a while and retired on top of his game. Although he never really stopped completely, he definitely slowed down as he matured.

He is shrouded in mystery and by rumors of mythic madness and glorified drug use. There are stories of him being homeless for a bit, living on the streets in shanty shacks and couch surfing with friends. Laying his head to rest wherever he could, he was a sort of an inner city gypsy for awhile. Resting spots included on top of buildings, in parks, in bars, and some say he slept in a boat in Bushwick (Brooklyn) on a few occasions. He’s had his share of arrests and police brutality, which on one encounter in his early career, involved a serious beat down and a vicious dog bite which resulted in huge fines and a lengthy probation. It’s been said that this incident only made him stronger and fueled his desire to crush and get up harder…

http://getupgallery.com/carpe-noctem-new-works-by-elik/

Get Up Gallery Presents: TRXTR “Lucked Up” (Las Vegas, Nevada)

August 30, 2012 Artists, Events, Gallery, Opening

TRXTR

OPENING DATE WITH RECEPTION

September 7th, 2012 from 7:00pm-11:00pm

CONTACT

Derek Douglas : 702-529-3330 | info@getupgallery.com | http://www.getupgallery.com

DURATION

September 7th, 2012 through September 29th, 2012

LOCATION

Emergency Arts
c/o Get Up Gallery 520 Fremont Street Las Vegas, NV 89101

CURATOR

Derek Douglas

EXHIBITION TITLE

Lucked Up: New Works By TRXTR

BRIEF

UK based artist TRXTR’s work explores social and moral issues and his distinctive style using a wide variety of techniques fusing together the art of photography and painting. This is not an artist who is wedded to any particular medium, but for him a rather more Machiavellian ‘ends justifies the means’

approach while acknowledging the historical importance of traditional media.TRXTR’s images are thought provoking, poignant, current and seductively captivating showing us an eclectic mix of atmospheres and emotions, as are the techniques he uses to produce them. Their overall effect is disturbing and alluring in equal measure. Concerns about exploitation, globalization and corruption appear over and over again, but the tone is ambivalent. He is not preaching to us, but reproducing some of the sickly sweet images of commercialism in a way that it is genuinely hard to tell if he is celebrating them or railing against them. This interesting and unsettling approach has something of the effect of Jeff Koons and Warhol.

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