All posts tagged: Mando Marie

Mando Marie – “Take Me Down” at Straat Gallery

Mando Marie – “Take Me Down” at Straat Gallery

Mando Marie, an American artist currently dividing her time between Amsterdam and Portugal, stands out with her unique blend of stencil art and painting. Her work subtly echos themes of childhood nostalgia wrapped in layers that are both comforting and slightly phantasmal. Her latest exhibition, “Take Me Down,” showcased at the STRAAT Gallery in Amsterdam from May 12th through June 23rd, 2024, highlights her as the first female artist to hold a solo exhibition at this venue.

Her artistic style draws heavily from mid-20th-century children’s books, echoing that era’s simplicity and illustrative clarity. Influenced by artists like Eloise Wilken and Henry Darger, Mando Marie integrates vintage sewing patterns and twin imagery to produce a repetitive, mirrored visual effect, creating a naive, intriguing ambiance at play with the childlike forms. This visual strategy not only amplifies the impact of her work but subtly introduces complex themes through seemingly innocent scenarios.

Mando Marie extends her artistic expression beyond the studio into urban spaces, engaging with street art practices that enrich her gallery works. This dual approach enables her to resonate with a diverse audience, appealing to street art fans and fine art collectors. The use of nostalgia serves as a narrative tool in her art, prompting viewers to delve into their memories and question the simplicity of the narratives they recall from childhood. Her exhibitions offer a space where viewers can explore a blend of clarity and depth, bridging the gap between public urban art and the intimate gallery setting.

The exhibition “Take Me Down” is likely to evoke a mix of nostalgia and subtle, enigmatic qualities, reflecting the dual nature of Mando’s work: an engaging visual experience and possibly a cerebral journey.

Mando Maire is at work in her studio. Amsterdam. (photo courtesy of Straat Gallery)
Mando Marie. “Boundless”. Mando Marie – Take Me Down. Straat – Museum for Street Art and Graffiti. Amsterdam. (photo courtesy of the gallery)
Mando Marie. “The Power of Wishper”. Mando Marie – Take Me Down. Straat – Museum for Street Art and Graffiti. Amsterdam. (photo courtesy of the gallery)
Mando Maire is at work on the streets. (photo courtesy of Straat Gallery)
Mando Maire (photo courtesy of Straat Gallery)

MANDO MARIE – TAKE ME DOWN

Exhibition Dates: Sunday May 12th – Sunday June 23rd, 2024

Opening Reception: Saturday May 11th 6 – 9 PM. For more details click HERE

STRAAT – Museum for Street Art and Graffiti 

NDSM Plein 1 / 1033 WC Amsterdam, the Netherlands

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It’s “Not So Black And White” Outside Scope with STRAAT

It’s “Not So Black And White” Outside Scope with STRAAT

NOT SO BLACK AND WHITE

SCOPE WALLS 2023


A decade ago, spotting a fire extinguisher tag at a high-profile art fair was as rare as stumbling upon a unicorn. These tags, a raw expression borrowed from the rebellious part of street culture, remain one of the few graffiti forms embodying untamed, voluminous fury. Their wild, nearly uncontrollable nature often sends extinguisher tags sprawling chaotically across walls, typically in a burst of illegal exhilaration and complete disregard. Yet, at Scope, something has changed. Here, under the discerning eye of the STRAAT Museum from Amsterdam, New York’s Elle adds it to her graphic vocabulary, confined in a grid. The extinguisher phrase is sweetly an affair of the heart, neatly encapsulated within the structured lines of a painted grid on an outdoor display wall.

Valfre. The Lost Object (text). Not So Black & White Wall Mural Project in collaboration with STRAAT Museum Amsterdam and Scope. Miami Art Week December 2023. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

In this world (the West, East, North, and South), increasingly sliced by polarized political fault lines, the once rigid boundaries between art and vandalism blur into intriguing shades of gray. Consider hand styles like those of Bisco Smith at this venue – once underground, now they fold into the stylized lexicon of ‘calligraffiti,’ accessible to all. It’s a testament to the evolving nature of art, shattering the dichotomy of rules once as clear-cut as the commandments brought down by Moses.

HOXXOH. The Lost Object (text). Not So Black & White Wall Mural Project in collaboration with STRAAT Museum Amsterdam and Scope. Miami Art Week December 2023. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Take Anthony Garcia Sr., for instance. His story is a narrative of contrasts. Born in Denver, that bastion of Boomer wealth now gasping in the throes of late-stage capitalism, Garcia’s roots are in Globeville, a less privileged neighborhood. He gets street cred for starting as a graffiti writer, then joins a DIY art collective – a move perhaps uncharacteristic for traditional graffiti artists. Garcia’s journey exemplifies the fading of stark black-and-white distinctions.

This year’s walls outside the Scope Fair in Miami vividly showcase this eclectic con/fusion. We see graffiti writers rubbing shoulders with art school graduates, graphic designers, and street artists. It’s a diverse panorama condensed into a concise exhibit. Curated by Hyland Mather and David Roos, STRAAT’s exhibition “Not So Black & White” celebrates this new, complex artistic landscape – where the lines between defiance and conformity, street and gallery, blend into a new, undefined horizon.

Artists include The London Police Hoxxoh, Pref ID, Bisco Smith, Mando Marie, Elle, Valfre, and Anthony Garcia Sr. .

HOXXOH. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
ELLE. The Lost Object (text). Not So Black & White Wall Mural Project in collaboration with STRAAT Museum Amsterdam and Scope. Miami Art Week December 2023. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
ELLE. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Bisco Smith. The Lost Object (text). Not So Black & White Wall Mural Project in collaboration with STRAAT Museum Amsterdam and Scope. Miami Art Week December 2023. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Bisco Smith. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Mando Marie. The Lost Object (text). Not So Black & White Wall Mural Project in collaboration with STRAAT Museum Amsterdam and Scope. Miami Art Week December 2023. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Mando Marie. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Anthony Garcia Sr. The Lost Object (text). Not So Black & White Wall Mural Project in collaboration with STRAAT Museum Amsterdam and Scope. Miami Art Week December 2023. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Pref ID. The Lost Object (text). Not So Black & White Wall Mural Project in collaboration with STRAAT Museum Amsterdam and Scope. Miami Art Week December 2023. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
The London Police. The Lost Object (text). Not So Black & White Wall Mural Project in collaboration with STRAAT Museum Amsterdam and Scope. Miami Art Week December 2023. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
The London Police. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)
Not So Black & White Wall Mural Project. Detail. In collaboration with STRAAT Museum Amsterdam and Scope. Miami Art Week December 2023. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR PEACE IN ANY FACE, AND FIND THE LOVE IN ANY PLACE” Hyland Mather AKA The Lost Object.

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BSA Images Of The Week: 05.07.17

BSA Images Of The Week: 05.07.17


BSA-Images-Week-Jan2015

Whether by design or organically grown, we have always gravitated to what we call “Magnet Walls” – those graffiti/Street Art gardens in a town or city that are an open canvas for artists to get up, try out new ideas, experiment with materials, implement a strategy. These walls play an important role in the ecosystem of what we call Street Art or Urban Art. They’re not always explicitly illegal because their reputation draws 10s or 100s of artists to pile on year after year without interruption. The building owners could be allowing the expressions to take place for charitable reasons, more likely just neglect.

The role of these magnet walls is important …and so we are happy to see that while some walls have ceased to exist in some New York neighborhoods in recent years, mostly due to the voracious appetite of developers and the dulling effects of gentrification – “the shack” in Bushwick, the candy factory in Soho to mention just two of them – others are flourishing elsewhere. Today we have many images from a block known as the Great Wall of Savas in Queens.

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring: Aito Katazaki, A Cool55, Amanda Marie, bunnyM, Dirt Cobain, Hektad, JerkFace, Key Detail, Martian Code Art, Pat Perry, Stikman, Thrashbird, What Will You Leave Behind, and WhisBe.

Top image: Thrashbird at The Great Wall of Savas. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Thrashbird at The Great Wall of Savas. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Thrashbird at The Great Wall of Savas. Detail. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Thrashbird at The Great Wall of Savas. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Thrashbird & WhisBe collab at The Great Wall of Savas. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pat Perry for Art in Ad Places. “Drop Bones Not Bombs”. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Jerkface (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Amanda Marie (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Saint Francis reaching out to an Angry Bird – as he would, because he’s a saint. Unidentified artist (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A Cool55 at The Great Wall of Savas. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A Cool55 at The Great Wall of Savas. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Stikman (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The artist’s name is What Will You Leave Behind. “Email me your heart”(photo © Jaime Rojo)

A small poem in the corner reads, “Email me your heart. Then in the morning while we watch the sun rise, kneeling down by the river, the blood drips freely as we wash our hands clean”

bunnyM (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Aito Kitazaki at The Great Wall of Favas. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Aito Kitazaki for East Village Walls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Key Detail for East Village Walls. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martian Code Art and Hektad at The Great Wall of Savas. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Dirt Cobain at The Great Wall of Savas. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Queens, NYC. April 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

 

 

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Amsterdam Dances with Graffuturism and Stencil Masters

Amsterdam Dances with Graffuturism and Stencil Masters

Amsterdam rocked the decks this month to celebrate urban contemporary art and street art in the Netherlands with visual and music based events giving artists many platforms to shine.

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BustArt and Fake for Urban Art Festival Amsterdam. (photo © courtesy of UAFA)

Graffuturism, a term and movement coined a handful of years ago to describe an intersection of graffiti, street art, and abstract geometry continues to stake out new territory and here were gallery and street exhibitions proffering some of the current practitioners whose work could be described as such.

The 5th Urban Art Festival Amsterdam featured their own collection of Graffuturists from Europe, the United States, and South America including Poesia, the unofficial founder of Graffuturism in a show of works on canvas, prints, drawings on paper, murals and site-specific abstract installations.

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BustArt for Urban Art Festival Amsterdam. (photo © courtesy of UAFA)

Running concurrently was a Stencil Masters show featuring some of the top knife-wielding artists known on the street today along with a few senior early proponents. The diverse program of gallery, street installations and DJs courtesy of the ADE (Amsterdam Dance Event) helped further contextualize the art forms for a wider audience of fans.

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Fake for Urban Art Festival Amsterdam. (photo © courtesy of UAFA)

Stencil Masters exhibition
ABOVE (usa) – BTOY (es) – BUSTART (ch) – C215 (fr) – CANVAZ (irl) – CZARNOBYL (de) – E.L.K. (au) – FAKE (nl) – HUGO KAAGMAN (nl) – IVES.ONE (nl) – JANA & JS (de) – JAUNE (be) – LIJNE (nl) – MANDO MARIE (usa) – NAFIR (iran) – ORTICANOODLES (it) – OTTO SCHADE (uk) – PIPSQUEAK WAS HERE (nl) – STF (fr) – TANKPETROL (uk) – TERA ONE (de)

Graffuturism exhibition
BLAQK BLAQK (gr) – CORN79 (it) – GRAPHIC SURGERY (nl) – KENOR (es) – LABUENA YLAMALA (es) – MICK LA ROCK (nl) – OKUDA (es) – OVNI (es) – POESIA (usa) – POETA (ar) – SKOUNT & GWION / TVBdesign (es) – VESOD (it) – WOW123 (de) – X-O / THE LOST OBJECT (nl / usa)

 

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Fake for Urban Art Festival Amsterdam. (photo © courtesy of UAFA)

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XO for Urban Art Festival Amsterdam. (photo © courtesy of UAFA)

brooklyn-street-art-skount-urbanart-now-amsterdam-10-2015-web

Skount for Urban Art Festival Amsterdam. (photo © courtesy of UAFA)

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Markus Gnusius for Urban Art Festival Amsterdam. (photo © courtesy of UAFA)

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C215 for Urban Art Festival Amsterdam. (photo © courtesy of UAFA)

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Jana & JS for Urban Art Festival Amsterdam. (photo © courtesy of UAFA)

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LABUENA YLAMALA for Urban Art Festival Amsterdam. (photo © courtesy of UAFA)

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Lijne and TerraOne for Urban Art Festival Amsterdam. (photo © courtesy of UAFA)

To learn more please go to www.urbanartfestival.com

 

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