All posts tagged: Venice LA

Louis Masai, Leaping Frogs and Crawling Crayfish in LA : “The Art Of Beeing”

Louis Masai, Leaping Frogs and Crawling Crayfish in LA : “The Art Of Beeing”

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Yellow legged frogs don’t know who the president is.

Either do Shasta Crayfish.

Regardless, both of these species are facing extinction and endangered, respectively. Are you doing anything about this?

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Yellow Legged Frog. 90% have disappeared in the last 100 years. Downtown, LA. November 2016. (photo © TeeByFord)

Street Artist Louis Masai is raising the specter of the Extinction Crises we are currently living in with his paintings of animals in cities across the US this fall and early winter.

The tour is called “The Art of Beeing” and here are new images of some walls he hit in Los Angeles.

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Yellow Legged Frog. 90% have disappeared in the last 100 years. Downtown, LA. November 2016. (photo © TeeByFord)

“I painted the Shasta crayfish (or as Americans call it; crawfish) in Venice,” Louis says of the stylized patchwork fabric covered animal. The patchwork is a metaphor for the different people who will be needed to protect it – “an endangered species native to northeast California There are only seven remaining populations of the Shasta crayfish left and are found only in Shasta County, California, in the Pit River drainage and two tributary systems, Fall River and Hat Creek drainages,” says the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Louis painted this one on the back of an environmentally aware nature photography gallery, he says, in an instance of what he calls “synchronicity.”

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Yellow Legged Frog. 90% have disappeared in the last 100 years. Downtown, LA. November 2016. (photo © Lmnotree)

And what about that little yellow-legged frog that doesn’t know we are transferring from President Obama to President Trump? This one is in the Korea Town area of LA and in general these amphibians are “threatened by predation by introduced trout, disease, pesticides, environmental changes from drought and global warming, and habitat degradation due to livestock grazing,” says the Center for Biodiversity.

“All in all it was a great week,” says Mr. Masai as he recounts the number of people who offered him walls to paint in this city of angels. “Now we set off for Joshua Tree and slab city before heading out to Phoenix.”

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Yellow Legged Frog. 90% have disappeared in the last 100 years. Downtown, LA. November 2016. (photo © Lmnotree)

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Yellow Legged Frog. 90% have disappeared in the last 100 years. Downtown, LA. November 2016. (photo © Lmnotree)

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Yellow Legged Frog. 90% have disappeared in the last 100 years. Downtown, LA. November 2016. (photo © Louis Masai)

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Shasta Crayfish. Critically Endangered. Venice, LA. November 2016. (photo © Lmnotree)

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Shasta Crayfish. Critically Endangered. Venice, LA. November 2016. (photo © Arnelle)

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Shasta Crayfish. Critically Endangered. Venice, LA. November 2016. (photo © Lmnotree)

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Shasta Crayfish. Critically Endangered. Venice, LA. November 2016. (photo © Louis Masai)

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Shasta Crayfish. Critically Endangered. Venice, LA. November 2016. (photo © Louis Masai)

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Shasta Crayfish. Critically Endangered. Venice, LA. November 2016. (photo © TeeByFord)

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Louis Masai: The Art of Beeing USA Tour. Shasta Crayfish. Critically Endangered. Venice, LA. November 2016. (photo © TeeByFord)

 

Click http://louismasai.com/projects/the-art-of-beeing/ to learn more about the project.

 

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