First Lady of the Street Art... First Miss... Miss.Tic.

After a long break of not writing (life, busy life...), I decided that the next post can't be about whatsoever... So here it is: the biggest, I suppose, female character amongst all the street artists. As I said once that Jef Aerosol is a father of the Street Art (here), a mother, in this case, would be undoubtedly his peer: madame Miss.Tic (her official webpage here). 

Miss.Tic isn't mysterious (only her real name remains unknown), as I thought once trying to figure out the roots of her pseudonym. There's her full biography all around the internet: lot of interviews, photos and videos (for example:YouTube's video, where Miss.Tic talks about her book). No wonder: born in 1956 in Montmartre, Paris, she's officially present on the artistic scene since 1985, when she signed her first personal exhibition. I won't write here about her private life. I would only simply mention that Miss.Tic's art was much influenced by the fact that as a young girl, she lost almost all her family. You can read about on Wikipedia French, where's a quite big article dedicated for her, or in English, though still very briefly.  

Back to her pseudonym (which is interesting story): Miss.Tic. After reading and watching interviews with her, I have an impression that she's somehow very positive and very funny personality, who likes to laugh a lot. Therefore, it didn't surprise me that her pseudonym comes from the character of the Scrooge McDuck universe cartoon (Disney). Magica de Spell, this was the name of the character, was the very powerful sorceress/witch with the characteristic black shoulder-length hair (exactly like a Miss.Tic in real. Btw. maybe it was one of the reason why she has chosen so). In French, the name of Disney's character was translated: Miss.Tick. Another reason to choose her pseudonym was the fact, that during the years of Miss.Tic's beginnings, quite a lot of painters have chosen theirs pseudonyms after the cartoons characters, to underline the break with the abstract and metaphysical intellectualism from the past decades (after Wikipedia). It was so called "big beta" movement. 

Now a little bit about her work: simple stencils, fine idea and a pinch (or even two) of poetry. Everything that's needed to make a discreet but thought-provoking at once, street art. The main iconography are women. In one of the interview Miss.Tic explains that her inspirations have their roots in observation of the woman's status in the society. The images of the women that appear in the newspapers and adds; the women that are sexy, glamour, healthy and young. Miss.Tic says: "It's nothing but an image that I'm trying to reverse and give it some new meaning, trying to do something new with it on my own way. I'm an observer, not a socio-political critic at any case!". 

Picture below: Le corps au régime ment. - "The body (bodies) on diet lies". At the same time we can understand: "The body (bodies) of (for?) the army (regiment)".   

Miss.Tic is a poet also, which is not hard to figure out whilst reading all these maxims and sentences, which have either a double meaning, or are a word-play. Very often in a phonetic aspect as well.  For example, if we would read very fast the maxim "A la vie a l'amor" (picture below) - "For the life and love", we would understand at the same time: "For the life and death" ("amor" is written in Spanish in this case, to achieve her intention of phonetic word-play).

The maxims that Miss.Tic comes up with are sometimes so brilliant, that the stencils become a nice supplement for it rather than inverse. Of course, it's not the case all the time. The seductive woman has a power. For her words to sound clearer...   

The men and couples start to appear more and more often in her works, too.

Even though Miss.Tic isn't a socio-political critic, like she's said, she likes to give her "opinion", when it's about some important political events. Then she signs her stencils vel "Miss.Tick Présidente", for us to know that the art was done for some "political" reason. Below the maxim says" On est ni de droite, ni de gauche. On est dans la merde" - "We're not from right, we're not from left. We're in the shit"....(so familiar!)

The animals are the subject in her work, too. Sometimes with maxims, sometimes not. In the beginning usually the cats, now the puppies as well.

"On n'est pas des chiens" -  We are not dogs. I think that Miss.Tic, like a real cat, chose her way to walk long ago and will never change her mond. At least we hope so and waiting for more!

The largest mural in Europe by Pantonio / Galerie Itinerrance

In June this year, Pantonio (Antonio Correia), Portuguese artist, created the highest, as far, mural in Europe. Pantonio has always been the part of artistic exhibitions, urban art festivals and even called once to go to China to design a giant mural, consisted of animals culturally relevant to China (more details and photos here). 

The animals and characters designed like if they were the photography's negatives, by use of the very flexible and soft lines, presented in motion that resembles the current of the river, are "swimming" on the walls. Sometimes lazy, sometimes more lively, Pantonio's incredibly soft compositions magnetize our eyes. Minimalist colours are the must. White, blue and black, sometimes pinch of red or yellow, to not get lost in this labyrinth of silhouettes... 

Whirlwind of the fish - Pantonio

This largest mural in Europe, was unveiled in 13th district in Paris, on Thursday 19 June 2014. On the website of Galerie Itinerrance, which is the official patronage of this urban series of paintings, we can find few informations about it. Namely, Pantonio was working on this fresco one month long and it has (the wall of the building actually) 66 meters high and 15 meters wide.

Whirlwind of the fish - Pantonio

Whirlwind of the fish - Pantonio

There's a documentary book by Jerome Thomas "Sky is the Limit, the painters of the extreme", where we can find this and much more other photos about "making-of". 

Whirlwind of the fish - Pantonio

Just next to it, on another building, there's a huge mural done under the patronage of Galery Itinerrance as well, ordered by the Town Hall of the 13th district of Paris. 

Stewearth (I already did a post about him) is the artist, who is often inspired by Japanese culture and even (if we can say so) invented his own world, populated by birds, fish, samurai etc... 

Pantonio whirlwind and Stewearth's Blue Heron

Wall's surface of 52 per 14 meters, 30 litres of paint, 100 aerosol cans and 60 hours of work to create this giant Blue Heron...

Blue heron by Stewearth

Blue heron by Stewearth

What will be the next mighty animal to inhabit on of the walls in this district?

Concrete-brick jungle

Animals, after people, are one of the most gripping subject for the street artist. No wonder as what else could bring more life to the grey street than a wild animal? Serious, with a wink, grotesque, funny, scary or very sophisticated- Parisian jungle lives its own life in hundreds of ways.

Below, first two pictures present the art works of the artist called Bonom. Creating mostly in Paris and Brussels, Bonom likes to make us felling uneasy with his sprayed works, that occupy the highest parts of the buildings, like if they were "floating close to the sky". A nice article about Bonom you can find here. 

Below: boar on the spit. Scary, bit gory piece of art arranged around the technical ladder fixed on the wall. He uses very often this element of the building as an integral part of his graffiti. Very, very impressive...

Boar on the spit by Bonom

Rummaging in the web I found few short movies showing the way he works. How he climbs the high buildings to create his most remarkable graffiti and looks for some adrenaline at the same time... 

Gare au Gorrile - Street artist Bonom painting a gorilla in the center of Brussels

Belgian reportage about Bonom 

Bonom about being more than a street artist and criminalisation of the street art

Fish by Bonom

Monkeys by artists: Kouka and Ponz. 

Kouka

Ponz

Stencilled green jaguar, artist unknown.

City of Paris is full of little stencilled animals everywhere. Usually black sprayed, little fellows roam free, without an owner.

There's a group of animals that makes us smile and/or actually smile to us, too.

Smiling panda by Sheez

Dancing, a little bit satanic-like goat...Is it for fun or is there some message behind?

Little red fox carelessly sprayed in the 3rd district of Paris.

If we talk about the animals, we couldn't not mention about Codex Urbanus. The number of his bestiary is growing really fast. My previous post about him to be found here. 

Fig 76 - Saurus Cervus by Codex Urbanus

Fig 204 - Eliphas Axolotl by Codex Urbanus

Some animals are bored to be constantly exposed, so they simply descend the walls and go somewhere else, leaving the traces behind them. 

Seal by Burins

"Kraken - Je t'aime", "Kraken - I love you", artist unknown, is to be found near the Republique in Paris. If someone is interested to find out more about this legendary giant squid, or is in love with it as well, can read more about it on Wikipedia. 

Kraken, je t'aime - Kraken I love you

The last presented group of animals is treated in a very artistic way with a kind of wildness preserved, which is hard to see at first glimpse, but we feel it very well. There are the beautiful compositions taking the final form of the animals, as well as the animals that are more or less "anthropomorphised". Picture below, forming a tiger's head, probably is made by an artist called Dourone, but I'm not entirely sure.

Another tiger made by Fred le Chevalier, a Parisian favorite as a street artist. Actually, Fred's tiger is transformed to represent a daemon. More about him and his numerous characters created with the pinch of onirism to be found in my previous post about Fred le Chevalier.

And here the brick jungle ends.

London's art by night

It was very short, my visit in London... Though, still I had a little time to make a quick shot "here and there". Mostly taken by night, but it gave them even more charm. Enjoy the report of what is just happening on the London's streets! 

Bestiary of ROA.

By wikipedia : "ROA (artist from Ghent in Belgium) generally paints wild/urban animals and birds that are native to the area being painted. ROA usually uses a minimal colour pallet like black, white and red, but also creates works using vibrant colours depicting flesh and/or internal systems within the animals and birds". 

Giant rat - ROA

I must admit that these animals, of a large format - as they occupy entire walls, found by chance around the corner, arouse some kind of terror. They also remind us, that in this post-industrial and super urbanized environment we are not the only inhabitants...

Giant squirrel - ROA

Almost all the photos were taken in Shoreditch area of London (let's say it's an equivalent of the Parisian Marais).

Street art piece below is just breathtaking. As it was taken by night and under the bridge, the quality is not the best, but thanks to it the 3d effect is much more enhanced. I was starring a little while on it, completely amazed. Not only because of the 3d effect, but the motion that artist was able to create using this particular technique. After, on DailyMail, I found a long article about it. DALeast, chinese secretive graffiti artist, whose "unusual paintings, which are sometimes hundreds of feet across, can look 3D and as if they are created out of thousands of tiny metal shards, but in fact they have been spray-painted onto a flat surface." 

DALeast said in one of the interviews: "I hope I am creating illusions through my paintings that can be a switch for people's minds. I like to express life-emotions and the environment, and use different artistic forms to speak. I prefer people staring at my work without saying any words - it means they are taking it in."

Panoramic view

Changing the subject from animals to people, a few "faces of London" to look at.

Below the mural dedicated to Charlie Burns, that passed away 2 years ago in London. He was the oldest inhabitant of Brick Lane. "He achieved glamorous success and universal respect as the patriarch of the Burns family, celebrated for their endeavours in boxing" - as we can read here and there. Artist unknown. 

Powerful expression...Artist unknown.

Portrait presented below made by painter Guy Denning is quite creepy. On wikipedia we can read: "Denning uses not only powerful brush strokes to express his emotions deeply, but also scratches the paint to show the audience the intensity of the emotions he is trying to portray with his artwork. His work involves other techniques such as blacking out eyes and mouths maybe to emphasize Denning's theme of darkness, horror and maybe even despair."

Making-of presented in this movie. Superposing and spraying many stencils, one on the another is not only an interesting technique in itself but also, in my opinion, serves to emphasize the "message" contained in his works.

Johnny Cash

More fantastic than realistic. Born in 1979, Ricardo Akn is an illustrator, photographer, and street artist.  Akn has worked with well known brands and publications including Nike, Ellus, CK One, Doc Dog, and others. 

Read more after the break --->

Smot and his lace world

First time I saw the works of Smot in March this year. Since that time he/she has developed a lot and we can notice more and more works on the Parisians walls. As far I couldn't find nor his website, fun page nor the Flickr account and so on. Maybe in the future he will add more information on the web about himself/herself, at least I'm waiting for that.

The only work I came across that was not placed within the lace plate is the one presented below. Funny beetle with one big eye, strong human arms and a crown above the "head" may represents many things. The quickest and simplest association that came to my mind was a suggestion of supernatural power of the smallest creature and/or nature...which will rule one day??? Creepy cartoon...I'd better leave it to others to figure it out.

The rest of the Smot's art works are always place in the middle of the circle-shaped plate framed by the lace. It has become his strong trademark already (I'm wondering how he cuts it out each time). Anyway, as a subject different things are chosen: faces, parts of the human body and simple objects (though, mostly those very sharp and dangerous are taken into account). Next step is to create something completely new from given object by adding supernatural value to it. 

Below: truly beautiful mind or nature combined with the human body (like a beetle above) as a new supernatural value?

Also, it's possible, that Smot wants to show, that we perceive the things, which seem to us at first glance: ugly, brutal, sharp, boring, ordinary etc., much more differently, only when it is placed within a pretty frame or has a nice "package". Like on the picture below, we don't see the saw blade as fast as the lace around, which grabs all the attention at first glance.

Explosive grenade with the butterfly wings. New supernatural object only or a sarcastic perception of the reality?

Moreover, Smot produces the white&black lace plates as well. Nice work compiling the strong contrast between simplified graphic of the face and complicated-rich in form lace.