#BACKTOTHESTREET

A new artist emerged on the stage of Parisian artists. Around one year ago, more less 600 photos were cemented on the walls all over the city. All his works, as well as his nickname, remain for the moment #backtothestreet. People got very enthusiastic about these new street art pieces and Twitter was pretty charged with the new hashtag #backtothestreet appearing constantly since few months away now.  

It would be a bit hard to classify this new method of artistic expression (if there's a need of that, of course). It is neither a paste-up, nor a mosaic. Yet not a simple photo, because these photographs are glued on the white piece of paper, placed under the glass plate and cemented on the walls in the end.

After reading the interview with artist published on: http://www.streetpress.com/sujet/1433424880-backtothestreet#, we know that #backtothestreet is a backpacker/photographer travelling to such places as New York, Cameroun, Haiti. Over there he takes the photos without notice, without paying attention to the place. This way the photographs are very real and the artist needs to be very fast and very discreet at the same time.

His inspiration was the movie about Banksy who did exposition of his photos on the street. Then, a clear idea appeared in his mind: the photos that he takes on the street, need to go back to the same place: to the street. Go back to the street. The real open air photo exhibition. Now, not only in Paris, but in Nimes, Lile or Bruxelles, too. Enjoy, everyone's invited!  

Www.streetpress.com asked if they can take a photo of  #backtothestreet artist. This is an answer.

Photo above belongs to: http://www.streetpress.com

The Gallery of Unknown Artists (part III-mosaics)

Finally, the third part of a series of posts concerning the Unknown Artists is out! This time I will present the mosaics whose authors are not known to me.

The first part to find here: The Gallery of Unknown Artists part I - paste up/posters.

The second about stencils here: The Gallery of Unknown Artists part II - stencils.

Like always, my request doesn't change: if somebody knows the name of some of these artists, please let me know by leaving the comment below the post. It will be much appreciated!

Let's start then. The mosaic presented below is very Space Invador alike, but I'm not 100% sure of it... 

The one below formed by irregular polygonal pieces, presents a man in a gentle movement, either observing or trying to seize a butterfly. I saw once another mosaics by this artist and each and every one is about the same man, usually running after the animals. 

This one looks like a Rubik's cube. In 2D. 

Mosaic below resembles a bit Invader's concept about character's from computer games. Unfortunately, I don't know neither the name of the artist nor the game from which it could eventually come from. 

Kind of a mix of a traditional mosaic, pixel art and with a pinch of Invador...

Below, one of the best examples of  Pixel Art. Icon well known for the users of Windows...Someone can help with discovering the name of the artist?

For the end, maybe not the best example of the street art (or maybe on the contrary, it is indeed), as it is pretty hard for me to classify this artwork... Nevertheless, first - it is a very nice and dynamic sculpture (especially the window's curtain being blown out of the window) covered all in mosaic, second - made instead of a window, so everyone can admire it from the street (or rather not instead of a window, but where the window couldn't be placed anyway, someone decided to fill this place up with this beautiful idea). 

Romantic edition of street art, just as befits Paris... 

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 --->

Alias: Invader. Space Invader!

The great moment came. The moment of invading this website, too. As it is impossible to not come across him in the city, either this blog couldn't stay without a post about him. The French street artist Invader (his website, blog or Wikipedia article), who pastes up his mosaic works around the world, become one of the best well known urban-street-artist. His characters that are inspired by the arcade game Space Invaders, are made up from little mosaic pieces, like the characters are made up from pixels. 

There's a nice and clear FAQ-like interview on his website (although it's from 2008), explaining shortly the general idea of the Invader's actions and activities within the cities. I will paste a few answers here, the most essential to understand his work.

Basically, I guess around 1000 or more little invaders-mosaics are pasted all around Paris already. I noticed that the work of Invader periodically undergoes some metamorphosis. In the beginning of his work - early 90's, they were more simple, "pixelated" and very alike invaders from the games. However, with the time they have started to relate much more to the surrounding. For example picture below shows the mosaic with the paint roller, because the name of the street is "Impasse des peintres". After, another and another, let's say, "species" were produced.

Quote from Invader's website: "How many people are involved? Just me. In the eight years (as the interview is from 2008 - it's been 13 years already) I've been working on this project, I've traveled to 35 cities on all five continents with the sole intention of "invading" them! Having said that, people have sent me photos of Space Invaders in towns I've never set foot in! I see it as a positive thing, a kind of tribute."

Quote from Invader's website: "What's the Space Invaders project about? The idea is to "invade" cities all over the world with characters inspired by first-generation arcade games, and especially the now classic Space Invaders.[...]"

Quote from Invader's website: "What made you choose Space Invaders as the main character for the project? Lots of reasons. I see them as a symbol of our era and the birth of modern technology, with video games, computers, the Internet, mobile phones, hackers and viruses. And "space invader" is a pretty good definition of what I'm doing... invading spaces!"

Mosaic below looks like a "very special edition". Nothing strange if we know that it's pasted/cemented up in the Rue de Candie street, so one of the most popular, strategic and artistic-busy spot in Paris.

Modern mosaic, micro art object

Once, climbing up the hill of the Lepic street (rue Lepic) I noticed a very nice mosaic on the wall. What was making this mosaic even more interesting, it was the fact that it had a little piece of computer (or other device) inbuilt in it. This little piece, replacing one of the mosaic's stone, is creating a nice effect of the interlacing the past with the present, tradition with modernity. This kind of mosaic art is called micro art object.

Jerome Gulon - portrait of Eugene Varlin

Jerome Gulon

The artist who stays behind this art piece is Jerome Gulon. He's a French artist, who's very unique and contemporary approach is about to aggregate mosaic, architecture, urbanism and nature. From myself I would add also: a history. On this portrait we see Eugene Varlin, (qouting Wikipedia), who was a French socialist, communard and member of the First International. He was one of the pioneers of French syndicalism. This series of Jerome Gulon mosaics is called A New Generation.

Update 18-03-2013

Another portrait found today represents madame Louise Michel. Via Wikipedia.org: "Louise Michel was a French anarchist, school teacher and medical worker. She often used the pseudonym Clemence and was also known as the red virgin of Montmartre or French grand dame of Anarchy".

Jerome Gulon - portrait of Louise Michel

Jerome Gulon - portrait of Louise Michel