Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine
Situated in Richmond, VA, the street art festival Richmond Mural Project was founded with the goal of creating over 100 murals by the world's leading contemporary artists in its first five years. Such an eclectic array of permanent public artworks, according to the project's founders at Art Whino, would propel Richmond as an international street art destination. Now in its third year, this rendition of the event gave 10 contemporary artists two weeks to complete over 20 murals. Chazme 718, Meggs, Onur, Ron English, Sepe, Smitheone, Ekundayo, Proch, David Flores and Wes21 began painting on June 16 and are finishing their works as we speak. Today, we bring you some photos of the works in progress as well as some finished pieces from Ekundayo and Smithe, the latter of whom was working double time on two pieces. Take a look at the progress photos below and stay tuned for coverage of all the finished murals.
“Sawdust provocateur" AJ Fosik crafts totem-like wooden sculptures influenced by taxidermy, rituals from varying cultures, and folk art. He's also one of three artists crafting installation projects at SCOPE Miami Beach's atrium (Dec. 4-9), marking Hi-Fructose's 14th year in publishing. Fosik was the cover artist for Hi-Fructose Vol. 18 and was last featured on HiFructose.com here. Below, he talks to us about what's ahead:
Insa recently crafted a mural that comes alive when viewed through his app, GIF-iti, for the D&AD design festival in London. Resembling a computer desktop, complete with the folders “Final Revision," “Definitely Last Final Revision," and "Absolutely Last Final Revision," the project is packed with humor and vibrancy. The process recalls the work of MOMO and more recently, mapping projects.
BirdO
The week-long mural event Festival Inspire recently took over Moncton, Canada, adding 31 new murals to the city. The festival used both internationally known and local artists to create works on varied backdrops throughout the region. Among the names include were Canada's BirdO, Bordallo II of Portugal, Etien, Jon Fox, Jose di Gregorio, and several others.
Kitt Bennett’s stirring, graphical murals have a particular resonance on paved parking lots, sprawling across urban spaces. The sheer size of these works gives viewers the chance to examine the details of his murals on an intimate level. For the past few years, the Melbourne-based artist has built a reputation in both illustration and public art (and he held a a solo show in a public toilet in 2015).
John Horton; photo: @streetartnomad The festival Wide Open Walls returned in Sacramento this month, and with it, came 40 local, national, and international artists who crafted murals across the city. This year's artists included Askew One, Bryan Valenzuela, Jake Castro, Lora Zombie, Maren Conrad, Nosego, Molly-Devlin, Trav, Stephanie Taylor, and others. See some examples of works from this year above and below.
VILE’s illusionary murals often use the artist’s own moniker as windows into fictional places, whether a continuation of the inhabited space or another dimension. Elsewhere, the artist presents figures that live along the contours of a room or outdoor locale. In recent years, he's participated in projects in Germany, Portugal, London, and beyond.
Hula is the moniker of artist Sean Yoro, who creates massive, delicate murals above waterways and alongside abandoned structures. The self-taught painter was raised in Oahu, where he engaged with the ocean as a surfer before embarking on a path in street art and tattooing. Today, he creates his massive figures in oil paint and creates pieces across the world.
A few weeks ago, we gave readers a small taste of the many, enormous murals that went up at We AArt Festival in Aalborg, Denmark (see our coverage of Aryz, Escif and Kenor's walls here). The festival was envisioned as a way to bring more public art to the mid-sized city and featured international artists with a penchant for large-scale work that Hi-Fructose readers will recognize. Interesni Kazki, a duo from Ukraine known for their storybook-like murals, split up and tackled two separate walls. Puerto Rican artist Alexis Diaz typically draws inspiration from the natural world for his depictions of hybridized creatures. His piece for We AArt depicts a skeletal horse encased in an armor of tree branches with an ink-like technique atypical of outdoor work. Other artists included Jaz, Liqen, Don John and Fintan Magee. Check out photos of the murals below.
Miami’s Douglas Hoekzema, also known as Hoxxoh, creates murals that do more than absorb the gaze of the viewer. Nearby objects appear as though they can be pulled into the artist’s latest, hyperdimensional works. Hoekzema has long been fascinated with the concept and rendering of time in his art. He was last featured on HiFructose.com here (and check out his Instagram here).
What happens when you give 40 street artists hundreds of cans of spray paint and let them loose in Taipei? As the Pow! Wow! team took over the Taiwanese capital, the cityscape was covered with murals by artists visiting from around the world alongside those based there.
In Aryz's recent, enormous murals, the painter is able to emulate the loose traits of a pencil or crayon sketch. The effect is deceptively simple, with the artist's broad strokes and figurative decisions creating a kinetic and striking final product. The artist was previously featured here, showcasing a style that varies from his current approach.
French artist Astro takes flat urban surfaces and creates passageways into the void. Using shadows and light, calligraphy-inspired designs and winding curves, the artist’s optical illusions are made for public consumption. And even when they’re not so obvious to some passers-by and cars on a quick route to work, Astro has many of us looking at the big picture.
Puerto Rico-born muralist Bik Ismo is known for, among other imagery, crafting chrome figures and objects on walls across the world. Playing with “reflective” surfaces and light, the artist is able to create startling illusions. This sensibility has brought the artist’s hand to recent projects in Taiwan, Belgium, New Zealand, and Dubai.
There’s both an elegance and jarring quality in the otherworldly creations of Caratoes. The artist shares these disfigured characters in both murals and gallery works, moving between monochromatic and vibrant hues. The artist had a recent installation at Superchief Gallery’s Miami location during Miami Art Week.
In a new show at Itinerrance Gallery in Paris, Inti offers a new collection of works on canvas and installations that take influence from his massive murals across the world. The artist’s surreal scenes combine textures and iconography from cultures and histories from across the globe. The show runs through March 17 at the gallery.
Taiwan may not be the first place to come to mind when you think about street art, but Hawaiian arts organization Pow! Wow! recently made Taipei its second home. For the last week, about 40 international and Taiwanese artists scaled buildings and crossed below highways to bring their fresh paint styles to Taipei. Just a few months ago, the Pow! Wow! team was in Hawaii revamping the walls of Honolulu for the fourth edition of street art festival Pow! Wow! Hawaii. Now, they’ve hopped 5,000 miles across the Pacific for the first ever Pow! Wow! Taiwan.
Juanjo Surace’s expertise in animation and character design comes through the murals he crafts on walls across the globe. His surreal work often confronts themes from our own reality, from death and solitude to technology and consumption. The above work, "The Trip," was painted over 14 days in Vinaròs.
Vitaly Tsarenkov takes visual cues from 8-bit console games and early 3D animation yet crafts paintings on canvas, murals, and sculptures. The Russian artist transitioned from primarily graffiti work under the moniker SY to major gallery shows and crafting murals for festivals across the world. The artist's works are held in private collections in France, Morocco, Russia, and beyond. The below works are acrylic paintings.
Whether on his murals or in his acrylic paintings, Venezuelan artist Koz Dos implements several approaches into each of his portraits, including geometric abstractions, classical realism, and otherworldly distortions. The artist emerged out of the graffiti scene in Caracas, the country's largest city. His portraits on massive structures carry fine detailing, packed into the ornamental and natural elements of his pieces.
The work of Pakistan-born, Australia-based artist Khadim Ali explores history, traditional art practices, and the artist’s own identity. Much of his work has been influenced by the 10th-century epic poem “Shahnama/The Book of Kings,” and is often expressed in classical miniatures, murals and calligraphy.
Chicago-based artist Joey D. has garnered a reputation for his pop-surrealist murals and animations. His work recalls, in some cases, '90s-era animation and the iconography of the Chicago area.
Chilean artist Dasic Fernandez's approach to portraiture is fairly realistic, but his murals become fantastical when he swathes his sitters in fabrics that ooze with bright colors and patterns. Sometimes the fabrics are hijabs, like in his homage to the Yemeni community of Hamtramck, Michigan in 2013. Other times, they're bandanas intended to obscure the face — a nod to the coverings graffiti writers don to protect themselves from spray paint and to the idea of revolution, which Fernandez flirts with in much of his work. The fabrics open like windows into other worlds, revealing clouds and landscapes that invite the imagination to explore.
Madrid-based artists Remed and Okuda teamed up recently for the Streets of Colour mural series, which took them as far south as Miami and as far north as Toronto and Oslo. Okuda's work is much more figurative, presenting forms in geometric arrangements akin to Cubist portraits with splashes of neon. Meanwhile, Remed's work is decidedly abstract, layering flat, simplified shapes and playing with arrangements of vivid colors. For Streets of Colour, the two artists seemed to fuse their styles seamlessly. The final stop of the tour was the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art where they collaborated on a wall with Norwegian artist Tune Emblemsvag. Check out some highlights from their mural tour after the jump.