Archive for the ‘Street Art’ Category
A surfing tribute to Keith Haring
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009I am becoming increasingly interested in Graffiti and street art. The free-form wanderings, automatic doodling and dada-ism appeal.
Here is a negative of a sketch I produced during my holiday in Greece. I started out aiming to create a Multi-Zoomorph knot from a surfing manoeuvre sequence. I saw a set of pictures of Kelly Slater riding his ‘Wizard Sleeve’ self shaped surfboard.
Incidentally he named this board because of it’s looseness
(someone’s been watching Borat!)
As the picture evolved I worked over the rider outlines, in the back of my mind this was suggesting the style of Keith Haring.
Haring was a trained artist and was caught up in the Graffiti turf wars in the Bronx, late 70’s. He started painting his distinctive figures on blank advertising hoardings in the subway. Sometimes his design would be a couple of low key figures, other times the work would fill the available space. He wanted to reflect the bustle of city life, dance, African art and the language of the street. Word.
I recently won a couple of commissions to design tattoo’s. One was pure Celtic waves based on my art, the other, a design of a Zombie surfer pin-up in the Style of Jim Philips! I couldn’t make it up eh? Probably the most fun brief I’ve ever been given.
Anyway, as a treat, and to try and break some artists block, I bought some cans of spray paint to play about in this medium. There’s only one way to go… Jump on in! Here’s my first attempt at a free hand knot in spray paint (on MDF).
Dabbling in this really makes me appreciate the skill it takes to produce a fluent crisp peice of work such as this (photograpphed on my recent trip to Athens):
I suspected it took some practice… expect to see a few more of these in coming blogs!
More commissions are always welcome and any art you see on this site is available for sale, drop me a line!
Links:
haring.com Keith Haring Foundation Official Website
monstercolours.com Monster Colours Spray Can Vendor Website
Greek Surf Graffiti
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009I’ve just returned to North Devon after a superb trip to Greece. Â 10 days of great food, sunshine and adventure. Â Of course there was no surf. Â
I have a one track mind, despite the chances of surf being small I had made contact with the only surf school in Greece to establish I could hire a board if needs had been. Â I had researched the spots and prepped Zoe that I might disappear on a mission. Â I had found a waveheight model and wind forecast. Â None of this was necessary because it was of course flat.
The obsessive mind never stops. Â Among the rich sensory experience of travel I was still spotting artworks with waves, photographing microbarrels and fantasizing about what the lush coastline could do given the right swell.
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I love Greece, it is a beautiful nation. Â The people are friendly and open, the street art that spills out onto every surface is pocketed with real Gems.
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Aparrently Appollo turned up at the oracle at Delphi as a Dolphin, as you do. Â This is where the name of the site originates and probably not why the artist chose to paint a robo-dolphin. Â Tis still pretty cool!
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 I liked the variety of neatness, and finishness of the art.  This mermaid is quite crude, but it gives colour to the metalwork it’s dawbed on. Â
It’s also striking the mixture of Murals, Throw-ups, Tags, Pieces, Stencils… and messages from Political to Sport to Philosphical… “Feel Free Like us” for example. Â Smug anarchists!
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Love the fly stencils on this too… a mixture of techniques and styles.
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‘Time’, ‘Hermes’ and the comedically named ‘Buns’ seemed to be some of the most prolific Athens taggers I noticed. Â This low angled, flared style is great.
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Is this the work of the influential early 80’s American Graffiti artist and tagger lady pink? Â Doubtful. Â Cute though.
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Finally, the last one of the many I shot is this mix of stencils, postering, free spray can work and appear (to me) to be a portrait of sardonic skinny sheffieldian social commontator, and genius Jarvis Cocker!? Â I guess you spot what you’re looking for!??
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Links and references:
A reliable wave forcasting resource for the Mediterrreanian:
http://www.poseidon.hcmr.gr/waves_forecast.php?area_id=med#selectParameter
Information about breaks and surf spots:
http://www.wannasurf.com/spot/Europe/Greece/Ionian_Sea/index.html
Greeces only surf school / surf hire:
http://www.pargaweb.com/new/surfeng.asp
Contact: Giorgos Papandreou giosurf@otenet.gr
Athens surf and extreme sports shop (I couldn’t even find this on the map cos of the variability of translation for place names… but here it is anyway, on the web).
http://surfingreece.piczo.com/?cr=5
Lady Pink:
Jarvis Cocker:
















