“Street Art is about the street, and people that populate the street”
-Hugh Leeman

Hugh Leeman is a self-taught artist based in San Francisco. Originally from Indiana, after high school he left for the Virgin Islands. He started traveling and spent the next three years living out of his backpack. After three years Leeman ended up in San Francisco. He originally only planned to stay for six months in order to make some money to keep on the move and travel abroad, but six years later he is still here, in the same studio in the Tenderloin, painting the people around him. Hugh’s work is focused on the overlooked and forgotten people, on the marginalized citizens of societies found all over the world. Displaying on billboards, he makes us all viewers, as his art functions as a sort of advertisement for the displaced. Instead of advertising the usual products we are used to seeing in these spaces, his work forces us to recognize the people in our society that are so often ignored. In this way commuters, consumers and the like, are forced to question what they see on the day to day. By putting his subjects into full view, his work makes us recognize that these people are often treated as invisible in our society. Hugh is really involved with the homeless community in the Tenderloin district. As part of that involvement he runs a T-Shirt Project in which he paints portraits of homeless people, prints their images on t-shirts, then donates 100% of the profits to them. Over time, he has started to see the world of street art as something that he really don’t associate with too much.

“I think of what I do, or what I see as what I’m doing, as an even lower form of street art. I think, honestly, a lot of times people see street art and associate it with a low brow art movement. But I think that what I’m doing is a campaign, a public ad campaign that advertises for the work, in and of itself, as all street art does. But what makes it an ad campaign is it is directly commodified with the not for profit I’ve set up.”

A lots of his work on the streets have QR codes on them that the passerby can scan with a smart phone and it opens up a website where you can purchase a t-shirt that directly benefits the very person who’s on the poster that you see in front of you!

“For me, if you’re gonna be doing something on the street, it makes sense to have it be relevant to why you’re putting it on the street”

Hugh Leeman from Agency Charlie on Vimeo.

Check out more art from Hugh Leeman by clicking HERE.

Article by Vanessa Duprè
contact: dupre.vanessa [at] yahoo.com

“Street art doesn’t exist, there is just you and the world outside.
Do what you like in the best way and think about what you are doing.”
-Blu

Blu is a street artist/animator who despite obstacles in his journey has become an internationally recognized artist who is at the top of his game.

His trademark animated wall-painting got his last video over a million views on YouTube aned his murals have appeared throughout the world. He probably doesn’t give a damn about his fame or fortune. He differs from those who prefer to exhibit their persononality rather than their work and ideas. In fact, the local newspapers nor the police have not yet managed to lay hands on him. It also seems like he has officially been dubbed an enemy and agitator by city officials in Bologna in Italy, where he lives.

Blu in Italy

“On one side there is good quality and many original ideas, on the other side “street art” is a fashion product so most of the people are just doing it because it’s “cool”. Hope this “street art” game will end soon.”

Blu in Colombia

He began his artistic career, without a specific project, following his passion for drawing and street art.
He started doing graffiti 10 years ago, working almost completely illegally, going out during the night or painting abandoned buildings. There are also many “squats” in Italy where you can be free and paint what you want.
Then in the last few years more and more legal permission and commissions were coming, so Blu started working in a more “official” way.

Blu in Poland

His work developed in two stages and two “spaces” different. The initial sketches pinned on the sketch-book are the skeleton of the second part of his work: the mural. He basically uses just black and white water based paint, a roller and some brushes. He draws using a long pole with a brush on the top. If the wall is really big he uses a scaffold or maybe a mechanical platform.

Blue in Berlin 1

The creative inspiration comes from a need to transform ordinary decaying places or revalue urban degradation with pictures that usually carry a political or moral statement.

Blue in Berlin 2

Blog by Vanessa Dupre:
dupre.vanessa@yahoo.com

Photos:

http://www.laboiteverte.fr

http://arrestedmotion.com/

Roa in Newcastle

Roa in Vienna

Based in Ghent, Belgium, ROA is renowned for his visceral black and white animals. He started off in the street art scene painting animals on abandoned buildings in the industrial areas of his small hometown. Today, Roa’s animals may be found slumbering in cities all over the world from New York to Warsaw and London to Paris.

“I do not see any animal in an ingenious machine to which nature has given way to back itself, and to ensure, to some extent, all that tends to destroy it. I see exactly the same things in the human machine, with the difference that nature alone makes all the operations of the beast, instead that man contributes to his own, as a free agent”

Roa visited SF last April, where he had a show at White Walls Gallery.
He also found the time to leave some of his animals in the streets of the city

Sea Lions: 22nd and Bartlett

Rabbit: On Hemlock

Opossums: 15th and Valencia

Check out this amazing video from San Francisco based Filmmaker Colin Day, by far the best piece on ROA…

ROA – White Walls from Colin M Day on Vimeo.

For more on Colin M. Day visit www.ColinMDay.com

Although Roa does not have a website, he does have an amazing Flickr account

CREDIT: http://photograffcollectif.blogspot.com
PHOTOS: http://arrestedmotion.com

Blog by, Vanessa Dupre – dupre.vanessa [at] yahoo.com

Portuguese-born, UK-based street artist Alexandre Farto (aka Vhils) grew up in the suburbs of Lisbon. Portugal had just joined the European Union, leaving behind the 1974 Revolution which had brought an end to the fascist dictatorship that had ruled the country for nearly 50 years. The revolution had taken over the walls as a medium of communication. As a result, murals, paintings and stencils were (and are) all over the place.

Check out the slow-motion exploding graffiti video in collaboration with Portuguese hip-hop/soul band Orelha Negra

Click the button below for more images and info on Vhils…

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