Tag Archives: street art

You Are Beautiful: An Art Movement Turns 10

You Are Beautiful: An Art Movement Turns 10 street art installation Chicago

Ten years ago Chicago artist and designer Matthew Hoffman decided to print a batch of 100 stickers that read simply “You Are Beautiful” which he gave to friends and colleagues who found the phrase to be inspiring, hopeful, and infectious. Requests for the stickers began to trickle in so Hoffman started selling them in small batches online at You-Are-Beautiful.com. Demand quickly began to swell, so much so that he’s now printed over 500,000 of them. Soon the stickers were accompanied by numerous public art installations in Chicago and eventually the message began appearing around the world on fences, street overpasses, and sidewalks. To celebrate 10 years of ‘You Are Beautiful’ Matt is putting together a book with help from Kickstarter that documents the evolution of the project including photography, stories, and tons of really awesome rewards including his hand-cut wood signs and of course tons of stickers. Join me in helping Matt get this thing off the ground, there’s just three days left.

Update: You Are Beautiful has also partnered with Threadless for a t-shirt design contest.

The Street Art of DMS

The Street Art of DMS street art graffiti

I’m really enjoying the street art and paintings of Brazilian artist DMS (Davi De Melo Santos) whose work I find to be humorous, hopeful, and extremely inventive. Go get lost in his paintings, murals, and this fun series of faces. (via moon83)

By Christopher on January 25, 2013 • graffiti street art

New Interactive Street Art from Ernest Zacharevic

New Interactive Street Art from Ernest Zacharevic street art

New Interactive Street Art from Ernest Zacharevic street art
Photo by Julina Rashid

New Interactive Street Art from Ernest Zacharevic street art

Artist Ernest Zacharevic has been busy since first appearing on Colossal last summer with his unique style of street art that often relies on the interaction between physical objects and painted murals. The Malaysia-based artist traveled to Brussels and Panang to create new work, and also completed a series of ads for Toyota about parking lot safety. He also appears prominently in a new book about street art in his native Georgetown.

By Christopher on January 3, 2013 • street art

Brilliant Urban Interventions by OakOak Turn Crumbling City Infrastructure into a Visual Playground

Brilliant Urban Interventions by OakOak Turn Crumbling City Infrastructure into a Visual Playground street art

According to the Outsiders, street artist OaKoAk lives and works in St. Etienne, France where he works not as an artist but instead at a desk as a “pen pusher”. Untrained in painting or fine art of any kind, he instead uses stencils, paint, and occasionally adhesive superheros to give new meaning to simple cracks in the ground or crumbling building facades. You can see tons more on his blog as well as Facebook.

By Christopher on January 2, 2013 • street art

Mentalgassi Transforms Urban Fixtures into Urban Hilarity

Mentalgassi Transforms Urban Fixtures into Urban Hilarity urban street art

Berlin-based art collective Mentalgassi just put up two new pieces (top two images) for Getxo Photo 2012, an annual photography festival in Spain. Mentalgassi is known for their use of large photographs pasted onto outdoor objects, most commonly the use of portraits. You can also follow them on Facebook. (via arrested motion)

By Christopher on December 31, 2012 • street art urban

Sum Times: Clever Mathematical Street Art from Aakash Nihalani

Sum Times: Clever Mathematical Street Art from Aakash Nihalani windows street art math doors

I’m loving this series of simple, non-destructive interventions by artist Aakash Nihalani (previously) who is widely known for his observational street art involving neon-colored tape in various geometric forms. Nihalani opens a solo show starting January 12th, 2013 at Jonathan LeVine. (via arrested motion)

By Christopher on December 28, 2012 • doors math street art windows

Metropolis: A Giant New Window Drawing by Strook

Metropolis: A Giant New Window Drawing by Strook street art graffiti drawing

Risking life and limb atop a tall scaffold, Belgian street artist Strook (who you might remember from his mossy pressure-washed street art) just completed this impressive drawing titled Metropolis inspired by Fritz Lang’s 1927 film by the same name. The drawing was done entirely with white marker inside the Concertgebouw (concert building) in Bruges, Belgium but because of the changing light patterns during the day the piece looks as if was done in black when viewed opposite a light source. Watch the video to see the entire piece come together.

By Christopher on December 17, 2012 • drawing graffiti street art

The Animated ‘GIF-iti’ of INSA

The Animated GIF iti of INSA street art graffiti gifs animation

Fine artist and designer INSA creates elaborately painted walls that are photographed in sequence to create these amazing, psychedelic animated gifs. His latest piece (top 3 images) is a collaboration with artist Stanley Donwood called Hollywood Dooom to help celebrate the release of a new album for Atoms for Peace, AMOK, for which Donwood did the album artwork. INSA painted the entire exterior of XL Recordings four times to create the frames for the animation. Of the work he says:

My challenge was to take two very static items, a beautiful lino-cut and a less beautiful box of a building, and bring them to life. After a week of sweating in the Los Angeles late summer sun re-painting the whole building several times I got there. Animated as a continuous GIF it may only live online but some would argue that is where most now live there lives…

You can see more of INSA’s gif work and other pieces on his blog. (via the creator’s project)