Providing pedestrians with innovative artwork, these fantastic street artists believe that creativity shouldn't be confined to stuffy museums.
Source: Wikipedia
Famous Street Artists: Banksy
Source: Wikipedia
In 2013, Banksy’s name bubbled up into the American consciousness as the British street artist’s work seeped deeper into social media and the mainstream press. Gaining acclaim by the same establishment Banksy used to mock, the notoriously mysterious artist has attracted the attention of celebrities and auction houses alike with his stenciled creations selling for large amounts of money.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Banksy is known mostly for artistic political and social commentaries that have appeared on city streets, walls and bridges around the globe. In preparation for hitting the streets of New York last fall, Banksy created a mobile meat truck with plush animal puppets that traveled the avenues of the Big Apple. The message about animal cruelty wasn’t hard to discern.
But it was the artist’s one-month “show on the streets of New York” that captured the most attention last year, when he set up a stall on Fifth Avenue near Central Park and sold his spray-art canvases, valued at as much as $31,000, for $60 each. A hidden camera filmed the ironic interaction and the resulting video went viral when posted by the artist.
While the artist’s true identity remains a secret, Banksy has given interviews to media outlets such as NPR and The Village Voice. Banksy is probably the most famous street artist today, but there are plenty of others around the world who turn urban settings into stunning art installations.
Street Artists: Pavel Puhov
Source: Street Art Utopia
Pavel Puhov is known as the “Russian Banksy,” but he also goes by Pavel, Pavel 183 or P-183. Like Banksy, he keeps his true identity a secret while crafting political works within Russian borders. In the past, his graffiti has included images of riot police and civilian protesters, which he paints in prominent places like subway doors, highway underpasses and abandoned buildings for maximum public exposure.
Source: Street Art Utopia
Source: 183 Art
Source: Street Art Utopia
Source: Street Art Utopia
Street Artists: Dran
Source: Whu Dat
There’s also the “French Banksy,” a label often attached to Toulouse-based artist, Dran. Some see a connection to Banksy in terms of his messages and the tone of his works. His installations, paintings and drawings comment on contemporary society, and though they reflect the creator’s dark sense of humor, they also tackle issues like freedom of expression, with a special focus on the suppression of children’s creativity.
Source: Whu Dat
Source: Whu Dat
Other themes in Dran’s work include the disintegration of the institution of marriage, the erosion of one-on-one communication between human beings, environmental destruction and excess consumption.
Street Artists: Mentalgassi
Source: The Red List
One can remember the graffiti-covered Berlin Wall before it came down, but Germany has a new kind of street art providing swaths of color and social commentary to Berlin’s cityscape. Mentalgassi is a trio of three friends roaming about Europe, leaving a trail of photographic images on various objects and structures.
Source: Abominable Ink
In Hamburg, the trio left their mark on fences; in Barcelona, train station ticket kiosks were adorned with faces so the tickets came out of the dispenser’s “mouth”. The three have been creating their art since 2007, using a digital camera, Photoshop and a large commercial printer.
Source: Mentalgassi
Source: The Inspiration
While known in Berlin for transforming recycling bins into funny faces, the trio does in fact incorporate more serious issues into its work. In 2010, for example, Mentalgassi teamed up with Amnesty International to create a portrait of American prison inmate Troy Davis on a London street rail. The work was in protest of his death sentence.
Street Artists: Borondo
Source: Street Art Utopia
While located in Spain, Spaniards don’t simply refer to this street artist as the “Spanish Banksy.” Instead, Borondo has earned the title of “street art genius.” What sets Borondo apart from others is a style more reminiscent of classical painting than the more commercial stencil-and-spray-paint techniques seen on urban street corners. This distinction can certainly be attributed to his art studies at IES Margarita Salas Madrid.
Source: Street Artist
Source: Street Art Utopia
A young artist in his mid-20s, Borondo has gained attention both in Spain and abroad for his colossal creations rendered on the sides of buildings. One of his original techniques, often practiced illegally, has been dubbed “glass scratching” and involves removing areas of paint from the windows of closed or empty shops until an image emerges. In his own way, Borondo uses this method to comment on Spain’s ongoing economic crisis.
Street Artists: Joshua Allen Harris
Source: Design Tavern
Not all street artists utilize paint in their work; some prefer to employ materials such as metal, plastic and origami in making their urban impressions. Case in point: Joshua Allen Harris, an American street artist who has fashioned his own street pieces from plastic bag and tape bits that are inflated when secured to New York subway grates.
Source: Design Tavern
Videos of Harris’ innovative balloon tricks have gone viral on the Internet. Sometimes they blow up to become monsters; other times they grow slowly into polar bears—the artist’s commentary on the ailing environment.
