Poster Boy

Here's a video on Poster boy, a New york street artist, whose (quote) 'only utensil is a razor blade and creative genius...his work is inventive, simple in concept but extremely effective in how he uses the idea of hegemony and brain washing advertising to create satirical artwork.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/04/new-york-poster-boy-street-art

The most amazing thing about this video is how quick he creates his work with a small audience of onlookers just kind of watching him bemused but he is so quick and the outcome is eye-catching, surreal and takes collage to the next level. In the video it seems as though he goes to the tube line with a considered idea of what he wants to create or he simply just go along and see what inspires him..I'm not sure...but i do wonder why he got arrested in 2009, as is this really graffiti? O.k so he is defacing the adverts but aren't the adverts themselves defacing the building, who really wants to see an advert for one crappy film everywhere they go for 4 weeks then same repeated for some sun tan lotion the next month. I'd say he is doing the public a superhero type service by transporting us out of the everyday mundane attempted brainwashing. I love his work.

Here is an excerpt from an article about poster boy written for http://www.guardian.co.uk/.

The city's zero tolerance policy towards petty crime has long eradicated painted graffiti from the trains themselves, and most graffiti practitioners are now reduced to "scratchiti" where logos are etched into the windows of the carriages.

Poster Boy has taken the reliance on razor blades inherent in scratchiti and put it to much more sophisticated and intriguing use. He realised that the film and product adverts at subway stations are now made with self-adhesive backing, rendering them giant stickers, which can be cut up into bits and remodelled in an echo of a digital mash-up.

So the Hollywood star Alec Baldwin is recast with a red nose and blue tears. The Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, appearing on a poster advertising Puma shoes, is metamorphosed so that he now lends his name to the fast food chain McDonald's, with the headline "McDorse the world".

The anti-consumerist edge is put to even more overt political use in posters such as one for the film Iron Man which is remoulded as Iran = Nam.

More than 400 such interventions in less than a year has earned the artist a large internet following. A short video on YouTube, Spending Time With Poster Boy, has been viewed 785,897 times. He was also featured on an underground art website called Friends We Love, wearing a businessman's white shirt and tie but with his face pixellated.

The Guardian's Guide magazine caught up with Poster Boy in Brooklyn last month and heard his explanation of his work. "The idea of taking your environment into your own hands and making it what you want. As long as you're not hurting other people, it can't be bad."


Video: poster boy : friends we love.com
' realising there is a difference between what is just and what is legal.' This is probably why he got arrested....he does kind of suggest that people should break the laws surrounding street art to 'stick to the man' so to speak...

Great website for street artists...

http://urbanize.org/

There are some really great tips on postering and the laws surrounding the vague lines between graffiti and 'art' ...it's all very interesting and in line with the series of programing on channel 4, which explores the idea of once frowned upon urban arts as now moving into desired popular culture and even the people that once frowned upon these sports/arts etc as hoodlum activities ..are now queuing up to buy the latest Bansky or placing perspex over the original on a dirty backstreet!

MISC's first exhibition.

MISC stands for miscellaneous, the nature of our collaborative yet artistically independent group ethos, there are currently approximately 10 people in the group but we exhibit on a first come,first served basis depending on the individual artists. Through a member of the group working with an event called 'Manchester art crawl' showed as part of the 'not part of festival' and fringe to the world famous international arts festival in Manchester; we were able to gain a space and 2 week exhibiting platform in the 'Mooch art gallery,' in Manchester's graffiti filled Stevenson square.

There was no general theme as we all had work that complemented each others style, so we split the group into two, the first three artists exhibiting from 2/07/2011 - 8/07/2011. James and myself then exhibited illustration based works from the 9/07/2011- 15/07/2011. The process was quite...enlightening, as you soon realise that putting up an exhibition is never a straight forward experience and outside of university this is even more apparent. Difficult shop assistants, a gallery full of furniture and various large objects and also lights hot enough to melt steel. However, despite the cons, actually knowing my work was up in Manchester city centre with people's confused expressions gazing upon it..really did make me realise that it's all worth it.

Here are some images of our exhibition 9/07/2011-15/07/2011 with a link to the tumblr.

LLLLIIIIIIIInk:

http://miscnet.tumblr.com/post/4341047456/the-first-post-from-the-misc-network-comes-in-the

The great glasto walk on the radio!!!

An interview on BBC radio Manchester for our charity walk.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-13715803

1 week later..........................

DA DAM DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM.......

Ok so the 'great Glasto walk' was unfortunately cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances.....BUT my image was on the BBC news website and we were also interviewed on BBC radio Manchester which was pretty cool. It was definitely a massive shame that the charity walk could not go ahead but all that matters is the money that was raised was given to water aid. I just thank the kind hearts and understanding of all those many people that donated!!!

x

Psychdellic poster art!

I was convinced that i had blogged this for some reason. ..well here goes anyway. Psychedelic poster art was mainly an attribute of 60s poster and album art and heavily inspired by LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs created by artists, my favourite being Gary Grimshaw. I enjoy the whimsical movements in the posters and how they are contrasted with these absurd colour palettes and (usually)a prominnat image within spiralling or curved text of animals, women or bands, what especially intrigues me is the screen printing techniques and trying to figure out how some of the effects were achieved.

SKY AND TELESCOPE magazine

The main source of my inspiration and images. I enjoy the unbelievable colours and scapes of space, the light and vast emptiness combined with the mathematical graphs and retro technologies provided perfect source material.

EDUARDO PAOLOZZI!!!!

King of pop art, surrealist and general creative genius on 2d and 3d practise. One of my main inspirations. His collages and screen prints are bold and unapologetic in composition, using a variety of image combinations and overt colour schemes. In the documentary it is suggested that he was inspired by futurism and science fiction themes , shown through his sculpture that combines man and machines. May of his sculptures access the figure and condition of the human form.

Documentary: http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/sculptors/12818.shtml

His inspiration: The cinema, time, fragmentation, cigarette cards that he collected whilst working in the family shop: the visual connections between images: the audience forced to make these.

His early work: cutting up and reassembling 'Time' magazine which formed the basis for his later collages.

It's really strange because he collected images since being young, like i do and he won't stick them down if both sides are nice and that's often my problem..i have too many loose ones too.

He questioned machines and people, the idea of robots versus humans, how far is a human naturally a machine? he asked these kinds of questions. Themes of our relationship with the pop culture and technological environment.