1 April 2023

MTO – Street Art Labor Intensity

His mother calls him Mateo but most of the world knows the mysterious street artist whose extraordinary work you see here as MTO.   French born but Berlin based, MTO’s work is characterized by incredibly detailed renditions of über cool actors and musicians with a dash of red as his signature or around his work as a signifier of its boundaries (we are guessing to allow other artists to work around him).

A visit to the Spanish city of Barcelona was the kick-start for MTO’s work on the streets.  There, the vibrancy of the city’s exterior culture inspired him to create. Yet his work, although labeled street art, goes way beyond graffiti.
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29 August 2014

ROA – Mysterious Belgian Street Artist

You may not be aware of the distinctive art of ROA but the first thing you will acknowledge is that this mysterious Belgian street artist likes animals. No, let’s put it in a better way – there is an obsession here. Growing up in Ghent, Belgium in the eighties the artist had modest artistic beginnings, with art under bridges and walls.

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14 June 2013

The Amazing 3D Chalk Street Paintings of Tracy Lee Stum

Pavement art is, by its very nature, ephemeral.  Fortunately we live in the age of the camera and so the works of maddonari (as they are otherwise more formally called) can be preserved. at least digitally.  Yet although we can record the images, what of the artist?  Do you ever want to put a face and a story to the picture?

Tracy Lee Stum (left) is one of the foremost 3D street artists in the world.

As you might imagine, the desire to illustrate her world followed approximately three seconds after birth. Perhaps an exaggeration but Tracy started to depict, portray and represent before she properly knew the meaning of the words, literally as soon as she could grasp chalk or crayon. 
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10 February 2013

Ben Wilson: The Chewing Gum Man


A couple of years ago we featured the work of Ben Wilson (left) who has scoured the streets of London for years with one thing of his mind – to transform the gum that the people leave behind in to art.  So it was great to discover this short film by Ed Elmsley and Tom Millen.

They were able to follow Wilson around and record his thoughts and feelings as he created his chewing gum art.  We get a glimpse in to the process of how Wilson ensures that his work lasts more than a few days.  It also serves as a snapshot of the UK under the present government and how, despite effectively disenfranchising a lot of people, there are still those who chose to voice their dissent in a less than usual manner.


24 April 2011

A Necessary EVOL

It is as if The Borrowers had supplanted themselves en masse from suburbia and had become urban dwellers overnight, yet these pictures do not signify a demographic lurch by the tiny folk.  This is the work of German street artist EVOL.  He uses stencils to turn everyday outdoor objects, such as electrical boxes in to miniature skyscrapers.

Look closely and you will see all the usual aspects of urban living – the satellite TV dishes affixed to many of the ‘flats; the balconies and half drawn net curtains; the ubiquitous graffiti. If you simply glance at these pictures it becomes difficult to distinguish them from the real thing.

These pictures are part of EVOL’s series of works entitled ‘buildings’ which while stating the obvious – doesn’t.  This is a wallpaper job in a way – Evol applies paper printed with a pattern on to these surfaces and takes it from there.

Although EVOL is Berlin based his work has started to appear throughout Europe.  So, if you see a rather banal urban surface which has been transformed in to a diminutive block of flats, take a closer look. But don’t expect to find The Borrowers inside...