Simple Pleasures
October 3 through October 31, 2003
Simple Pleasures
draws on the artist's experience as a New York City graffiti writer over the last twenty years and merges this aesthetic with a fine art sensibility and application.
The artist borrows from the modernist practice of incorporating found materials into works of art but brings a fresh, new perspective. Collages containing numerous custom letters are cut from scavenged papers to spell out multiple versions of SP.ONE. Other collages combine a variety of commercially printed materials to form new meanings and associations. They also contain subtle references to graffiti iconography and
the street.
The collages challenge and move beyond conventional stereotypes about graffiti by embracing a new medium and technique. The works play with a profusion of font styles, word fragments and multiple layers to simulate the energy, movement and immediacy of contemporary life. This energy is also evident in the wall painting through its imposing scale, color composition and overlapping of letter-forms. All of the artworks play with the relationship between
high
and
art and explore the ever changing and interactive dialogue between street, fine, and commercial arts.
SLIDESHOW