Maverik Showroom
Redchurch St, London
25th - 29th (Sunday!) November 2009
All photos: NoLionsInEngland
When Probs23, laden with experience of putting on shows at The Dragon Bar (RIP) and a little black book filled with phone numbers of some the World’s best graff writers, not to mention the arranger of several London Meetings Of styles jams says he’s working with London graff heads favourite adopted son Tizer to put on a show, well you sit up and pay attention.
Probs – Shoreditch, London
Tizer – West London
The line-up is phenomenal and all apart from Bom.K (if memory serves) featured in this year’s London Meeting of styles.
Askym Bonsai Nash Biser Nychos Wany Aryz Does, MOS 2009, London
On the upper ground floor each of the artists has taken on an 8 by 4 panel , the standout being the violent distress of Biser’s abstract pterodactyl painted over cardboard, ink, paper and almost anything he could get to stick to the surface.
Biser – 8 by 4 panel
Biser – 8 by 4 panel detail
A set of four very deep chipboard boxes have been painted by Nychos, Does, Aryz and Biser , each producing something distinctive for their individual style yet each has used the managed to work the underlying chopped wood as if it was an un-prepped surface behind their graffiti.
Nychos, Does, Aryz and Biser
Tizer is a legend for letterforms, fills and characters so it is not a surprise that his work moves easily into the gallery. Among the canvasses, panels and sketches it is cool to find framed sketches featuring instantly recognisable Tizer characters annotated with the music that set the mood.
Tizer
Probs has been working with swirling vortices and warped intergalactic space effects in a number of wall pieces over the past year and these themes appear in several sketches and prints displayed in the show. The most stunning pair of canvasses take things in a very abstract direction and whilst the title Big Spaceora suggests more inter-planetary cosmic goodness but they could just as easily be read as sub microscopic intra-cellular life form skin fragments.
Probs – Big Spaceora
Rabodiga has one new piece in the show but seems to struggle making the canvas compositions appeal as much as her street face portraits.
Rabodiga – Queen Of Hearts
One of my pet hates is when writers do a large floor to ceiling piece on the gallery wall over a set of canvasses which each contains a small part of the piece, usually resulting is a set of meaningless accidental abstracts. Biser avoids this mess by writing his burner across a trio of canvasses, a gorgeous eruption of paint probes across a dirty drippy background, the wild lettering haemorrhages a slime of immiscible colour runs
Biser – Triptych Splats
Four favourite pieces:
Jaw dropping show-stopper is this very large canvas from Bom.K featuring snarling mutants rule a post apocalyptic (well, ok, slightly damaged) urban landscape, enormous amounts of detail in the composition and precision in the painting, many curious observers scrutinised the surface very closely seeking clues about Bom.K’s painting technique, several speculated the method is based on spray applied though airbrush.
Bom.K – Large Scale
Aryz has two spectacular canvasses, London (below) is a stunning colour shifting copper toned essay on booze and tea in an isolated self important world, which pretty much sums London up. Also check out his “Melting Portrait” on the flickr link below, another phenomenal canvas.
Aryz – London
Nychos contributes one of the large 8 by 4 panels, a deep chipboard box, sketches, a screen print and several canvasses ranging from the small (about 12 inches from memory) and ridiculously cheap canvasses featuring a rabbit character reminiscent of Studio Ghibli’s Totoro to this beautiful box headed roller wielding squid on acid paper.
Nychos – Box Head Squiddy
Like Biser, Does brings his letters off the streets and into the gallery, the meticulous detail of the lettering and the awesome fill patterns pop off the black backgrounds on a collection of five landscape canvasses.
Does
Graffoto tends not to write about group shows but this one is epic and has so many impressive pieces, two visits really weren’t enough. The art is extremely good yet a large amount of it retains something of the energy and roughness of street work. Probs and Tizer have put a load of effort into curating this show, gathering a strong collection of work and displaying the art to best effect, the attention to detail has paid off( though perhaps the piza-esque tower of print tubes in the basement is a distraction!). The show closes this Sunday, 29 Nov so there isn’t that much time left to whizz along and take in the goodness.
