Greek Missus and Leg-ends: Athens Graf pt II

The Parthenon, democracy, any song by Demis Roussos, this post about Athenian graffiti - one thing they all have in common is they never seem to get finished. Well here is part two, part one is either a little bit lower down the page or here.


Thanks to its intractable bureaucracy where even a simple house purchase requires the signature of a myriad of government officials and utility suppliers, religious leaders and acts of parliament, Athen’s crumbling ruins quite often collapse completely. The ghost building sites in these back streets provide a characteristic derelict ruggedness, the loose stone construction and failing flaking plaster enhances the charm of the sun faded art on the walls. And since no one cares enough to buff, the best and longest lasting art can be found here.


JNOR NDA



Unknown


In the same back streets, one vacant plot had a single story glass mirrored, errrr don’t know what it was about, some kind of two-sides-of a-square concept, the effect was that you could stand in one spot and simultaneously check the graffiti on two opposite walls, how coooool is that!

b., Alexandros Vasmoulakis, plus (TBC) JNOR NDA


Despite being an ex-pat London dauber for several years, the mark of The Krah remains visible in many Athens locations. Boy has he come a long way geographically and technically. On this first pic, note how the Athenian tactile parking habit has worn a horizontal strip away.


The Krah


Early Krah


For the benefit of anyone not aware – shame on you - of The Krah’s more recent London work:


The Krah – Foundry, Gt Eastern Rd, Jun 18 2008


JNOR NDA’s distressed figures deserve admiration, is the expression hang-dog or are they just falling short of the full 8 hours kip?


JNOR NDA, more here


This picture HAS to be shown if for no better reason than the height Lie has reached


LIE


Epic permissioned pieces seem to be few and far between, Alexandros Vasmoulakis is one of Athens’s more accomplished painters with a growing art reputation:


Alexandros Vasmoulakis


Though he can mix it up filthy, rough and ready when he wants to


Alexandros Vasmoulakis


Another painter who ranks among the best Street Artists is:


Pete, more here

Athen’s highways have three big plus features for this ancient civilisation’s street decorators, big walls, lots of eyeballs and again, no one cares so no real buff program. The highway walls tend to attract comparatively simple tags, nothing too wild.


Stik


rolks?

The main road, well, particularly Syngrou Avenue is crossed by a number of subway tunnels and here the tagging does get a bit wilder.


Barns


Stoner


Placement doesn’t have quite the significance to Athenian vandals as it does for street artists elsewhere. It’s a case of anywhere will do, though we love the exceptions!


Spit


Shutters don’t escape the Athenian public writer and there’s more than a just nod to UK’s Eine and Cept in a couple of compositions found


Unknown



Unknown

There doesn't seem to be as much of the grandstand hall-of-fame type of spraycan showboating you might get in other cities but the effect is a much more hurly-burly rushed and pacey style, total in tune with Athen’s character. The Athenian graffiti writer’s natural enemy is not so much the authority as the loose flakiness of the wattle-and-daub which make up the facias and internal coatings of Athens buildings. The sooner the authorities act to improve the longevity and earthquake resistance of the skims the better for all vandals.


Possibly JNOR NDA


All the work above is pure freehand can work which dominates on Athenian shutters and walls. There fewer stencils to be found


Unknown


And hardly any paste-ups, which seem to be associated more with cheesy nightclub acts and politicians.


Mute


"Mrs Poisonurse and Mrs nutcracker" - Dreyk The Pirate and Iquado


Congratulations if you have made it this far, and if you have the stamina, you could check out the rather large set of photos from these two brief whizettes around Athens, perhaps do it in stages?
BIG BIG PROPS to The Krah for pinpointing where I should look and for taking the time to go through all my pictures and identifying culprits, he’s a diamond and an awesome artist to boot. Props also to Alex-The-Greek whose love for graffiti comes on in leaps and bounds and whose willingness to ignore traffic codes is clearly in the Greek DNA, and to his brother for loan of the scooter. Thanks also to Ryunosuke who also flicked through the pics and helped with identification, view Ryunosuke's awesome photos here

Pure Evil Brighton Solo Show

Ink-d Gallery, Brighton
4 Jul - 2 Aug 08


Un-diluted, 100% concentrated, fully refined malevolence filled the sea air surrounding the Ink-d Gallery in Brighton. This phenomenon has a sweet herbal scent and it manifests in the form of Pure Evil. The master of the double bluff shields his evil bunny alter-ego behind a veneer of decency which deceived a national press "used-to-think-street-art-was-shite-but-now-its-value-has-rocketed-I-get-it" art ponce who saw only the “sweet and smiley bloke, greying at the temples...”; all the better for clandestine manic outbursts of aerosol tourettes and paste-up madness on the streets.

 
Evil Bunny is a very real freeform wicked Oryctolagus cuniculus, its piercing eyes and sharp fangs threaten disorder, malice and sinister fun from many a wall.






So long as there is an evil bunny on a wall in Shoreditch, anarchistic artisans will find the Pure Evil gallery in Leonard Street a lighting rod for situationist fun, general chaos and the occasional bottle of Vedett beer. Prosecution has never struggled with lack of evidence of Pure Evil’s street credentials.




Pure Evil's Pearly Kings and Queens admire Swoon filigree. Jef Aerosol and The Krah lurk with intent



Pure Evil testifies for East London’s mandatory euthanasia program
 

And the Leonard Street Gallery doesn’t exactly softly whisper “Pure Evil” in grey micro lettering on a small white card.



 
Deep in the slimy dark vaults where Pure Evil fabricates his latest apocalyptic vision, the machinery has been busy exploring fresh craft techniques to propagate the message, honing the cutting edge sharpness of the artwork and improving quality control!

In autumn last year the evil bunny morphed into a neon light on canvas. Prospects for world domination increased dramatically when the neon evil bunny was put into a reflecting Perspex box, now the latest version of the infinite neon bunny comes brighter, in various colours and thankfully, better manufactured - distracting electric cables are banished to a hidden recess within the box which also improves the hanging.




That pretty awful last photo fails to capture an interesting feature of two of the show’s infinite neon bunnies; due to slight concavity of the outer surface of the box (or was it convexity of the back surface) the multiple reflections get bigger and bigger as the images recede into the distance, the earlier versions had bunnies which got smaller.

The Evil Bunny has chosen to spread its caustic influence by annexing the supposedly harmless motif of a butterflies stencilled on canvas, lending it the acidic fluorescent light outline while Pure Evil is subliminally cut into the mottled variegations on the butterfly wings.


 

This Pure Evil collection provides a first outing for images stencilled or silkscreen printed onto glass which is then painted behind to give a glossy fluorescent coloured or silver background, the stencilled image just leap off the pop art colours. Its like the images are stencilled onto ultra smooth polished coloured plastic and looks awesome.
 


 
Pure Evil hooked up with London’s pearly Kings and Queens earlier this year to produce a series of street paste ups and canvasses, emblazoned with Live East Die Young. Rather than repeat the simple stencil seen at Banksy’s Cans Festival a couple of months ago, Pure Evil has slapped the gorblimmeyluv kings and queens onto a glass with lurid pink background.




Pure Evil Bunny mission to add a bit of colour to walls the world over has been captured by blasting the CGI silver surfer off his board and carving a stencilled path through a canvas New York, spraying slogans and swear words down into the metroplolis as he goes.



Fresh from the Pure Evil crypt is the stencil on glass goya-esque apocalyptic vision of the Wild Thing leaving the war scene, winsomely titled “May God Have Mercy On My Enemies... Because I Won’t”.





Evil Bunny can’t even leave its friends in the Pure Evil show alone, well someone must be blamed for the Wild Thing on glass that appears to have an unfortunate case of spray paint diarrhoea.



Pure Evil’s cross-fertilises his work to produce bastard offspring of earlier pieces, such as the latex bunny woman, in a gimp mask natch, who now has silver buttons nicked from the pearly Kings and Queens.



Panda-ing (boom boom) to the edtioned print market, Pure Evil has produced the silk screened “Tagger Scum”.


"Tagger Scum"

Pure Evil can at times give the impression of having too many ideas rushed onto gallery walls but this show, notwithstanding the loose bowelled Wild Thing, has a polish to both content and product which would surprise anyone who hadn’t seen much Pure Evil beyond the Pictures On Walls panda prints.

Pure Evil’s show is too strong to be contained within the mere physical confines of gallery walls, psychadelic glows flood out under the doors, through the windows and quite possibly up the chimnies too. This show is a feast for the eyes and but beware, it may strike terror into your soul.

These and more pictures from the show can be seen here

www.ink-d.co.uk

It's All Greek To Me: Athens Pt 1

Over many years as London’s ambassador to Athen’s tavernas and bars, I have had the pleasure of observing quite a large amount of graffti, regrettably nearly always from the windows of taxis (when Athens taxis are moving it’s best to keep your eyes closed, thankfully they also spend a lot of time stationary). On my most recent visit at the beginning of June (08) I managed to carve out a few hours from my lotus eating schedule to jump on the back of a Vespa driven by my friend Alex-The-Greek and tour around creating havoc on the streets (and pavements) and photograph Greek graff.


unknown – indecipherable tag

Aided by an Athens map embellished by a bunch of loose fluid tentacle strokes courtesy of The Krah, it proved easy to locate several deep warrens of single track back streets, alley ways and bazaars crammed full of spray work.



Athens is sliced, diced and surrounded by a network of pedestrian-hostile highways, the deep walls holding back the embankments have proved an irresistible canvas for taggers and artists who generally need not fear passing foot traffic.


Captain Hook


I’d been seeing lots of swarms of evil grinning bees along most of these main routes, some of them even had psychedelic don’t mess with me colours.




Athens artist b. who has graced quite a few London walls over the past year or so but in his natural habitat, this is b.

b., Norjin

And these,

Hit, b.


b. and ?

And for good measure there is a lot more b. here

(where The Krah has helped with identification, that is 100% accurate; some of the attributions are my guess and may well be wrong – apologies in advance).

One artist whose stuff I have admired on flikr but never actually seen in real life is Joad. Her pieces proved to be a bit more elusive that I had hoped but the few I found were treasures.


Joad


Actually, I had come across a Joad last Autumn near the hotel I usually stay at, un-expectedly it was a plain but crisp block but look closely and the trademark whispy lines are present.


Joad, more here
ons in her comment - its a beauty:

Joad, Icnoc


The second installment of this Greek adventure will follow in a few days or so but if you can't wait or simply can't take any more words, then by all means just take a look at the pictures here.

Update: check out part II here

Cept Update

I knew it would be worth waiting a while to update on the lushness that is painted by Cept......actually, that's a complete lie, I didn't have a clue quite what was gonna happen in the last month and a bit around his usual Sclatter Street wall.

It had been in this guise below, fairly suitably untouched (or more to the point well maintained in between times) since a couple of days before Valentines Day this year

Then at the end of May it got an extremely fresh new update, I loved it, and took a lot of pics (funny that) but have since been asked by Cept not to show them. Seems he didnt like how it looked (o.k, so it may have needed to be finished a little more, but overall was a nice in yer face assault of colours and had a classic Cept/Lichtenstein girl character)

Again borrowing from the DC Comic / Lichtenstein comic book style Cept is now also famous for, in the version that now remains he then added the phrase "my mistakes were made for you" to this amazingly tight wall. The man couldn't make a mistake if he tried!

And to go a bloody long way in proving that point, in a style reminiscent of some of the updates on his site http://www.spradio.com/-1.html he has most recently painted the wall of the also excellent inside LoungeLover bar. Can control aplenty in action here as per usual, the lines and details can be identified without any form of tag or name thrown up...but what the hell, even his tag is the business so he did that anyways.

In fact, I am sure thats why Sclatter Street got painted out so quick.......it was 2 mil off centre.

Cept is also due to be at LoveBox (He's obviously feeling a whole lotta love lately) as he is releasing an exclusive print called "Love from Hackney" at the festival. It's an edition of 20 digital prints that will only be available from the festival, which happens this year on July 19th/20th in Victoria Park, Hackney.