Artists

encryptedfills

Encrypted Fills is a collaborative project created by RJ Rushmore and Ryan Seslow. We have been watching for years (and Ryan’s been participating as an artist himself) as people in the street art and graffiti world have turned to experimenting with new mediums like GIFs, video art, and related forms of electronic documentation to express their ideas on digital platforms. Sometimes the aesthetics of the work are nearly indistinguishable from static street pieces, and other times these digital works are hardly recognizable as related to street art or graffiti, but we believe that these new works come from the same place. Artists who have been getting up outdoors are now reaching out to a similar digital public, and it’s opened the door for those artists to reach beyond static images. We are very excited about this development. We want to promote this work and identify it as something particular and distinct from other art being produced in the street art and graffiti communities, and we also want to preserve the best examples of it for posterity, lest in the future we think of these works as standard and forget the artistic leaps that were made in the last few years and those that will be made in the years to come. Works will be organized by exhibition and category as stated above. Exhibition time lines will vary, but all of the works presented here will be archived for the site.

10 Articles

General Howe

generalhowe.tumblr.com In a first world society we are enabled to be ignorant and we often blind our selves from the brutal realities around us. We give up cultural control for comfort and pleasure. Subverting an existing message is a means to taking back cultural control that otherwise is ruled by higher orders of power such as corporations or governments. In street art there are these special moments where you can subvert an existing message to communicate an original idea. Sometimes it’s as simple as making a slight change to a public Ad, appropriating the iconography of a traffic sign, or installing an image to a derelict wall. The Internet provides the same opportunities in the digital space. The Animated Disasters of War Gifs are modified versions of childhood cartoons fighting in the 21st century context. The file format .gif is used to repurpose and share nostalgic animation juxtaposed with the realities of war and terrorism. I relish the moments where I can loop an innocent moment in a cartoon to express a raw truth that we wish not to discuss. This body of work is intended to educate future generations about war in the early 21st century and use new media to engage a timeless topic within art history. The breadth of the Internet makes it possible to share and spread a message across the World Wide Web. Working in the street can have an effect on a local village but working on the Internet can impact the global village.

10 Articles

S L O W

SLOW is a visual artist, independent curator, graphic designer, and professor of art living and working in New York. Working in a variety of mediums S L O W shows his work both nationally and internationally. He teaches various fine art graduate and undergraduate level studio art and design courses simultaneously between four colleges in NYC and the metropolitan area. He is the creator and curator of Concrete to Data as well as the co-creator and co-curator of Encrypted Fills. He is addicted to making GIFs and using his graffiti pieces as subject matter to animate. ryanseslow.com

18 Articles

Jilly Ballistic

jillyballistic.tumblr.com/ Described by close friends as a “reckless foul human being” and “soulless clout,” this loosely categorized artist is also known as a New York City subway vandal; projects include terrorizing the Hollywood film industry by altering movie posters with her charming wit, adding her infinite knowledge as Policy Advisories to the cannon of idioms and celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Chemical Warfare (1914-2014) and Our Glorious War Culture by pasting historical images to site specific locations. She can also be identified by her long winded sentences that travel to no point. Ballistic has been featured in numerous street art documentaries and international culture magazines—from AnimalNY, BuzzFeed, Hyperallergic toHUCK. Believe it or not, Time Out New York has declared her work one of the best underground (issue 843).

6 Articles

Adam Void

adamvoid.com where are you right now? you are not in the streets, if you are, then you're "not really there" you don't see my tag next to you because the screen has your attention this is why I chose to document my graffiti with video so many pieces have been made for an exclusive, site-specific audience my videos are filmed on a hand-held vhs-c camcorder, edited in-camera or with outdated software I am not a video artist. I am an artist that makes videos. -Adam Void

5 Articles

Enzo and Nio

enzoandnio.com Galleries and museums have historically offered the public access to art, using their own formulas and values to qualify what work the public can see. This can alter and limit the true artist-viewer experience. Enzo & Nio believe that street art strips away at that convention and creates a more honest and personal exchange. To extend the experience of their work to a greater audience as well as create another dynamic in which to view it, the duo often create animated GIF's of some of their larger street pieces.

5 Articles

John Fekner

johnfekner.com In the 70s, John Fekner was ‘anonymously known’ for over three hundred environmental/conceptual works consisting of dates, words, and symbols spray painted throughout the five boroughs of New York. The “Warning Signs” project focused on pointing out hazardous conditions that dominated New York City and its environs in the 1970s. In the spring of 1977, Fekner created word-signs using hand cut cardboard stencils and spray paint. He began a relentless crusade concerned with social and environmental issues. Starting in the industrial streets of Queens and the East River bridges, and later on to the South Bronx in 1980, his messages were seen in areas that were desperately in need of construction, demolition or reconstruction. By labeling structures and emphasizing problems, the objective was to call attention to the accumulated squalor by urging city officials, agencies and local communities to be more responsible and take action.

4 Articles

Stinkfish

stink.tk Stinkfish - Born in Mexico, but raised in Colombia, Stinkfish has been honing his skills on the streets of his hometown of Bogota since an early age. He first experimented with stencils in 2003 and has since perfected his own, unique style. His murals, bursting with color, always have a stenciled portrait at their center. These portraits are taken from photos that the artist shoots during his travels around the world. They are faces that catch his eye, but not people he approaches and talks to. Another source is found photographs either discovered lying on the streets or bought at flea markets. He fashions large-scale stencils based on these photographs, which in the street are then amended by impromptu, colorful halos. Stinkfish is one of the founders of the crew Animal Power Culture (APC), which now boasts over 50 members. His collaborations with many different artists, as well as his solo pieces, can be found on the streets of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, England, Spain, Holland, Austria, France, Argentina, Colombia, India, and Nepal, among others countries. www.stink.tk

4 Articles

Gaia

gaiastreetart.com Gaia grew up in New York City and is a recent graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland. His studio work, installations and gallery projects have been exhibited throughout the world most notably The Baltimore Museum of Art, Rice Gallery and Palazzo Collicola Arti Visive. His street work has been documented and featured in several books on urban art, including, most recently, Beyond the Street: The 100 Leading Figures in Urban Art, (Berlin, 2010). Gaia lives and works in Baltimore, MD, but spends a majority of his time traveling painting murals across the world.

5 Articles

Monique Spier

Monique Spier is a Dutch born artist living and working in New York. “I am most interested in the process of creating and the intimacy of being in that space.” Ms. Spier has transcended her ideas throughout different mediums to help communicate her artistic vision. In her latest project she used the medium of stencil graffiti and hand crafted book binding to depict a repeated image of her late Mother as a young woman. Monique Spier holds a BFA in printmaking from Long Island University, Post Campus.

3 Articles

Jennifer "Cake" Caviola

cakestreetart.com Jennifer Caviola, also known as “Cake”, is a fine artist who, in addition to her progressive studio practice, focuses on public space as a platform to express her support of women through a voice of solidarity. Communicating through portraiture, a women’s curves become sharp lines that in an architectural sense, propel a feeling of strength, power and vulnerability. Caviola has a BFA in Painting from Pratt Institute and a MFA in Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design. She has been featured in publications such as: Huffington Post, Complex Magazine, Paper Mag, Juxtapoz Magazine, Vogue and High Fructose Magazine.

3 Articles

Michael Branson Smith

http://michaelbransonsmith.net - Michael Branson Smith is a web artist and assistant professor of Communications Technology at York College, The City University of New York. He holds an MFA from Tufts University, School of the Museum of Fine Arts and an MS in Chemistry from the University of Chicago (admittedly, a strange combination). MBS presently spends a lot of time tinkering with animated GIFs, particularly with a nostalgic eye or by remixing with friends. He regularly teaches a course on digital storytelling inspired by the DS106 community. He is also a multi-media producer of industrial work principally for not-for-profits – including video, artwork, and design.

3 Articles

Abe Lincoln Jr.

girlsbike.com Abe Lincoln Jr. is a Graphic Artist living in Brooklyn NY. His work is informed by skateboarding, punk rock, and mid-century modern design. Abe is a self taught artist who works across broad mediums from hand-drawn postal stickers to high concept Production Art with equal skill. Abe has participated in numerous Art Shows around the world and been a key collaborator with numerous lifestyle brands.

3 Articles

Leon Reid IV

leonthe4th.com "Technophemera GIF" is a playful spin on a preparatory sketch for "Technophemera" a public art project currently in production. Like good GIFwork, it transforms a static 2 dimensional file into a an infinite loop of motion and energy.

2 Articles

Caroline Caldwell

dirt-worship.com I was inspired to make "Shelter" when I was abruptly moved into a sketchy neighborhood and had just witnessed a new roommate's suicide attempt. Needless to say, "Shelter" was what I was looking for and I tried to describe that feeling with an animation. I created it using cut paper and stop motion photography. It's my first animation and it's a bit shaky. Since this, I've definitely found more stability in both my living situation and in my ability to make animations.

1 Article

Scott

Scott grew up on Long Island and is currently attending the Digital Game Design and Development program at LIU Post. He is a level designer who builds out whole worlds and maps in the virtual game world. He also works on some of the scripting tasks needed to create these virtual worlds. His past projects have been displayed at PAX East in 2014, and have been featured on BetaBoston.com: This past year of 2014 he was also added to the Games Developers Conference (GDC) Vault in the Game Narrative Review section. He is currently developing various applications for the virtual reality medium for use with Oculus Rift.

1 Article