Concrete to Canvas | 2022

NOVEMBER 5 -

DECEMBER 23, 2022

West Chelsea Contemporary is a world-class gallery offering museum-quality art in Austin, Texas, and New York City, focusing on 20th century and contemporary art predominantly in American, Asian, and European post-war movements. West Chelsea Contemporary opened in October of 2020 under the direction of Lisa Russell, who has operated this gallery since founding Russell Collection in 2002. With this gallery rebrand, her vision is for West Chelsea Contemporary to satisfy the evolving demographic and style of Austin’s culture by showcasing everything from mid-career and emerging artists to legends like KAWS, Yayoi Kusama, Keith Haring, Shepard Fairey, Andy Warhol, Blek Le Rat, Mr. Brainwash, Fiona Rae, Roy Lichtenstein, Takashi Murakami and more West Chelsea Contemporary clients are assisted by an expert staff dedicated to providing the highest level of service

NEW

YORK CITY - CHELSEA

231 10th Ave New York, NY 10011

646.590.0352

Monday - Wednesday 10am - 6pm

Thursday - Friday 10am - 8pm

Saturday 10am - 6pm; Sunday 12 - 6pm

AUSTIN - DOWNTOWN

1009 West 6th Street #120 Austin, TX 78703

512.478.4440

Monday - Wednesday 10am - 6pm

Thursday - Friday 10am - 8pm

Saturday 10am - 6pm; Sunday 12 - 6pm

FOREWORD

West Chelsea Contemporary is proud to present the Austin gallery’s third iteration of our annual exhibition Concrete to Canvas a celebration of graffiti, street art, and the artists born of these movements Epic in scope and visceral in feel, this show articulates a movement that is and will continue to be hugely influential in the history of art. Graffiti began to appear, almost overnight, in the 1970s, with cryptic signatures tags scrawled across New York City on subway cars, basketball courts, and building facades. Often political and deeply personal, this form of self-expression established itself apart from the typical white cube Much of the philosophy of graffiti stemmed from a belief that art can function outside systems of law and property, and that art should be democratic and accessible to all people regardless of race, age, gender, and economic status.

Graffiti quickly evolved from branding walls into design-focused and intricate pieces, and by the end of the eighties, its influence and reach could be felt across fine art, marketing, politics, hip-hop, and more As the subversive culture of graffiti boomed, spreading across the United States and beyond, the term street art began to encompass all visual art created in the public domain. White originally rooted in illegality, the popularity and shifting conversation over the medium led to an increase in commissioned murals across the world.

The evolution from street to studio has seen artists embrace everything from traditional media such as painting and prints, to innovative mediums like vinyl toys and fashion collaborations. Exploring these works in the gallery setting helps to further shift the coded perceptions of street art and aids in solidifying its place in the history of art

Graffiti’s integral impact on the landscape of contemporary art has led graffiti historian Roger Gastman to describe it as “the biggest cultural art movement of the last 50-plus years ”

Graffiti pioneers such as CRASH, Doze Green, and Lady Pink create studio works that pay homage to their roots while representing the diverse aesthetic found within the movement. Contemporary street artists such as Banksy, Swoon, and Vhils invite viewers to contemplate new perspectives while exploring themes of allegory, activism, and identity. With works by over two dozen artists, spanning over four decades, Concrete to Canvas features the stylistic range, immense influence, and immersive experience of street art

CEY ADAMS

American, b. 1962

New York City native Cey Adams emerged from the downtown graffiti movement to exhibit alongside fellow artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. He appeared in the historic 1982 PBS documentary Style Wars which tracks subway graffiti in New York. Cey’s work explores the relationship between transformation and discovery focusing on themes ranging from pop culture to race and gender relations His practice involves dismantling various imagery and paper elements to build multiple layers of color, texture, shadow, and light. Cey draws inspiration from 60’s pop art, sign painting, comic books, and popular culture As the Creative Director of hip hop mogul Russell Simmons’ Def Jam Recordings, he co-founded the Drawing Board, the label’s in-house visual design firm, where he created visual identities, album covers, logos, and advertising campaigns for Run DMC, Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, Public Enemy, Notorious B.I.G., and Jay-Z He exhibits, lectures and teaches art workshops at institutions including: MoMA, Brooklyn Museum, Walker Art Center, and MoCA Los Angeles.

Cey Adams

LOVE (Wildflower) (/75), 2022

34 Color Silkscreen on 320gsm Coventry Rag Paper

31 x 45 in

Publisher: WCC Editions

Printer: Gary Lichtenstein Editions

BANKSY

Banksy, b.1974

often using spray paint and stencils, Banksy has crafted a signature, immediately identifiable graphic style and a recurring cast of cops, soldiers, children, and celebrities through which he critically examines contemporary issues of consumerism, political authority, terrorism, and the status of art and its display

Banksy Flag (Silver) (454,1000), 2006

Screenprint in colors on paper

19.5 X 27.5 in

BLEK LE RAT

French, b. 1951 | Paris based

Blek Le Rat, born Xavier Prou in Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris, was one of the very first graffiti artists in Paris and has been described as the “Father of Stencil Graffiti” Blek was first introduced to graffiti during a trip to New York City in 1971 where he was inspired to bring the style back to Paris, adapting the stencil as a more fitting technique for French architecture. He is best known for stenciling a giant graphic image of a rat all over Paris in the early 1980s, which to him symbolized both freedom and the dissemination of art through the city as if it were the plague Blek, who has influenced generations of urban artists around the world, boasts a subtle social commitment and considers his images as a gift he gives to the city. His works often represent solitary individuals that can be encountered in the urban space–women, children, the elderly, and a diverse range of contemporary characters. In a desire to bring the people of the city closer to art, he quotes the great classics such as Caravaggio, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci. “I would like to bring the characters out of museums to return them to the people of the city ” His street art has appeared in cities across the world, and he has exhibited in New York, London, Los Angeles, Melbourne, and beyond.

Blek Le Rat

Cop en Couleurs, 2022

Acrylic and Aerosol on Linen

42.5 x 40 in

CRASH

CRASH, born John Matos, began graffiti bombing at train yards in the Bronx at only 13. Taking the name “CRASH” after he accidentally crashed the computer in his school, his name began appearing on trains circulating all throughout New York City By 1980, he began transitioning from train yards to galleries, curating the ground-breaking "Graffiti Art Success for America" at Fashion MODA that helped elevate the graffiti movement. CRASH’s career took off and he saw instant popularity throughout Europe and America, and eventually Asia. CRASH's work has been part of numerous exhibitions around the world and is in many permanent museum collections including the Brooklyn Museum and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. His visually iconic work has appeared in partnerships with Absolut Vodka, Fender Guitars, SoBella Handbags, Levi’s, and most recently, Tumi luggage and Morphik. He is the co-owner of contemporary art gallery WALLWORKS NEW YORK and the co-owner of Wallworks TWO, a locally driven retail boutique, both in The Bronx.

American, b 1961 | NYC based

CRASH Color Cloud 3, 2022

Spray paint on shaped canvas

36 x 36 in

American, b.1962 DAZE

Chris ‘Daze’ Ellis began his prolific Career painting New York City subway cars in 1976 while attending The High School of Art and Design. He remains one of the few artists of his generation to make the successful transition from the subways to the studio His first group show was the seminal “Beyond Words” at the Mudd Club in 1981 Soon after his first solo exhibition was held at Fashion Moda, an influential alternative art space in the South Bronx. One year later the Sammlung Ludwig, Aachen, Germany acquired the first of several paintings for their permanent collection Since then he has exhibited in numerous solo exhibitions in such cities as Paris, Monte Carlo, Singapore, Beijing, Florence, and Buenos Aires. Ellis’ work has continued to be included in many group shows and museum surveys internationally. Daze’s paintings have found themselves in many private collections including Eric Clapton, Natalie Imbruglia and Madonna His work can also be found in the permanent collections of The Whitney Museum, NY, Museum of Modern Art, NY, The Museum of the City of New York, The Ludwig Museum, Aachen, and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven

DAZE

Where Kings Dwell, 2019

Acrylic and spray paint on canvas

53 x 53 in

FAB 5 FREDDY

American, b. 1959

Visual artist, filmmaker, and hip-hop pioneer Fab 5 Freddy (Fred Brathwaite) was among the earliest graffiti artists to receive recognition in the wider art world His work bridged the uptown hip-hop scene and the downtown art and punk scene of 1970s and ’80s New York and made major artistic contributions to both. Along with Futura 2000, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and others, Fab 5 Freddy proved that graffiti was not just a passing trend but an art movement all of its own. In 1979, he and fellow artist Lee Quiñones were the first to exhibit graffiti art abroad, bringing international attention to this emerging American artistic medium; his appearance in the 1983 cult-classic film Wild Style inextricably linked graffiti art with hip-hop music. As a member of the graffiti crew the Fabulous 5, he became known for covering New York subway cars in graffiti, and later went on to produce films and music videos with pop culture icons like Blondie and Queen Latifah

Fab 5 Freddy

Major Movement, 2012

Inkjet giclée on canvas

40 x 40 in

FAILE

American, Founded 1999

Since 1999, Patrick McNeil and Patrick Miller have collaborated under the name FAILE (an anagram of “a life”) to create kinetic, image-saturated paintings, prints, sculptures, and installations Their democratic street style features fragmented mash-ups of comic book and cartoon characters, advertising and propaganda slogans, bright patterns and colors, and historical and pop cultural references. At the beginning of their career, FAILE’s work appeared on the streets as stickers, posters, and stenciled images Since then, the duo has enjoyed exhibitions at Tate Modern, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the Brooklyn Museum, the Central Academy of Fine Art Museum in Beijing, and the Mima Museum in Brussels, among other institutions. FAILE has also produced large-scale murals and staged participatory public interventions in cities including New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Lyon, France further blurring the lines between “high” and “low” culture.

FAILE Hair Wolf PPR, 2015

Acrylic, silkscreen ink and spraypaint on paper

75.5 x 50 in

DOZE GREEN

American, b. 1964

canvas, Green’s recent paintings, influenced by the art of the Edo Period in Japan and created with gesso and sumi ink, incorporate his signature style of figurative abstraction and use of letterforms while at the same time posing metaphysical questions about the nature of narrative, the physics of time, and the possibility of immortality. He calls them “biological entities, a swarm of arrows coming in from infinite perspective.”

Doze Green

Divine Spark, 2022

Acrylic and aerosol on linen

73.5 x 59.25 in

RICHARD HAMBLETON

Canadian, 1952 - 2017

Richard Hambleton, referred to as the “godfather of street art,” was a pioneering Canadian street artist He is recognized as a pivotal intermediary between Abstract Expressionism and the popular “art for the masses” graffiti that boomed in the 1980s. Hambleton is best known for his grisly “Shadowmen” and “Horse and Rider” figures, which he tagged in alleyways and drug-dealing hotspots in Lower Manhattan throughout the '70s and ’80s Despite finding early success in New York and showing at the Venice Biennale in 1984 and ’88, Hambleton was largely forgotten in the ’90s and early 2000s, when his personal battles with addiction alienated him from the art world Hambleton’s work saw a resurgence in the 2010s, with solo shows, major museum retrospectives, and documentaries taking a new look at the seminal role he played in the history of street art.

Richard Hambleton

Untitled, 1985

Acrylic and Gel on Paper

71.5 x 29.5 in

JR French, b. 1983

y g , p g p g façades, stadium seats, and a variety of other architectural and landscape features His practice often comments on such issues as incarceration, immigrant rights, and poverty yet JR infuses his work with joy and hope for change. He has exhibited in cities including New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, Berlin, and Seoul. JR’s work belongs in the collections of the Musée de l’Elysée, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum Frieder Burda. In addition to his public interventions, JR has produced a number of films, including a collaboration with the famed French director Agnès Varda.

Unframed, Children Treated in the Ellis Island Hospital Revised by JR, U.S.A, 2014

Color photograph matte Plexi-glass, aluminum, wood (face mounted)

70.75 x 96 in

JR

HOW & NOSM

Spanish, Collaborating since 1988

Known as How & Nosm, identical twin brothers Raoul and Davide Perre create large-scale spray-painted murals that adorn walls in cities across the world, as well as prints and paintings on canvas. Executed in their signature palette of reds, whites, and blacks, the artists’ complex, meticulously detailed designs are populated by geometric patterns and stylized characters engaged in dubious activities Their work frequently references personal history, including their experiences living under Franco’s dictatorship in Spain, and themes of duality that investigate their genetic bond and collaborative endeavors.

How & Nosm (Raoul and Davide Perre)

Age of Reason, 2012

Spraypaint, india ink, cel vinyl and collage on canvas

74 x 74 in

KAWS

American, b.1974

when he began altering found advertisements by incorporating his own masterful paintings. KAWS studied illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York and went on to work as an animator at Disney after graduating Evoking the sensibilities of Pop artists like Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg, KAWS possesses sophisticated humor and thoughtful interplay with consumer products and collaborations with global brands. He often draws inspiration and appropriates from popular culture animations to form a unique artistic vocabulary and influential cast of hybrid cartoon and human characters.

KAWS

4FT Companion (Grey) (/100), 2007

Fiber-reinforced plastic

50 x 22 in

KAWS

4FT Companion (Black) (/100), 2007

Fiber-reinforced plastic

50 x 22 in

KOOL KOOR

American, b 1963

A monument first-generation graffiti artist, Kool Koor is best known for his spaceage inspired works that range from surreal scenes to intricate abstractions. Born Charles Hargrove, the artist began his career in the late 1970’s on the subway trains and throughout the urban landscape of New York City while attending the Art and Design School in Manhattan. In doing so, the artist helped bring the South Bronx style to downtown Manhattan, at venues such as Fashion Mod, and transform the graffiti style away from just urban scrawl into an innovative movement in the artistic scene. Along with friends and fellow artists Rammellzee, Crash, and Futura, Kool Koor stands at the basis of the New York graffiti movement. Kool Koor now lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.

Kool Koor

Twins Revisited, 2020

Acrylic spray paint and paint marker on canvas

60 x 48 in

Ecuadorian-American, b. 1964 LADY PINK

Lady Pink Sisters Oh Sisters, 2019

Acrylic on Canvas

114.5 x 115.37 in

JM RIZZI

JM Rizzi is a Brooklyn-born and Dallas-based artist working in largescale murals, public sculpture installations, and mixed-media canvases. A gestural expressionist since he started writing graffiti as a teenager in 1990s NYC, Rizzi’s ever-growing conceptual practice explores the multitudinous angles to abstraction through illegal art forms and movement. He has painted murals from Rockefeller Center to Boras, Sweden, and Shenzen, China Rizzi most recently celebrated limitedrun collections with Infinite Objects and Detroit-based 1xRun. Rizzi’s practice skips, slides, and glides across surfaces, leaving polished paintings in its wake His work's journey started last millennium with a looping trail of spray paint that caught a life of its own and never looked back. Rizzi's paintings are exchanges between sight and sound, encapsulating inspirations like jazz music, Motherwell, Wu-Tang Clan and Texas sunsets These brazen arrangements ask questions only to answer them moments later an animated conversation between positive and negative space facilitated by rhythm.

American | NYC born; Dallas based

JM Rizzi

No Half Steppin', 2022

Mixed media on canvas

96 x 72 in

SABER

American, b. 1976

Saber, also known as Ryan Weston Shook, is an American graffiti artist and painter working in Los Angeles The Washington Post described him as one of "the best and most respected artists" in his field. Saber graduated from Thousand Oaks High School and attended the San Francisco Art Institute. Rising to international fame at the age 21, Saber created the world's largest graffiti piece on the bank of the LA river, which was visible and documented by satellites in space. Over years of dedicated and often dangerous painting, he helped bring public awareness to the true art form of graffiti. Saber's work has influenced a generation of artists and graphic designers and has become an influential part of modern entertainment, social media, and art for social reform. He continues to make his vibrant, mesmerizing, and often political paintings that can be found in galleries and private collections across the word.

SABER Black & Silver, 2019

Mixed media on canvas

60.25 X 48.25 in

SWOON American, b. 1977

on recycled newspaper and glued onto abandoned buildings, bridges, and street signs around the world. “There is power on the walls of the city, and I fell in love with every part of that,” said the artist Born Caledonia Dance Curry, Swoon moved to New York to received her BA in fine arts at the Pratt Institute in 2002. Her work gained recognition after a solo show at Jeffrey Deitch’s Soho gallery in 2005, quickly attracting the attention of gallerists and museum curators The artist’s site-specific solo show Submerged Motherlands at the Brooklyn Museum in 2014 was the museum’s first exhibition dedicated to a living street artist.

Swoon Amanda 8, 2018

Silkscreen, acrylic gouache, and block print on paper mounted to wood 36 x 17.5 in

Swoon

Irina, 2022

21

Silkscreen, cut paper and acrylic gouache on paper and wood

x 5 in

Swoon

Girl from Ranoon Province, 2021

Screenprint, hand painting on mounted linoleum tile

13.5 x 14.5 in

VHILS

Vhils, the pseudonym of Portuguese street artist Alexandre Farto, has become synonymous with his signature approach to street portraiture. Working both outdoors and indoors, his large-scale, detailed images are achieved by scratching, drilling, and using bleach to tear away at billboards, walls, and found panels. The subjects therefore become one with the architecture and detritus that Vhils uses as both substrate and medium His groundbreaking bas-relief carving technique has been hailed as one of the most compelling approaches to art created in the streets in the last decade. Challenging the notion that graffiti art is socially disruptive, Vhils sees the medium as a force to push the boundaries of the politics of communication in the social arena An avid experimentalist, Vhils has been developing his personal aesthetics in a plurality of media besides his signature carving technique: from stencil painting to metal etching, from pyrotechnic explosions and video to sculptural installations. Since 2005, he has presented his work in over 30 countries around the world

Vhils

Ataxia 12, 2021

Hand-carved old wooden doors assembled 86.76 X 59.1 in

Vhils

Intangible (3/300), 2018

Hand Finished Screenprint on Paper

26 X 20 in

Vhils

Dicey Series #22, 2019

Hand cut and laser-cut advertising posters

70 X 47 in

WEST CHELSEA CONTEMPORARY X

DAWA Mission

DAWA honors, celebr l work of community frontliners and creativ support, and culturally relevant health-centered programming.

DAWA Theory Of Change

1. Beyond the immediate financial impact, providing human-centered, low-barrier cash assistance allows people to be seen, and feel supported, creating a lasting impact on their mental and emotional health/well-being

2. Prioritizing 'Community Frontliners' has an amplifying effect on the entire community. Nourishing THEM, nourishes the whole community.

Diversity Awareness and Wellness in Action (DAWA) was launched in September 2019 in Austin, TX by Jonathan 'Chaka' Mahone to provide direct financial assistance to community members in a financial crisis or immediate need. The fund focuses on supporting musicians, creatives, social workers, hospitality and service industry workers, and educators who are often underserved while at the same time experiencing negative social determinants of health .DAWA means 'medicine' in Swahili and supports the belief that medicine consists of more than just pills - medicine can be meeting people with practical and immediate resources that bridge the gap when there is a need. Over the last two years, DAWA has distributed $153,000 of direct financial assistance to BIPOC community frontliners in Austin Through DAWA funding, grant recipients have shared that the financial support provided has helped them buy medicine, food, and other necessities to alleviate pressures that often lead to stress and disease.

Learn more at dawaheals.org