Chicana/Gypsy/Italiano, Los Angeles, under the radar, self-taught, artistic graf phenom, MROC, a.k.a. MELO, is unstoppable.  Precisely because, there is no destination.  Infinite is the mindset and wicked skillz is the stilo.  The work speaks for itself in a familiar language of words, colors and symbols that always touches on the transcendental within human experience.

(Image: Motus Apperendi, 2008 by MROC)

A magical reality emerges from MROC’s work that suggest a mystical flow modified through the lens of an East Los Angeles lifestyle full of beauty, pain, music, art, and adventure. Color sent forth from the universe manifests in each illustration through animated forms grounded in lived experience - true to the game with a twist.  How does one function as a vessel for the divine, a medium for energy, in a world built on static structures, labels and categorizations?  Shake it up. Dance. And, try to survive the impact of various collisions with so called reality.

(Image: Karma Loop: What Goes Around Comes Around, 2008 by MROC)

Not only does MROC, a.k.a. MELO, have the gift of imagination, she has the gift to manifest.  To many, where her mind, body and spirit travels probably seems quite foreign. But, to those who walk a fine line between formlessness and form, where the former is home and the latter is unchartered territory, MROC’s artistry captures a multidimensional vibration in 2D.  Representin’ for life lived outside the box, and better for it, her work redefines the matrix and gives anyone who views it a chance to fly with angels (fallen or otherwise), if only for a moment.

(Image: Angel Dust, 2008 by MROC)

MROC currently lives and works in Tucson, Arizona, where she specializes in putting her custom touch on multiple mediums including: clothing, leather, accessories, indoor and outdoor-public/private murals, tattoos, and more…To view more work visit myspace.com/mrocla.

(Above left to right: The World Is Mine, custom t-shirt by MROC. MROC with more custom t-shirts.)

What happens when you ask ordinary people around the world what they think of America? Do we want to know? It’s not so bad actually, at least if you’re not George Bush. Photographer Lauri Lyons latest project, Flag International (2008), documents precisely this question through photography, HD video, audio and hand written text from a host of characters across the continent of Europe. As a follow-up to her first book project, Flag: An American Story (2001), which documented American’s ideas about themselves, Lyons decided to trek across 8 countries in 8 weeks to investigate a 21st century international perspective on America. With a backpack, camera gear, a few American flags, assistants found in local communities and trained on the spot and, a list of friends of friends, Lyons layed the groundwork for, Flag International.

(Images left to right: Lauri Lyons, The Flag International book cover photographed in Italy and a portrait from the book, photographed in England.)

Spontaneity was a huge element in Lyon’s creative process on the project. Subjects were approached on the street, asked if they would like to participate, handed a sketchbook in which to write their comments on America and then asked to pose with the American flag, however they wanted to, for a photograph. Sometimes it took a bit of convincing, debate or negotiation to get subjects on board, but collaboration as part of the artistic process is one of Lyon’s staples, “The intention of the Flag International series is to inspire a dialogue about cultural understanding within a global framework. Cultural understanding is not only how a people or a nation views itself, but also how the world views you.”

(Images left to right: Lauri Lyons, Portraits from Flag International, photographed in Italy and Germany.)

In Lyon’s travels she came across, children of Algerian revolutionaries, wealthy Muslim shopaholics, beer drinking Germans, Holocaust Survivors, European B-Boys and B-Girls, Indian, Mexican and African immigrants, and a host of others. The experience revealed a changing Europe. One no longer ruled by homogeneity and ancient history. Lyons notes in the Flag International book essay, “The new Europe is a dynamic, cosmopolitan, and ethnically diverse continent with a youthful push towards a unification of cultures and resources. The new Europe reminded me of the idea of America, which constitutes a vast array of people striving to create a new way of being. As I traveled throughout Ireland, England, Holland, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, I could not help but to wonder how the new Europe will deal with the same old challenges facing America such as nationalism, immigration, racism, fundamentalism, and apathy.” Check out Flag International to find out what our peeps overseas had to say about the good ‘ol USA!

(Image: Photographer Lauri Lyons, photographed in Harlem, USA.)

Buy Flag International! Listen/Watch the Flag International podcast/video! Images from Flag International are on view as part of the POSITIVITY show Curated by Jamel Shabazz at the Corridor Gallery in Brooklyn until July 26th.

What is faith? Reality based inspiration, hope in things not seen? Or perhaps active participation in it’s unfolding. Any way you slice it, the latest work of South African based artist Faith47 paints Mother Nature’s man-made landscape with an unmistakably passionate reminder of the beautiful power of the human heart. With breathtaking potency the elixir of faith in action via the heart, mind and hand, is captured in the artist’s series of panoramic photographs of word, art and life in the South African landscape. The series, The Restless Debt of Third World Beauty, documents Faith47’s large scale graffiti/mural (a.k.a. public art) work on shanty walls and reaches a volume of intensity, when viewed in a global south landscape, that immediately invokes memories of the old school rumble of full train burners in New York City - taking the beautiful struggle to the next level.

(Faith47, a silent nation, location: gugulethu, cape town, south africa, 23×135cm)

A one woman army wicked in style and execution, Faith47 describes her project as, “my personal exploration into parts of the South African landscape that juxtapose beauty and strength with hardship and neglect.”  She goes on to describe the genesis of the work in these terms:

both the female and the third world have been oppressed and raped. 
despite this they are powerfully resilient and form the backbone of strength in society.
their voices silenced in the media with its strong western male gaze.
there is frustration and resistance that result from this situation.
and this restless debt is what i am looking at.
the resilience and strength
the angry calm
silent shouts
something humble and bulletproof in a violent world.

(Faith47, it’s a beautiful world will someone repair its broken heart, location: khayalitsha, cape town, south africa, 23×140cm)

The Restless Debt of Third World Beauty will be on view in June, 2008, at the Womb Gallery, as part of The Bass Festival in Birmingham, England, and in August, 2008, at the ATM Gallery in Berlin, Germany….View the series (PDF format). Watch The Restless Debt of Third World Beauty VIDEO.

Faith47 website

The one question at the forefront of America’s public mind right now seems to be: Does race still matter? We see it in the debate over Barack Obama’s presidential run, the media’s claim that there is one “Black Church” (a.k.a. Jeremiah Wright), and art exhibitions like Black Is Black Ain’t curated by Hamza Walker (The Renaissance Society, Univ of Chicago on view 4/20/08 – 6/8/08). Meanwhile, artists like Chanel Kennebrew are creeping on a come up, taking Booker T.’s bootstrap mentality, Dubois’ words on propaganda and Warhol’s use of reproduction to foster a new socio-economic art model: self-reliance, healthy interdependence and conscious capitalism. 

(Chanel Kennebrew, Narcissism from the Good Housekeeping series, mixed media, collage.)

Chanel Kennebrew’s movement from the art marketplace, the gallery and the corporate design firm, to independent artist/entrepreneur status has been a process. One laced with stints on the west coast, in the Midwest, abroad in Toronto and finally in Brooklyn, USA for the last 2 ½ years. Her journey has also included study at the Ontario College of Art & Design and the usual artist hustle – a million and one side jobs. After a historical look at stereotypes and binary oppositions through her series of 12 prints called Good Housekeeping for the New Negro Woman, completed at university, Chanel found herself revisiting the surface exploration of race and gender in media through her work at a NYC design firm. Soon, it became clear: 1) Chanel needed to make art for the people…not the scene; 2) the mainstream media doesn’t represent the actual populous, it represents the ‘ideal’ populous; and, 3) she was getting stifled trying to create for curators and buyers. Hence, her leap into entrepreneurship and strictly freelance work with the launch of her own on-line store, Junkprints.com.

(Chanel Kennebrew, Ladies of Soul, 13″x19″, archival matte print, edition of 50, also available as a tee.)

Chanel’s artwork and art-inspired products are in part designed to approach social matters from multiple perspectives. She told Cultureserve, “One thing I try to stress in the work is that discrimination based strictly on being unfamiliar is harmful to communities as a whole and the results can be absurd to just sad. The specific topics are just the tip. The core of the problem is lack of understanding. As simple as that sounds, that lack of understanding affects the victim and the oppressor and causes strange spin offs such as over compensation by power holders and self segregated communities built strictly on visual appearance. I rarely come to conclusions in my work. I’m just presenting my audience with some healthy options.” Along with her own line of junk (clothing, zines, prints, etc.), Chanel donates a percentage of profits from specialty tee’s (Jena 6 & Immigrant Beater) to support social causes and keeps it democratic by offering her art direction services to both large and small companies.

(Left to right: Monitor Mania Jacket, In Support of the Jena 6 Tee, by Junkprints. Below: Chanel Kennebrew.)

Chanel designs all Junkprints’ graphics and prints all garments on sweatshop free tees, hoodies and up-cycled materials in Brooklyn. All of the bags are hand made and the core of the line is made in editions of 50. Contact/Shop Chanel!

Lady Pink, an icon to female street artists, graf writers and creative ingenues with an ear to the street, once again claims her queendom with the brush via her latest series, BRICK LADIES. She first dropped a taste of this series, The She Temple, in a YOUNITY exhibition (fall ‘07), and revealed more of the series in her latest 2-woman exhibition at Ad-Hoc Art in Brooklyn, NY (Spr ‘08), alongside fellow artist, AIKO.

(Images left to right: Lady Pink, Queen Matilda, 6′x4′, acrylic on canvas. Lady Pink, A Lovely Entrapment, 40″x72″, acrylic on canvas.)

With a strong nod to the omnipresence of feminine energy, Lady Pink’s BRICK LADIES series brings to the forefront, in concrete terms, the reality that the divine feminine is at the root of existence in all its material forms. The integration of core strength and fluid sensuality, in image and brush stroke, permeates dichotomous mind states positioned in critique and effortlessly invokes understanding from a position of union. The work brings to mind the Native American maxim, “Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength.”

(Image left to right: John Grigley, Lady Pink. Lady Pink, PINK-C Train, New York 1983)

Lady Pink began her painterly excursions in graffiti in 1979, and starred in one of the first cult film nods to a burgeoning hip hop movement, Wild Style - a film that just celebrated its 25th anniversary this past year with events all over New York City. Her work has also been canonized in the collections of several museums including: The Whitney, The MET and The Brooklyn Museum, all in New York City, and the Groningen Museum in Holland. So telling is Pink’s work as a representation of organic creative process, that the Museum of Modern Art in NYC recently jumped on the bandwagon and screened the world premiere of SprayMasters, a documentary featuring Lady Pink alongside legendary graf artists Lee Quinones and Zephyr. Pink’s pioneering efforts in art, from trains in the 80’s to murals in the 21st century, are undoubtedly an inspiration to all. Look for the Pink essence to be re-incarnated in a vinyl figure for Kid Robot in May 2008.

Trash. That’s one thing all human beings have in common.  For artist Renata de Andrade it’s the one thing she chooses to make art about and with, on two continents, South America and Europe. More specifically, within Brazil and The Netherlands.  With exhibitions in galleries and museums as well as street interventions in multiple Brazilian cities, Rotterdam and Amsterdam, Renata’s art practice takes form in both public and private space.

(Newsface43, 2008, acrylic and latex on cardboard by Renata de Andrade)

Through murals, assemblage, sculpture, graffiti, photographs, two and three dimensional painting, drawing, and installation, garbage is re-configured, re-used, re-purposed and believe it or not, made quite beautiful.  The natural trajectory of trash from public space, where it is purchased as a product, to private consumption, to it’s ultimate voyage back into public space, the trash dump, ends for most of us in a mystery.  However, for Renata, this is where trash becomes a subject of inquiry and her artwork becomes a glaring metaphor for what it means to consume, generate waste and recycle.

(Marp2, 2006, spraypaint, garbage bag filled with plastic bottles by Renata de Andrade)

Renata has exhibited work in galleries and museums including, Museu de Arte Moderna (São Paulo), Museu Victor Meirelles (Florianópolis), Museu de Arte Contemporânea do Ceará (Fortaleza), Museu de Arte de Ribeirão Preto, Museu de Arte de Londrina, in Brazil, and Jan Cunen Museum (Oss) and Arti et Amicitiae (Amsterdam), in The Netherlands. To view more of Renata’s work click here.

(Renata de Andrade (left) and Streetpiece01, 2008, cardboard boxes (right))

For more on the trajectory of our consumption and the mystery of garbage when it’s not made into art click here.

Twice in the last 6 months, London based photographer, Jennie Baptiste has touched down in the land of the Maroons (Accompong Town), on the island of Jamaica, in an effort to share the vibes of one of the Caribbean’s most recognized groups of self-liberated peoples. On her first trip, six young adults traveled and photographed with her (see Cultureserve Issue #4). Her second trip, sans youth, coincided with Jamaica’s annual Maroon Day (Jan 6). People from the countryside, around the globe, both young and old, as well as dancehall queens dressed to the nines, shared in the reverie and celebration of over 250+ years of Black independence at the biggest celebration of the holiday, the Accompong Maroon Festival. Jennie B.’s work coincides with the celebration in England and the English speaking Caribbean of the 200th anniversary of the end of the British trans-atlantic slave trade. In contrast, the US has yet to acknowledge the 200th anniversary of Jan. 1, 1808, the day the importation of slaves into the United States was prohibited.

Jennie B.’s work has appeared in museums and galleries across Europe including the traveling shows, Black British Style (2006) and Hip Hop Immortals (2004).  After a local show in Fort Greene, Brooklyn (2007), she was invited to donate work to Russell Simmons’ Rush Philanthropic Foundation - Art for Life Benefit (2007) and continues to make moves stateside with a show on tap for 2008 in New York City. Her images of the Maroons will be exhibited alongside her youth photo brigade’s work in 2008 at The Museum in Docklands (London) and The Institute of Jamaica (Jamaica).

(Images: Dancehall Queens, Accompong Maroon Festival, Jamaica 2008 (top and bottom right), Jennie Baptiste (bottom left))

What would the world look like if women were the creators of their own image in popular culture and beyond?  If women were more than sensual pleasures or nurturing mothers, for the gaze, and sometimes touch, of onlookers desperate for an escape from the mystery of misery and suffering on planet earth.  At its core, this is what the work of Lisa Marie Thalhammer asks. By using the ancient tools of visual pleasure and attraction, Lisa Marie lures viewers into her paintings and mixed media works of women through vibrant color, the female body, beauty and magnetic proportions/composition. However, upon closer look, the eyes (throughout history known as the window to the soul) of her subjects, return the gaze of the viewer and demand respect, not only as a woman, but as a human being.

(Above: Boxer, 2006 and A Portrait of Stacy with a Gun, 2005)

Lisa Marie’s three latest series of work each address under-represented aspects of female identity in contemporary culture. In particular, her Boxer series and Guns and Girls series (above), address the coexistence of feminine beauty and an empowered spirit at the core of a fully realized woman.  They both also force viewers to contemplate the idea that violence is a problem of the human psyche and soul, not just a masculine tendency.  In Lisa Marie’s words, her latest series of work, Lot Lizards (below), “tells the story of an American highway underbelly by drawing on my young experiences working within the male dominated subculture of my family’s Middle American truck stop.”  Lot Lizards (a slang term for truck stop prostitutes), in the work of Lisa Marie, are tools to explore the transcendence of the traditional female dichotomy of virgin/whore.  Her use of Byzantine patterns and illuminated designs from gospel manuscripts envelop her hand drawn semi-trucks while her Lot Lizards are restored to a wholeness through Lisa Marie’s interlaced referencing of the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene, female figures from Catholic mythology.  (view more work)

(Above: Lot Lizard BP STLE, 2007 and Lisa Marie)

Sofia Maldonado could be called a Third World Street Artist.  But then again, that would only describe part of her aesthetic and intellectual oeuvre.  A brilliant and original muralist she also finesses canvas, paper, disposed of skateboards, and Third World (a.k.a. Global South) toys made in China.  Born and raised in Puerto Rico, but residing in Brooklyn since 2006ish, she’s on the fence about returning home to the tropics post receipt of an MFA from Pratt University in 2008.  Her fusion of Puerto Rico’s real and imagined identities of US Territory, Commonwealth and independent nation, coupled with a colorful and active imagination of her own, creates artwork that is indirectly potent and visually appetizing.  In her images of girls, from reggaeton dancers, streetwalkers to fashionistas, she subverts and exaggerates female identity beyond what is seen in magazines, or on the corner, by adding her signature whimsical touch.

(Image: Mural inside of a home in San Juan, Puerto Rico)

Sofia’s goal to create a voice that represents Puerto Rico through graffiti and murals that are both female and a testament to an organic tropical style, has played out on walls and interiors throughout her native country.  Some of her new work involves found objects that she uses to discuss the development of Puerto Rico as an independent nation.  By using a traditional toy that generations of Puerto Ricans on the island have played with, trompos (seen below left), as canvases for her contemporary graffiti influenced style, she provides two-fold commentary on the trendy toy culture of global “cool kids” (i.e. Kid Robot) and the question of Puerto Rican independence and homegrown industry.  Her latest trompos project, Playing With The History of A Colony, on view at Art Basel Miami (Scope Miami) with Magnan Emrich, addresses the imposed identity of former colonies and memory. (To view more work that comments on Puerto Rican independence and homegrown industry scroll down to the FLAVA section.)

(Images left to right: Trompos {collectible toy series}, Sofia Maldonado) Contact Sofia

Born and raised in Queens, Alice Mizrachi’s mixed media artwork reflects her coming of age in the 80’s when hip-hop culture was blossoming as an organic intuitive form of artistic expression across, dance, music, spoken work and the visual arts. This interplay of art forms at the street level is vibrantly alive in Mizrachi’s urban landscape work both literally and figuratively. City life and it’s struggles along with social and political issues are explored through her painting, mixed media and collage work. (Below: Futurama by Alice Mizrachi)

Alice’s strong desire to create work that is accessible to all people has remained in full effect since graduating from Parsons School of Design in 1999. Case in point, the founding of Younity with fellow artist Toofly, an organization dedicated to creating a forum through which women artists can disseminate ideas and showcase work to their contemporaries and the public at large. In particular, Younity embraces personal expression and individual style that pushes the boundaries of the traditional white cube gallery space and takes this message to community and youth empowerment. Younity’s first show “THE CROSSOVER” A Fusion of Female Stylez, Ideaz and Skillz opens Friday, 11/16 at Toy Tokyo’s Showroom Gallery in NYC. The show includes work by Lady Pink, Martha Cooper, Swoon, Toofly, Alice, Laylah Barragan, Diana McClure, and female artists representing Japan, the UK, SF, LA, Puerto Rico, Berlin, South Africa, Texas and Boston. (Below: Alice working on Sophia, mother of all angels at B-Girl Be in Minneapolis, 2007)

As a young Mexican artist living in the US (currently in Brooklyn, NY), Dulce Pinzon found new inspiration for her photography in feelings of nostalgia, questions of identity, and political and cultural frustrations.  In her black and white series “Viviendo en el Gabacho” (a Mexican colloquialism for living in the US) she illustrates the dualistic phenomenon of the integration of the Mexican immigrant into the New York landscape. This concept of dualism was further developed when she used nostalgic iconograpic images from a Mexican card game projected over the naked bodies of her New York friends and loved ones in “Loteria”.  ”Multiracial” portrayed subjects of multiracial heritage against primary color backgrounds, exposing the frailty of our concepts of race. “The Real Story of the superheroes” comes full circle to reintroduce the Mexican immigrant in New York in a satirical documentary style featuring ordinary men and women in their work environment donning superhero garb, thus raising questions of both our definition of heroism and our ignorance of and indifference to the workforce that fuels our ever-consuming economy.  Below: The artist, Dulce Pinzon photographed by Julieta Cervantes and, Spiderman from the series The Real Story of the Superheroes.
 

The Real Story of Superheroes will be on view at the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey through 1/18/08.  Stay tuned for Dulce’s latest project “People I Like” - studio portraits of divas, rock stars, party goers, drama queens and artists; all of them Latinos; and, all a part of what she believes to be a breakthrough in the Latino cultural scene of New York City. On top of their already existing alter egos, Dulce is adding universal stereotypes thus creating time-encapsulated portraits.

Those in the know, know that the artist, Artis Lane, is one of North America’s best kept secrets. Her extensive career over 50+ years has covered periods in Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Puerto Rico, Mexico City and back to LA, where she currently lives and works.  Dedicated to the spiritual path since her mid-thirties, Lane’s exquisite sculpture work examines the metaphysical path of the human journey from matter into spirit.  Lane is also known for her portrait work which includes commissioned bronzes and paintings of Rosa Parks (housed in the Smithsonian), Magic Johnson, Carey Grant, Oprah Winfrey, Cathy Hughes, Tamia, and may more…Below are the sculptures, ”Emerging First Man” Current Installation at the California African American Museum (left) with Artis Lane, and a 12′ 4″ ”Emerging First Man” (right) commissioned by Le Jardin Estates in Atlanta. 

There will be a retrospective of her work, A Woman’s Journey: The Life and Work of Artis Lane, at CAAM in Los Angeles from 9/27/07 - 3/2/07 during which time she will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the museum’s annual gala in October.

Artis Lane website

Back in the 70’s, Joe Conzo’s pictures were part of Hip-Hop. 30 years later, they’re part of Hip-Hop history.  Raised on the tough streets of the South Bronx, Joe was definitely at the right place at the right time. During the late 70’s and early 80’s, he intimately captured the birth of Hip-Hop music and a culture that would forever change the world.  Having gone to school with some of the pillars of Hip-Hop such as The Cold Crush Brothers, Joe was never too far from a classic shot.  He would go on to be the Crush’s exclusive photographer. Joe’s photographic contributions to urban culture didn’t stop at Hip-Hop.  Joe’s father, Joe Conzo, Sr., gave his son access to some of the most influential names in the world of Latin Music. Salsa greats like Hector Lavoe, Tito Puente, Celia Cruz and Johnny Pacheco were brilliantly shot by Joe as they shaped the face of Latin Music. On view below is a shot of Celia Cruz, Johnny Pacheco (founder of Fania records), Rita Moreno and Tito Puente! View more work 

Born and raised in Tennessee, Wardell Milan earned his BFA from the University of Tennessee in 2001 and a MFA form Yale University in 2004. He has been included in numerous group exhibitions including Greater New York at PS1, Black Alphabet at the National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, Poland and Frequency, at The Studio Museum in Harlem. Currently, Mr. Milan’s work is on view in Midnight’s Daydream, The Studio Museum’s Artist In Residence show. Below: Battle Royal Grid. View more work.