Graffiti USA is an American agency founded in 2011 in association with Klughaus Gallery, that offers commissioned aerosol spray paint murals and artwork from a group of top professional graffiti artists. [1] Their work includes residential and commercial interiors, business exteriors, graffiti-related set design, traditional graffiti, live artwork at events and sign painting.
Their work is popular with young tech companies and can be seen in the offices of Facebook and LinkedIn. [2] Other corporate office work includes MasterCard and ABC News, which featured a Graffiti USA commissioned mural on October 8, 2014, episode of Nightline. [3]
A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage.
Keith Allen Haring was an American artist whose pop art emerged from the New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s. His animated imagery has "become a widely recognized visual language". Much of his work includes sexual allusions that turned into social activism by using the images to advocate for safe sex and AIDS awareness. In addition to solo gallery exhibitions, he participated in renowned national and international group shows such as documenta in Kassel, the Whitney Biennial in New York, the São Paulo Biennial, and the Venice Biennale. The Whitney Museum held a retrospective of his art in 1997.
Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based street artist, political activist, and film director whose real name and identity remain unconfirmed and the subject of speculation. Active since the 1990s, his satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark humour with graffiti executed in a distinctive stenciling technique. His works of political and social commentary have appeared on streets, walls, and bridges throughout the world. His work grew out of the Bristol underground scene, which involved collaborations between artists and musicians. Banksy says that he was inspired by 3D, a graffiti artist and founding member of the musical group Massive Attack.
Street art is visual art created in public locations for public visibility. It has been associated with the terms "independent art", "post-graffiti", "neo-graffiti" and guerrilla art.
Fernando Carlo is an artist from the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx, New York.
Tavar Zawacki formerly known as 'ABOVE' is an American abstract artist living and working between Berlin, Germany and Lisbon, Portugal. For twenty years (1996–2016) Tavar Zawacki created and signed all of his artworks with his street artist pseudonym, 'ABOVE'. Tavar was born and raised in California until the age of 19, at which time, Zawacki bought a one-way flight from California to Paris, France, bringing with him a backpack full of art supplies, all the money in his bank account (US$1,500), and a 'rise above your fears' approach to starting his art career. Starting in Paris in 2000, Tavar transitioned from painting traditional letter style graffiti of A-B-O-V-E, to his 'Above arrow' icon that represented his optimistic mentality to 'rise above fears, challenges, and anything holding you back from your goals.' During a 20-year period, the artworks of ABOVE could be seen in over 80 cities spanning 35 countries around the world.
OSGEMEOS are identical twin street artists Otavio Pandolfo and Gustavo Pandolfo. They started painting graffiti in 1987 and their work appears on streets and in galleries across the world.
Mural Arts Philadelphia is a non-profit organization that supports the creation of public murals in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1986 as the Mural Arts Program, the organization was renamed in 2016. Having ushered more than 4,000 murals into being, it calls itself "the nation’s largest public art program." As of 2024, the organization runs 50 to 100 public art projects each year, including new murals in neighborhoods such as Kensington, Northern Liberties, and the Gayborhood. It also works to maintain existing murals.
Melbourne, the capital of Victoria and the second largest city in Australia, has gained international acclaim for its diverse range of street art and associated subcultures. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, much of the city's disaffected youth were influenced by the graffiti of New York City, which subsequently became popular in Melbourne's inner suburbs, and along suburban railway and tram lines.
5 Pointz: The Institute of Higher Burnin' or 5Pointz Aerosol Art Center, Inc., mainly referred to as simply 5 Pointz or 5Pointz, was an American mural space at 45-46 Davis Street in Long Island City, Queens, New York City. When the building opened in 1892, it housed the Neptune Meter factory, which built water meters.
Tats Cru, Inc. is a group of Bronx-based graffiti artists turned professional muralists. The current members of Tats Cru are Bio, BG183,FEVER, Nicer, HOW, and NOSM. Tats Cru were founded by Brim, Bio, BG183 and Nicer.
Commercial graffiti is the commercial practice of graffiti artists being paid for their work. In New York City in particular, commercial graffiti is big business and since the 1980s has manifested itself in many of the major cities of Europe such as London, Paris and Berlin. Increasingly it has been used to promote video games and even feature prominently within them, reflecting a real life struggle between street artists and the law. Commercial graffiti has created significant controversy between those who view it as an effective medium of advertising amongst specific target audiences and those who believe that legal graffiti and advertising using it encourages illegal graffiti and crime.
Darren Cullen is a London-based professional graffiti artist who is commonly known by the tag name SER. Cullen emerged as an artist from the British graffiti art scene in the early 1980s.
Lennie Mace is an American contemporary artist, born in New York City. Mace is predominantly known for his drawings in ballpoint pen, using them to create fine artwork. He is considered a pioneer of the medium. His imagination has also served commercial purposes, appearing in print as illustrations and comic art. Art reviewers have referred to Mace as the da Vinci of doodlers and the ballpoint Picasso.
Art Buff is a graffiti artwork by Banksy which was created in Folkestone in 2014, Banksy announcing it as "part of the Folkestone triennial. Kind of". The work depicts a woman wearing headphones and staring at a plinth, upon which rests a patch of painted-out graffiti. The name of the piece is a play on words, "buff" being a slang term for the painting over of graffiti.
Shamsia Hassani is an Afghani street artist, a fine arts lecturer, and the associate professor of Drawing and Anatomy Drawing at the Kabul University. She has popularized "street art" in the streets of Kabul and has exhibited her art in several countries including India, Iran, Germany, United States of America, Switzerland, Vietnam, Norway, Denmark, Turkey, Italy, Canada, and in diplomatic missions in Kabul. Hassani paints graffiti in Kabul to bring awareness to the war years. In 2014, Hassani was named one of FP's top 100 global thinkers. She was recognized as one of the BBC's 100 women of 2021.
ONE: Union of the Senses is a mural by American artist José Parlá on display in the lobby of One World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York City. Commissioned in 2014, the painting was completed and installed in 2015. Measuring 90 feet wide, the painting is believed to be the largest painting in New York City.
Many artworks related to the Black Lives Matter movement were created in Portland, Oregon, United States, during local protests over the murder of George Floyd and other Black Americans. Oregon Arts Watch contextualized the artistic works, stating that a "whitewashed pre-COVID lens" on American life, which obscured systemic racism, had been "cracked", and describing artists' response to racial violence being brought into the public eye was a "marathon, not a sprint".
Pref is a British graffiti fine artist and muralist. He is known for his multi-layered typographic style graffiti, incorporating an exploration of common words and key vernacular phrases.