Lady Pink

Last updated

Lady
Pink
TC5 TPA
Born
Sandra Fabara

1964 (age 59–60)
Ambato, Ecuador
Education High School of Art and Design
Known forPainter, muralist, graffiti writer
Style Wildstyle
Movement Graffiti
Spouse SMITH (Roger Smith)
Website ladypinknyc.com

Lady Pink, born Sandra Fabara (born 1964), is an Ecuadorian-born American graffiti and mural artist, active in New York City.

Contents

Early life

Fabara was born in Ambato, Ecuador in 1964, and moved to the Astoria neighborhood of Queens, New York when she was seven years old. [1] She grew up wanting to be an architect like her father. [1] She started her graffiti writing career in 1979 following the loss of a boyfriend. She exorcised her grief by tagging her boyfriend's name across New York City. [2] Lady Pink studied at the Manhattan High School of Art and Design, where she was introduced to graffiti. During her senior year of school, she began to start exhibiting her work while balancing her personal life. [3]

Name origin

Lady Pink was first given her name “Pink” by Seen TC5. [2] The name was chosen for aesthetics because the name Pink is feminine and because she wanted other writers to know that she was a girl. Lady Pink also said that the letters appealed to her; the way the "L" kicked out and how the "I" was cute and could be dotted with a heart. [4] She started calling herself Lady Pink because of her love of historical romances, England, the Victorian period, and the aristocracy. She titled herself like royalty. She never wanted to tag her full name because she did not want to be associated with the Pink Lady, a woman in the club scene who sold pink cocaine. [4]

Career

Early career

Her career as an artist started to take off after the 1980s, following the Graffiti Art Success for America show which invited graffiti artists to paint on the walls of the gallery. [5] In 1983, she played the leading role in the film Wild Style, [6] and was involved with a book entitled Subway Art by Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant. [2] During this time, she collaborated with Jenny Holzer several times for an exhibition at Fashion MODA. [7] Her first solo show, "Femmes-Fatales," was in 1984, when she was 21, at the Moore College of Art & Design in Philadelphia.[ citation needed ]

She has focused her career on using graffiti and murals as acts of rebellion and self-expression, and empowering women. As Lady Pink says, "It's not just a boys club. We have a sisterhood thing going." [8] She was nicknamed the "first lady of graffiti," because she was one of the first women active in the early 1980s New York City subway graffiti subculture. [9]

In 1980, she created the all-female graffiti crew Ladies of the Arts. [10] Within a few years, Lady Pink began running with the graffiti crews TC5 (The Cool 5) and TPA (The Public Animals). From 1979 to 1985, Lady Pink painted New York City Subway trains. [11] She took a short hiatus in 1987 from painting outdoors. [12] Then from 1993 to 1997 she worked on freight trains with her husband, SMITH (Roger Smith, formerly of the graffiti duo Sane Smith). [2]

In 1980, she was included in the landmark New York show "GAS: Graffiti Art Success" at Fashion Moda, which traveled in a modified form downtown to The New Museum of Contemporary Art. [5]

Later career

Lady Pink's studio paintings often use themes of New York City Subway trains and POP-surrealist cityscapes. [13] Some of her pieces are in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Brooklyn Museum in New York City, as well as the Groningen Museum in the Netherlands.[ citation needed ]

Lady Pink now visits schools to teach students about the power of art and how it can serve as a medium for self-expression and community engagement. [14] Each year she does a mural project with the students of Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Astoria, Queens. [15]

Her mural, Pink (2007) work was one of the many murals destroyed at 5Pointz in Queens, however in February 2018 the Brooklyn Supreme Court awarded each of the 45 artists for their destroyed work. [16] She was connected to her art and although the former owner of the building painted over the walls, she said she could still see the ghost of her mural. [17]

Artwork

Paintings

Murals

Trains

Personal life

She is married to another graffiti artist, SMITH (Roger Smith, formerly of the graffiti duo Sane Smith), with whom she often collaborates on murals and commercial work. [27] She is bisexual. [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keith Haring</span> American artist and social activist (1958–1990)

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Chalfant</span> American photographer and videographer (b. 1940)

Henry Chalfant is an American photographer and videographer most notable for his work on graffiti, breakdance, and hip hop culture.

The Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA),, is a United States law granting certain rights to artists.

George Lee Quiñones is a Puerto Rican artist and actor. Quiñones rose to prominence by creating massive New York City subway car graffiti that carried his moniker "LEE". His style is rooted in popular culture and often with political messages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Matos</span> American graffiti artist (born 1961)

Crash is a graffiti artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Powers (artist)</span> American artist (born 1968)

Stephen J. Powers is an American contemporary artist and muralist. He is also known by the name ESPO, and Steve Powers. He lives in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">5 Pointz</span> Graffitied building in Queens, New York

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tats Cru</span> American graffiti artists

Tats Cru is a group of Bronx-based graffiti artists turned professional muralists. The current members of Tats Cru are Bio, BG183, Nicer, HOW and NOSM. Tats Cru were founded by Brim, Bio, BG183 and Nicer.

George Ibañez, also known as “Crime79”, is a New York City-based graffiti artist. His style is rooted in popular culture and often with political messages.

RISK, also known as RISKY, is a Los Angeles–based graffiti writer and contemporary artist often credited as a founder of the West Coast graffiti scene. In the 1980s, he was one of the first graffiti writers in Southern California to paint freight trains, and he pioneered writing on "heavens", or freeway overpasses. He took his graffiti into the gallery with the launch of the Third Rail series of art shows, and later created a line of graffiti-inspired clothing. In 2017, RISK was knighted by the Medici Family.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Graffiti in the United States</span>

Graffiti are writing or drawings scribbled, scratched, or sprayed illicitly on a wall or other surface in a public place. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings. Graffiti, consisting of the defacement of public spaces and buildings, remains a nuisance issue for cities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Graffiti in New York City</span> Street arts evolution in NYC

Graffiti in New York City has had a substantial local, national, and international influence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MadC</span> German graffiti artist (born 1980)

MadC is a graffiti writer and muralist. She was born in Bautzen, Germany, and is most known for her large-scale, outdoor artistic paintings.

Aiko Nakagawa, known as Lady Aiko or AIKO, is a Japanese street artist based in Brooklyn, New York. She is known for her ability to combine western art movements and eastern technical, artistic skills, as well as for her large-scale works installed in cities including Rome, Italy, Shanghai, China and Brooklyn, New York.

Torrick Ablack, also known as Toxic, is an American artist who was part of the graffiti movement of the early 1980s in New York City. He transitioned from street art to exhibiting his paintings in galleries and museums internationally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kaves</span> American visual artist and rapper

Michael McLeer, better known as Kaves, is an American fine art painter, graffiti artist, illustrator, director, actor, author, rapper, and entrepreneur. From Brooklyn, New York, Kaves started doing graffitis in the 1980s. Part of the early 1980s train car movement, his talent got noticed, and appeared in Henry Chalfant's book Spraycan Art (1987). Shortly after, with his brother, they created the hip-hop group Lordz of Brooklyn. They had four releases All in the Family (1995), Graffiti Roc (2003),The Brooklyn Way (2006), and Family Reunion (2020).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beyond the Streets</span> Street art gallery in Los Angeles, US

Beyond the Streets is a graffiti and street art exhibition and gallery created and curated by Roger Gastman. The first exhibition was held in 2018 in Los Angeles, USA and has since occurred yearly. In 2022, a permanent gallery and store was opened at the location of the original exhibition in LA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caine 1</span> American graffiti artist

Edward Glowaski, known as Caine 1, was an American graffiti artist from Woodside, Queens, New York. He was considered king of the 7 line and was known for painting the first whole train in graffiti history.

The Death of Graffiti is an acrylic painting by the graffiti artist, Lady Pink. The work was completed in 1982 and measures 19 in by 22 in. Currently, the painting is in the collection of the Museum of the City of New York after being donated in 1994 as part of the Martin Wong Graffiti Collection. The Death of Graffiti has also been displayed in the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields' 2017 exhibition entitled "City as Canvas: New York City Graffiti From the 70s & 80s".

References

  1. 1 2 Maes, Nancy (September 20, 1993). "LADY PINK WAS HERE". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved April 14, 2019.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Nicholas., Ganz (2006). Graffiti women : street art from five continents . New York: Abrams. ISBN   0810957477. OCLC   68624123.
  3. 1 2 "'I Was a Feminist and I Didn't Know It': How Lady Pink Made a Space for Herself in the Boys Club of New York's Graffiti Scene". Artnet News. July 18, 2019. Retrieved March 9, 2021.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Chalfant, Henry; Jenkins, Sacha (2014). Training days : the subway artists then and now. New York, New York: Thames & Hudson Ltd. ISBN   9780500239216. OCLC   881214341.
  5. 1 2 Spampinato, Francesco (May 2013). "Fashion Moda: A South Bronx Story". Waxpoetics (55).
  6. ↑ Darzin, Diana (February 1984). "Wild Style" (PDF). The Rocket. p. 18. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 25, 2012. Retrieved April 5, 2015.
  7. ↑ Lewisohn, Cedar. (2008). Street art : the graffiti revolution . New York: Abrams. ISBN   9780810983205. OCLC   218188132.
  8. ↑ "Graffiti Queen Lady Pink Still Reigns Supreme". Creators. July 28, 2016. Retrieved April 20, 2017.
  9. ↑ Metz, Cara (December 19, 2013). "Noteworthy graduates: Lady Pink, graffiti & fine artist". United Federation of Teachers. Retrieved June 1, 2015.
  10. ↑ Thompson, Margo (2009). American Graffiti. Parkstone International. ISBN   9781844845613.
  11. ↑ Temin, Christine (1983). "Lady Pink and the Graffiti Capers" (PDF). Boston Globe. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 25, 2012. Retrieved April 5, 2015.
  12. ↑ "Lady Pink - Biography". rogallery.com. Retrieved April 14, 2019.
  13. ↑ Wagley, Catherine (September 2008). "Lady Pink: Inventing a Culture of the Pink Rebellion" (PDF). Juxtapoz Magazine. No. 130. pp. 130–137. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 25, 2012. Retrieved April 5, 2015.
  14. ↑ Park, Michelle (2011). "Queens Person Of The Week: Art Students Look To "Lady Pink" For Inspiration". Spectrum News 1 NY. Time Warner Cable. Archived from the original on April 20, 2017. Retrieved April 20, 2017.
  15. ↑ Mu'min, Nijila (July 31, 2013). "This Is Not a Game: An Interview With Lady Pink". Jon Reiss. Retrieved March 21, 2019.
  16. 1 2 "A Stunning Legal Decision Just Upheld a $6.75 Million Victory for the Street Artists Whose Works Were Destroyed at the 5Pointz Graffiti Mecca". artnet News. February 20, 2020. Retrieved February 21, 2020.
  17. ↑ "Brooklyn Museum: Lady Pink". www.brooklynmuseum.org. Retrieved December 21, 2020.
  18. ↑ "Collection: The Black Dude". Brooklyn Museum. Retrieved April 14, 2019.
  19. ↑ "China one child only by Lady Pink". www.artnet.com. Retrieved April 14, 2019.
  20. ↑ "Brick Lady in Spray Paint by Lady Pink on artnet Auctions". www.artnet.com. Retrieved April 14, 2019.
  21. 1 2 Larkin, Daniel (April 10, 2008). "Brick Ladies at Ad Hoc Art, Lady Pink and Aiko: Brick Ladies of NYC". ArtCat Zine. Retrieved April 14, 2019.
  22. ↑ Lizarondo, Leah (November 4, 2014). "7 best places to see street art in Pittsburgh". NEXTpittsburgh. Retrieved June 6, 2019. Make sure you veer off Braddock Ave. to check out Lady Pink's Brick Woman under the bridge on Library St.
  23. ↑ Cotter, Holland (February 1, 2002). "ART REVIEW; Amid the Ashes, Creativity". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved June 6, 2019.
  24. ↑ "Who is LADY PINK?". Kiersten Utegg | copywriter. Retrieved April 14, 2019.
  25. ↑ "Exploring the Latino Metropolis: "Lady Liberty is Bush's whore" by Lady Pink". Exploring the Latino Metropolis: A Brief Urban Cultural History of US Latinos. Retrieved April 14, 2019.
  26. ↑ "Man, 24, Dies After He Is Shot In Robbery Attempt in Queens". The New York Times. March 15, 1982. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved April 14, 2019.
  27. ↑ Posey, Carl (February 1996). "Married with Style: Lady Pink and Smith Are a Couple in Control, Story by 1971" (PDF). Rap Pages. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 25, 2012. Retrieved April 5, 2015.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.