Phlegm (artist)

Last updated

Phlegm
Born
North Wales
NationalityBritish
Known for Street art
Phlegm's interpretation of a character in The Triumph of David by Nicolas Poussin, produced for Dulwich Outdoor Gallery in Dulwich, south London, England, in 2013. Phlegm's interpretation of a character in 'The Triumph of David' by Nicholas Poussin.jpg
Phlegm's interpretation of a character in The Triumph of David by Nicolas Poussin, produced for Dulwich Outdoor Gallery in Dulwich, south London, England, in 2013.

Phlegm is a Welsh-born Sheffield-based muralist and artist who first developed his illustrations in self-published comics. [2] The name 'Phlegm' came from one of the four temperaments in ancient Greek medicine: blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm. Phlegm was believed to be responsible for an apathetic and unemotional temperament. [3]

Contents

Overview

Phlegm's work features in the urban landscape, and can mostly be seen in run-down and disused spaces. Phlegm creates surreal illustrations to an untold story, weaving a visual narrative that explores the unreal through creatures from his imagination. [4]

Phlegm's storybook-like imagery is half childlike, half menacing, [5] set in built up Cityscapes with castles, turrets and winding stairways. At other times the city itself is the setting for his long limbed half-human, half-woodland creatures. In this dream world a viewer comes across impossible flying machines and complex networks of levers, pulleys and cogs, set beside telescopes, magnifying glasses and zephyrs. Working mostly in monochrome, his fine technique and intricate detail can be seen as a curiosity cabinet of the mind. Each drawing forms part of a grand narrative that extends worldwide, in countries including Norway, Canada, Switzerland, Sri Lanka, USA, Belgium, Poland, Italy, Slovakia, Spain, Loompa Land and Australia. [6] His work has also appeared in a variety of objects such as airplanes, boats, buildings, vehicles and many street art festivals. [3]

Exhibitions

Phlegm's first solo show The Bestiary took place at the Howard Griffin Gallery on Shoreditch High Street, London from 1 February to 25 March 2014. [5] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]

In April 2019 he hosted 'Mausoleum of the Giants' in Sheffield, attracting over 12,000 visitors. [13]

Murals

In January 2013, Phlegm painted on the Village Underground wall in London, UK. [14] [15] [16] [17]

In February 2014, Phlegm teamed up with RUN and Christiaan Nagel on a mission to give final moments of vivacious life to yet another to be demolished building in London – the Blithehale Medical Centre in Bethnal Green. [18] [19] [20]

In April and May 2014, Phlegm was one of several overseas artists to paint a series of murals in Dunedin, New Zealand as part of that city's Urban art festival. [21] Other artists involved included Italy's Pixel Pancho and Poland's Natalia Rak.

Phlegm was one of around 150 artists to paint murals in the Djerbahood Project in Erriadh, Tunisia, in the summer of 2014. [22]

In August 2016, Phlegm painted what was billed as the world's tallest mural to that time (8 storeys) in Toronto at 1 St. Clair West. Toronto resident Stephanie Bellefleur was his assistant. [23]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Banksy</span> Pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

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.

Thierry Noir is a French artist and muralist based in Berlin. He is considered the first artist to paint the Berlin Wall in the 1980s. He created brightly-colored paintings across large spans of the Berlin Wall and some of these original paintings can still be seen on surviving segments of the Wall in art collections and on the East Side Gallery. Noir's work and style are now considered iconic, and Noir is also regarded as one of the forerunners of the street art movement as a whole. He continues to create murals worldwide in cities including London, Los Angeles, and Sydney.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Street art</span> Art that is public and temporary in public spaces

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.

Sheffield, England, has a large population of amateur, working and professional visual artists and artworks.

Benjamin Flynn, known professionally as Eine, is an English artist based in London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neil Lawson Baker</span> English painter

Neil Lawson Baker (1938–2022) was a British artist, sculptor and photographer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Adshead</span> English painter, muralist, illustrator, designer (1904–1995)

Mary Adshead was an English painter, muralist, illustrator and designer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stik</span> British graffiti artist

Stik, stylised as STIK, is a British graffiti artist based in London. Born in 1979, with no formal art school training, Stik to known for painting large stick figures that are six-lines, and two-dot figures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ROA (artist)</span>

ROA is a graffiti and street artist from Ghent, Belgium. He has created works on the streets of cities across Europe, the United States, Australia, Asia, New Zealand and Africa. ROA generally paints wild or urban animals and birds that are native to the area being painted. ROA usually uses a minimal color palette, such as black and white, but also creates works using vibrant colours depicting the flesh or internal systems within the animals and birds.

"ROA treats each surface he paints like a space to investigate, play with, and fit his creatures into. The technical perfection of his painting belies an underlying resourcefulness with simple tools,” “The animals are matched to their location, with rats in New York City and elephants in Bangkok. There are dark and funny messages, the beauty of both life and death, universal metaphors, inside jokes, and occasional violence, but always in ways that honor the animals and the spaces where they are painted."

Chichester Street Art Festival took place in Chichester, West Sussex, England in May 2013. Street artists decorated a large number of locations throughout the city with street art.

<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.

Pablo Delgado is a Mexico-born and London-based street artist who emerged in 2011 and rose to prominence in the London street-art scene. Since 2012 he has been decorating East London's street corners. His early work consisted of miniature doorways pasted up on the edges of walls. Soon, Delgado began expanding into detailed narratives, meticulously depicting hosts of people, animals, and objects in minutia around London.

Giacomo Bufarini, also known as RUN, is an Italian street artist based in London.whose works can be seen adorning streets from China to Senegal. His style centers on interlocking bodies in symbolic or pattern-like poses, rendered in bright colours.

Christiaan Nagel is a British street artist known for his oversized mushroom sculptures made from polyurethane which he places high up on buildings. They stretch as far as London, New York, Barcelona, Berlin, Cape Town, Los Angeles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dulwich Outdoor Gallery</span> Street art collection in London, England

Dulwich Outdoor Gallery (DOG) is a collection of street art in south London, with works based on traditional paintings in Dulwich Picture Gallery. The DOG was established by Ingrid Beazley, a pioneer of promoting street art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mehdi Ghadyanloo</span> Iranian artist

Mehdi Ghadyanloo is an Iranian artist, painter, and muralist. Known for his gigantic trompe-l'œil-style murals in central Tehran, Ghadyanloo has become the most prolific Iranian public artist with over 100 murals across the globe in the USA, the UK, Russia and his native Iran. Ghadyanloo also creates paintings, with surreal and minimalistic themes. While his colourful commissioned mural works have led to him being simplistically coined as Iran’s answer to Banksy by the press, Ghadyanloo is more inclined to draw comparisons with European surrealist painters such as Magritte, Girgio de Chirico and the minimal lines of modernist 20th century architects such as Le Corbusier. Mehdi takes his inspirations of Giorgio de Chirico, Magritte, and the minimalism of Le Corbusier, and turns them into a voice all of his own.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marguerite Horner</span> British artist

Marguerite Horner is a British artist who won the 2018 British Women Artist Award. Her paintings aim to investigate, among other things, notions of transience, intimacy, loss and hope. She uses the external world as a trigger or metaphor for these experiences and through a period of gestation and distillation, makes a series of intuitive decisions that lead the work towards completion.

Sarah Yates working under the name Faunagraphic, is a British artist, known for painting murals, especially of birds. She also paints on canvas.

References

  1. "The Outdoor Street Gallery of Dulwich". Inspiring City. 8 May 2013. Retrieved 9 January 2015.
  2. "Phlegm's official website". Phlegmcomics.com. Archived from the original on 7 November 2016. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
  3. 1 2 "Street Art Bio – Street Artists Biographies". Streetartbio.com. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
  4. "Phlegm". Indigits.net. 27 April 2011. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
  5. 1 2 "Graffiti fantasy creatures by Phlegm exhibited in east London". Dezeen.com. 18 February 2014. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
  6. "Street artist Phlegm's murals from around the world". The Guardian. 10 February 2014. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
  7. "The Bestiary – Howard – Griffin – Gallery". Howardgriffingallery.com. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
  8. "Phlegm exhibition – The Bestiary – 1st February at Howard Griffin Gallery". Street Art London. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
  9. "On View: Phlegm's "The Bestiary" at Howard Griffin Gallery". Hifructose.com. 14 February 2014. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
  10. "Showing: Phlegm – "The Bestiary" @ Howard Griffin Gallery « Arrested Motion". ArrestedMotion.com. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
  11. "Photos from Phlegm's "The Bestiary" @ Howard Griffin Gallery". Juxtapoz.com. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
  12. "London: Street art show at the Howard-Griffin gallery" . The Independent . 10 February 2014. Archived from the original on 26 May 2022. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
  13. Youngs, Ian (10 April 2019). "Sheffield artist's giants draw big crowds" via www.bbc.co.uk.
  14. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 17 March 2014. Retrieved 17 March 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  15. "'Making of the Wall' – Phlegm". Streetartlondon.co.uk. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
  16. "'Finished Wall' – Phlegm". Streetartlondon.co.uk. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
  17. "Street Art: Phlegm Paints Up Village Underground". Londonist.com. 16 January 2013. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
  18. "In These Streets: The Best Street Art From February 201418. Phlegm, Christiaan Nagel & RUN". Complex.com. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
  19. "Video: Last Breath II – with Phlegm / RUN / Christiaan Nagel". Ukstreetart.co.uk. 15 February 2014. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
  20. "Phlegm, Christiaan Nagel & RUN For Last Breath II – London, UK". StreetArtNews.net. 19 February 2014. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
  21. Benson, Nigel (1 May 2014). "Another 'piece of art for the whole city'". Otago Daily Times Online News. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
  22. Fidler, Matt (3 September 2014). "Tunisian street art – in pictures". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
  23. "How street artist Phlegm created this sublime, eight-storey mural". Torontolife.com. 4 August 2016. Retrieved 5 December 2018.