ROA (born c. 1976) [1] 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. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] ROA generally paints wild or urban animals and birds that are native to the area being painted. [7] 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. [2]
"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." [8]
A monograph, ROA - CODEX published in 2019 by Lannoo with text contributions by Lucy Lippard, Robert Williams and others, looks at Roa's work on four continents. [9]
In 2014, ROA contributed with several mural paintings in the Djerbahood project on the Tunisian island Djerba. [10]
In 2010, ROA painted a large bird on the side of an Indian restaurant at the intersection of Hanbury Street and Brick Lane in Tower Hamlets, London. He originally intended on it being a heron, but changed it to a crane after learning that cranes are sacred to the Bengali community. [11] [12]
In 2011 ROA came to particular notice in the UK when Hackney council threatened to paint over one of his paintings, a 3.5 m high rabbit. The rabbit had been legally painted on the wall of The Premises Studios in Hackney Road, London. [1] A campaign was launched to keep the mural, by the building's owners and local residents, forcing the council to change its mind. [13]
In 2010, ROA participated in the Cologne CityLeaks Festival and painted a mural in Ehrenfeld at Senefelderstrasse 5 [14]
In August 2012 ROA took part in the See No Evil street art festival in Bristol, England, creating a two-storey high fox on the side of a building. [15]
In 2013, ROA participated in the MAUS project in Málaga, which aimed to provide Soho, a district of the city known as "The Arts District", with a valuable legacy in contemporary cultural heritage. ROA created two artworks in this district, a graffiti of a chameleon and a mural depicting rodents trying to escape. [16] [17]
ROA painted a mural in Los Angeles of a rat's lifecycle at the now shuttered New Puppy Gallery in 2010. [18] The mural was whitewashed in 2022.
ROA painted a mural in El Barrio, East Harlem, New York City for the MonumentArt Festival. [19] The mural is located in Lexington Gardens on 108th Street and Lexington Avenue. [20] Typical of Roa's work, the black and white composition features several animals. The work was commissioned to celebrate the neighborhood's culture, history, and imagination. [20]
ROA is also responsible for painting "The Sleeping Bears" in Rochester, NY as part of a collaboration with local organization Wall\Therapy. The bears experienced public backlash due to their frequently lewd interpretation, and were later vandalized in the summer of 2021. [21]
ROA painted a robin bird mural at Albert's Garden on Second Street in the East Village of New York City. [22] [23]
In January 2014 ROA visited Dunedin in New Zealand and painted a tuatara mural on a building on Bath Street. [24]
While exhibiting works at Perth's Form Gallery, ROA was commissioned by the City of Fremantle to leave his mark on Fremantle, in about 12 hours ROA created a 25-metre (82 ft) mural of a Numbat which he chose because it is a local endangered species. [25]
In 2020, ROA had a solo show at Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne, Australia. [26]
Graffiti is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire.
Miss Van, also known as Vanessa Alice, is a graffiti and street artist. Miss Van started painting on the street of Toulouse alongside Mademoiselle Kat at the age of 18. Today, she is now internationally known as a street and fine artist. Primarily, her work is marked by the use of unique characters, called poupées, or dolls. Miss Van's work has appeared on streets internationally, although she also exhibits canvases in galleries across France, Europe and the United States. Today, her work is characterized by both street art and fine art, blurring the lines between both worlds.
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. Banksy's 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.
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.
Lady Pink, born Sandra Fabara (1964), is an Ecuadorian-American graffiti and mural artist.
David Choe is an American artist, musician, actor, and former journalist and podcast host from Los Angeles. Choe's work appears in a wide variety of urban culture and entertainment contexts. He has illustrated and written for magazines including Hustler, Ray Gun and Vice. He has an ongoing relationship with the Asian pop culture website, store, and former magazine Giant Robot.
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.
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.
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.
The Premises Studios is a music studio complex based near Haggerston in Hackney, London. The studio complex contains 10 commercial rehearsal studio spaces, one acoustic recording studio, one mixing studio, and various private long-let rooms and office spaces.
Stormie Mills is a street/visual artist operating out of Perth, Western Australia. Mills' portfolio has been published in two books, Proximamente (2008) and Dwi Yma (2013).
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.
Stik is a British graffiti artist based in London. He is known for painting large stick figures.
Shai Dahan is an American contemporary painter and street artist who works with painting, drawing, illustrations and sculptures.
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.
Yazan Halwani is a Lebanese artist and activist from Beirut. Yazan is best known for his public art displays, including graffiti, murals, and sculptures. His murals can be found on buildings across Beirut, and often depict portraits of important Lebanese and Middle Eastern figures.
Djerbahood was a street art event in which artists from all over the world gathered in the village of Erriadh on the Tunisian island Djerba to create 250 mural paintings. The project was established by the Itinerrance de Paris gallery in June 2014.
{{cite book}}
: |last=
has generic name (help)