Sickboy (artist)

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Sickboy
Burning Candy
Sickboys Bin!.jpg
An example of Sickboy's temple character on a bin in Shoreditch
Born1980 (age 4445)
Style Street art
Movement
Website sickboykks on Instagram

Sickboy (1980 [1] ) is the name of a street artist from Bristol, [2] UK, known for his temple logo and his 'Save the Youth' slogan. [3] Sickboy moved to London in 2007 and his street art became prevalent particularly in the Shoreditch area and London Borough of Tower Hamlets. [4] It is claimed Sickboy was one of the first UK graffiti artists to use a logo instead of a 'tag'. [5]

Sickboy originally trained in fine art [6] and, as well as painting graffiti on the street, he also paints on canvas and exhibits conventionally in art galleries. He has been painting street art since circa 1995. [4] In recent years Sickboy has become known for painting his 'temple' logo on wheelie bins, which can then be worth up to £50,000. [7]

In a 2011 The Guardian article Sickboy named Spanish street artist La Mano as a major influence. He said "At the time, graffiti was mainly seen as letter-based, but [Le Mano] just used a logo and repeated it... I'd never been a big fan of stencil work, which is where a lot of people think graffiti crosses over into more acceptable street art. La Mano stuck more closely to the graffiti aspect, which I try to adhere to now. I like the freehand, grab-a-tin-of-spray-paint approach". [8]

References

  1. "Sickboy". artnet .
  2. Miguel Cullen Graffiti gets the star treatment in Bristol, The Independent, 26 August 2011. Retrieved 2011-11-10.
  3. Sickboy Temple Shrines London, View London, undated. Retrieved 2011-11-09.
  4. 1 2 Chris Osburn Londonist Interviews … London Graffiti Artist Sickboy, Londonist, 11 January 2008. Retrieved 2011-11-09.
  5. Sickboy goes indoors for exhibition of his Bristol street art, Portisheadpeople.co.uk, 8 February 2010. Retrieved 2011-11-09.
  6. Franco Milazzo Interview: Sickboy, Street Artist, Londonist, 30 October 2011. Retrieved 2011-11-09.
  7. Crompton, Sarah (20 August 2012). "Graffiti's grandmasters make their mark". The Telegraph (London). Retrieved 17 September 2012. But street art is now a profitable career. The fine arts graduate known as Sickboy, for example, covers waste bins with distinctive temple icons: they sell for £50,000. To the unconvinced and the underwhelmed, this is the perfect summation of the madness of the contemporary art world – both actually and metaphorically art as rubbish.
  8. Emine Saner The artists' artist: street artists, The Guardian, 2 November 2011. Retrieved 2011-11-09.