Hailing from Sao Paulo, Brazil, artist Zezao got into street art in the early 90’s when kids world wide were being indoctrinated into graffiti after watching flicks like Style Wars, and Wild Style. Zezao’s blue abstract monochromatic symbols, or “flops” as he calls them, could easily be viewed as alien scripture, deciphered only by it’s author. His work was birthed out the old code that whatever one come’s with, it better be original. No second coming toys allowed. Zezao dwells in the subterranean, literally. He’s …
Author: Tracy Jones
Shorty looks like a suicide bomber with plastic explosives dangling off her neck, but she’s just kicking it; posting on a Radio Raheem-size boom box. Her posture is erect, but her expression is aloof or self-conscious. The objects resting on her chest resemble a rapper’s many gold chains. She’s got a Flavor Flav clock around her neck, African medallions, and other things that could either be a radio, a drum machine or something else entirely. Her alluring curves and cute features magnify …
Geishas rock afros, corn rolls and dreadlocks. They fashionably freeze with the same intensity that break dancers pose on the floor, but artist Iona Rozeal Brown’s acrylic painted Asiatic people are in brown face, and they’re a clashing of sorts. Comic book motifs, Ukiyo-e prints, Kabuki theater, Noh, Byzantine religious painting, voguing and most notably hip-hop, mix together like two turntables playing tug of war with the cross fader. If Brown was a DJ (which apparently she is), she’d be taking viewers on a journey all …
Excited to be working on a feature about documentary photographer Michael Santiago. He was born in The Dominican Republic and grew up in New York. He talked about his unlikely course to becoming a photographer. Soon come people, hold ya nostrils. …
“You can’t be born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1955 and grow up in South Central [Los Angeles] near the Black Panthers headquarters, and not feel like you’ve got some kind of social responsibility. You can’t move to Watts in 1963 and not speak about it. That determined a lot of where my work was going to go,” said artist Kerry James Marshall. The alluring black figures in his paintings use light to only reveal their prominent features and beautiful silhouettes. They’re compelling and vulnerable. Popping out like …