Roa: London Calling

I love Shoreditch, the main place for Street Art and Graffiti in east London. Street Artist from all over the world have left their works for us to see in the streets like a big open air gallery. The big bird on the picture is made by Roa. Roa makes big, mostly black and white, art works of birds and fury animals on derelict buildings. Alive, dead or sleeping animals, sometimes slaughtered or "x-rayed". Raw, provocative and weird murals placed very visibly in the city environment. Roa comes is from Belgium and became known in the UK when when the local council wanted his painted Rabbit removed from a wall in the Hackney area in 2010. A campaign by local residents forced the council to change their mind. Read more in The Guardian article here.

I took this picture in London february 2012 and was astonished by this and other art works in the area. Roa has a very distinct and different style in the street art world and reaches a broad audience. Even if his weird and naturalistic figures seems misplaced and sometimes brutally displayed, they are beautiful, graceful and spectacular. They strum archetypical strings burried deep in our minds. See some more of his art work here!

Along with Roa comes "London Calling" with The Clash!  (Click on the link or the "play" button on the box below to play the song).

Eine: Letters into words that make you think!

Im a big fan of Eine. Ben Eine have done graffiti and streetart for about 20 years and have been arrested a numerous times for his graffiti works around London. His interest in typography tranformed him into a street artist who work with big letters, typography and usually forming words or small sentences. Ben Eine is the "street artist who made it to the white house". When David Cameron visited Barack Obama in July 2010, he gave Obama a screen print made by Eine which read "TWENTY FIRST CENTURY CITY". A brilliant peace of work and Ben Eine later, in an interview, said:

"It's quite mad, really," says Eine whose early creative life as a particularly productive graffiti artist earned him 15 or 20 arrests, five convictions for criminal damage and, on the final occasion, a narrow escape from jail. "But it's OK. It's not the kind of recognition I seek or get every day, but Cameron seems quite a positive kind of guy and Obama's a dude. I would probably have had issues if it had been for Bush."

I first saw Eines work here in Bergen on the wall of the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH), which read: "CONTROVERSIAL CALCULATE CASH”. Big colourful letters. First, I thought is was some kind of commercial. But the text did not make immediate sense and did not refer to any known brand or product. I became curious and photographed the wall (See the work here). I did some research and discovered Ben Eine.

On a trip to London in february 2012, I spotted the work pictured above right ouside the tube station on Old Street. I just love it! See more of Eines work at Eine Diary. Together with Eines work I have chosen "Like a Rolling Stone" by Bob Dylan (click the link or the "play" button below!)