Artist Review: Remi/ROUGH

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Remi/ROUGH just finished a trip to Canada, his first ever, and to no other than Vancouver at that. Yes, this is where I’m at. Yes, I met him. Yes, he’s a major cool chap. Yes, his art is amazing.

The pure mix of straight edges, with complete slur of all emotion mixed with symmetry, and then displaced with layered chaos is amazing.

He came to Vancouver to do Unintended Calculations, a mix of spraying the Moda Hotel walls in downtown Vancouver, as well as showing at Becker Galleries, located on Granville Island. The show was curated by the talented Indigo, who herself is an amazing artists becoming a global figure. I’ve taken some photographs of the event held at Becker Galleries.

Remi/ROUGH’s work leaves a lot up to the imagination. There are many angles to approach it, for myself, I feel. One can embrace it from chaos inward to straight and stiff edges, or the other way around: straight stiff to chaos. Maybe the correct word is not so much chaos as one would think.

Remi/ROUGH has been part of the Graffiti scene for a very long time. One of the fathers one might even say, so needless to say he is looked up to by many, many people. Artists, punks, rebels, musicians all alike; and with just cause, he is a great guy.

While talking with him, he gave me the certain awe that most people who have been doing their thing for a while, proven themselves, give me. It’s like a ‘yes, I’m just doing my thing, and I’m great at it, and I love it, and I’m so happy to hear that you enjoy it too cause that’s why I do it’ kind of feeling. Or maybe that was just the English blood in him… Hard to tell.

The above piece is a collab put on the walls of a gallery with System, another artist.

To be honest though, it’s work like this that inspires me. There isn’t one thing that a person can pinpoint that does it, it’s a mixture of all things combined. How does one enjoy the drips any more than one does the edges? And how can you ignore the raunch feel of anger that is evoked in pin pointing an exact thing that inspires? Maybe it’s not anger at all, maybe it’s just something akin to capturing fireflies.

To me, it’s a body. It’s a figure, it’s a feeling. It’s not just one thing. It’s everything. Does this make sense? How does it make you feel?

The photo above is Remi/ROUGH doing work with Jaybo Monk. I have done a profile on him recently for he is also one inspiring fellow. Two legends, two icons, two people that will be talked about for many many years to come.

I am honored to have met Remi/ROUGH and I look forward to seeing his future work.

All pictures are to the best of my knowledge taken by Remi/ROUGH unless otherwise noted.

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Artist Review: Jaybo Monk

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You get pieces of art that are pretty close replications of real life, evoke a sense of 3D, and really give a feeling of something that you can see happening. Well, Jaybo Monk touches briefly, in little corners of his paintings on these elements, fits together pieces that really make sense on their own, but what I find are his strongest suits are that he pushes the freak into what one would feel is quite natural and ordinary; freakishly and radically awesome.

It really is works of art like this that inspire me. Where does it come from? Where has it spilled forth from? What was on your mind? How did you get those strokes? How did you blend there? Did you create this from space? Those are just the first few that come from looking at the above photograph. Lord only knows how many more would come if I could actually behold one of them in front of me.

From what I’ve read, Jaybo is from a strong graffiti background, he grew up in France, but ran away from home to settle in Germany, Berlin to be exact. His biography on Circle Culture will take you into more detail, but its very interesting to hear how he has shaped the scene of that area from the ground, grass roots up.

A friend just told me, because I was lamenting about how far away my art is from this, that to get to the point where my art speaks like this, it takes many many hours, days, years of work. I optimistically put the fear of never getting to this point out of my mind and push on. Another friend once told me that if I spend to much time looking at all the other works out there, I’ll become overwhelmed with how much there is and start getting dizzy. I think that’s how I’m feeling right now. This is just such an amazing body of work Jaybo has.

Just wow. You know? wow. Shading, contortion, vivid body parts mixed with spaces of plain white. Ease and confusion. Words just keep flowing. Comprehension doesn’t follow suit. I found a great interview done by Remi Rough at Graffuturism, where I got the final picture of Jaybo from. But the interview does reach some interestingly quirky points, but mainly showcases some of Jaybo’s brilliant works. Maybe you’ve seen some of them before? Maybe it’s just in your dreams…

Also, the mixture of materials that he uses. To me, it looks like theres oils, water colors, pens, and spray paint? It is just confusing to me. Amazingly confusing. So much does it speak that its confusing.

I hope this opens up new doors for you as it has me, finding or learning of such style, such works just inspires me to the point of utter madness, a circling spiraling into madness that I can’t stop smiling about until I’m upside down and…

What do you think about Jaybo?

 

Here are a few videos to watch Jaybo’s process from Urban Art Core

This one is from Urban Art Core as well

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