URBAN ENCOUNTERS
works by roa
Images cour tesy of ROA
Acquired from ROA !’s P hotostream @ www.flickr.com/photos/roagraffiti ARTC3320
Type II S pring 2013
Texas S tate Universit y - S an Marcos Trade Gothic LT S td Adobe Caslon Pro
© 2013 Julio Barrientos
URBAN ENCOUNTERS
works by roa
TABLE OF CONTENTS
7 PREFACE 9 ESSAY 11 EUROPE 37 NORTH AMERICA 59 AUSTRALIA 69 SOUTH AMERICA 83 AFRICA 97 ASIA 105 INTERVIEW 113 EXHIBITION CHECKLIST
PREFACE
Human beings are more curious than any other species on the planet; we create our own possibilities to destroy the entire planet and t h e h u m a n r a c e . To e v e n c r e a t e t h i n g s t h a t d o t h a t i s j u s t p l a i n , d u m b. G a i n o f m o n e y, m o r e important than how our own future generations will live, we are not so intelligent, we a r e g r e e d y. We m a n a g e a s h u m a n i t y t o r e a l i z e the total extinction of a lot of wildlife, even though those animals are important symbols to the ver y people killing them. Look to the bald eagle in America or the bear in California, they are clearly quite important yet they are both on the verge of extinction. A l o t o f p e o p l e d o n’t v a l u e w h a t t h e y d o n’t p a y f o r, s o m e t i m e s t h o u g h ; t h o s e t h i n g s a r e m o r e v a l u a b l e t h a n a n y t h i n g y o u c a n e v e r p a y f o r. Humans eventually will be extinct but t h e w o r l d w i l l n o t b e o v e r, i t a l l d e p e n d s o n w h a t h a p p e n s a n d h o w w e d r i v e o u r s e l v e s o f f the c liff. But in fact, you can actually see that with a lot of species in nature, there are animals that create their own mass extinctions, s o m a y b e , s u b c o n s c i o u s l y t h a t ’s w h a t w e a r e doing at this point. 7
“ The countr y where I go or the place where I am at I tr y to know what species are relevant or are symbols of the culture. I will only paint native species in a countr y unless it were relevant to the location like an abandoned zoo or something… I let myself be inspired by the impulses of the moment and trust that I will find the right animal for the location.” -r oa
Fa m o u s f o r h i s l a r g e - s c a l e d e p i c t i o n s o f
animals on city walls around the world, r oa brings the creatures that inhabit the fringes of human society back to the metrop olis to expose the natural beauty in the cycle of life a n d d e a t h . H e r e i n i s a s m a l l t a s t e o f r o a ’s work throughout the world. The intent is to motivate ones exploration, discover y and encounters with his works throughout the urban landscape.
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ROA’S WORK HAS BEEN TURNING HEADS...
internationally for bringing birds, rodents and other animals back into consciousness in the areas they once inhabited. Usually painted on an impressively large scale—covering walls i n c i t i e s i n c l u d i n g L o n d o n , Wa r s a w, M a d r i d , B e r l i n , N e w Yo r k , M o s c o w, L o s A n g e l e s a n d Mexico City—these animals are anachronic to the urban streets and abandoned factories t h a t t h e y r e s i d e i n . Fo r t h e a r t i s t , t h e y t e l l so much more about the world than any other imaginar y being could. He remembers growing up in Belgium, wanting to be an archaeologist or something adventurous and collecting little skulls from birds and rodents to draw at home. W h i l e r o a ’s p a s s i o n f o r p e c u l i a r a n i m a l s is evident, each of his street pieces is also site specific. “I prefer to paint animals that are local to the region I am painting, and the wall itself also inspires my imager y : the size, the structure and its situation.” Goingto new places gives him a chance to paint new a n i m a l s , a n d f o r h i s Wy n w o o d Wa l l s m u r a l ,
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roa
c h o s e t h e F l o r i d a p a n t h e r, w h i c h i s a s u b s p e c i e s o f t h e c o u g a r, a n d d i s c o v e r e d i t s a n a t o m y i n t h e p r o c e s s . H e a d d s , “ O r i g i n a l l y, a volunteer organization invited me to make an action to raise public awareness of the problems of global warming, so I thought the endangered F loridian cougar is better over here in Miami; it felt for me the right one to paint.” T h e p o i g n a n c y o f r o a ’s s u b j e c t m a t t e r is unavoidable in the final image we see of the decomposing cougar lying with his head l e a n i n g o n t h e d o o r. I t i s a c o m m e n t a r y o n global destruction as well as sur vival. The artist was first introduced to spray paint via S u b w a y A r t a n d h i p - h o p, a n d h i s e v o l u t i o n from graffiti to using spray cans to draw on w a l l s i s a l s o r e m a r k a b l e . r o a ’s d o m i n i o n over sketching with lines on a grand scale, and his ability to create realistic feathered or furr y figures on all kinds of surfaces using only black and white paint, make his work stand out.
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EUROPE
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Sleeping Fox Bristol, UK
Rabbit Zaragoza, Spain
Swallows Katowice Street Art Festival, Poland
Bird Berlin, Germany
L e Penseur Siebensterngasse, V ienna, Austria
Snake Festival Galore - Copenhagen, Denmark
Pig Buxton St. L ondon
Fox & Rabbit Westbahnstrasse, V ienna, Austria
Bat Rue O berkampf, Paris, France
Turtle La Fabrica - Torino, Italy
Rooftop Birds L ondon England, UK
Rooftop Birds L ondon England, UK
Skinned Hare Cityleaks Festival - Cologne, Germany
Pig Half (behind) Pig Farm - Paris, France
Pig Half (front) Pig Farm - Paris, France
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NORTH AMERICA
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Dead Cougar Miami, FL
Bird Oil Refiner y - L os Angeles, California
Bird (Closed Cabinet) LA River, L os Angeles, California
Bird (Open Cabinet) LA River, L os Angeles, California
F loridan Manatee (using the architecture for a dissection effect) Wynwood, Miami, FL
Dead Fish Salton Sea, Colorado Desert, California
Eagle & Arrow Richmond, V irginia
The Cycle of Mice(Stage One, Two, Four, Five) L os Angeles, California
Squirrel Living Walls 2011- Albany, NY
Seals Barlet St. San Francisco, California
Seal Jesse St. L os Angeles, California
Squirrels Bushwick, New York
Alligator Atlanta, Georgia
Rabbit Hemlock & Polk, San Francisco, California
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AUSTRALIA
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A bilby Pilbara, Western Australia
Kangaroo bones Pilbara, Western Australia
Numbat Fremantle, Western Australia
P latypus Midland, Perth
Echidna Fitzroy, Melbourne
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SOUTH AMERICA
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Bird Dr. Olvera #15 Col. Doctores at MUJAM - Mexico City
Buzzard San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
Bird San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
Horse ‘Museo A Cielo Abierto de San Miguel’ - Santiago, Chile
Goat Skull Valparaiso, Chile
Bat Cholula, Mexico
Turtle Valparaiso, Chile
Collaborative Mural SANER & ROA Mexico City, Mexico
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AFRICA
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Kudu Galoya, The Gambia
Zebras Galoya, The Gambia
Turtle Gunjur Beach, The Gambia
Pangolin Makumbaya, The Gambia
Elephant Kubuneh, The Gambia
Mosquito Kubuneh, Gambia
Bird Kubuneh, The Gambia
Beetles Galoya, The Gambia
Snail Galoya, The Gambia
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ASIA
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Firefly Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Firefly at Night Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Skull Kep, Cambodia
Mantis Kep, Cambodia
Centipede Kep, Cambodia
INTERVIEW WITH ROA
Tell us about your beginnings and your discovery with Street art. Growing up in Europe during the eighties, we were under a great influence by the American music, skating, movies etc. The first time you
get to hear Public Enemy, Eric B & Rakim or
the first time we saw Wild Style was impressive. Later I became a huge fan of The Beastie Boys, Wu Tang Clan and everything about hip hop
attracted me, also graffiti. Very modestly beginning with doing some Throw ups under bridges
and on walls, grown out to an every day passion.
How is the graffiti and street art movement in your town? My hometown is very tiny, in American terms,
it isn’t a real city but more a village. But in this town, Ghent there is always activity, in every
way of expression it turns out like a breeding
nest for many styles, you can not stick one par-
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ticular movement on it, but everybody has mutual respect and doing his/her own stuff, which is a
comfortable environment for many people. Most of my friends are busy with painting; and we have a
lot of people from abroad dropping by to paint, so actually it ’s a mellow city were pretty much everything is possible!
Name an artist (or many) whose work you respect and admire. Again, difficult question, but I like to feel the passion of an artist if she/he is a dadaist, a surrealist,
an expressive painter, a director, it doesn’t care, she/ he need to tell me a different own story. I love the creativity of Picasso, the genius Marcel Duchamp, the LA artists Paul McCarty and Mathew Barney, the skateboard art from Jim Philips and so on, to many options to choose from.
What’s the point with all those animals? You never wanted to paint Humans or monsters, or even landscapes? Not in this moment of my life... monsters and ro-
bots I used to do longtime ago, which was fun, but
I am obsessed by animals! For me they tell so much more about this world then any other creature, but maybe in a year I’ ll only paint landscapes…
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How do you choose your animals? It depends on the region where I paint, I like to paint
the ordinary animals from that location, I dream to go one day to Africa or Australia to extend my choices.
What’s the idea behind showing animals organs? Organs are the vital substances of our body and they
represent a lot of symbolism which I like! Painters like Rembrandt did it ages before me, slaughter paintings!
How do you organize your paintings? Do you do sketches before? Do you have any “gestures”, characteristics or paint habits? What tools do you use (paint brush, stencils, cans?) I don’t sketch every piece, mostly I work with a copy
of a found animal on the web or from a book, but when I have the opportunity to do something big, I like to
sketch it, it makes me much easier to paint. Sometimes
I use latex white paint to cover big surfaces, but mostly it ’s only spray can.
You seem to love lost places. We saw your pieces in Doel, and in many abandoned places. Can you explain how you find it, and what’s your feeling about it. It ’s nice to paint in a restful and left behind place. It ’s like an oasis between “the civilization”. These places
have an unique character, the decay and the lost indus-
trial activity (like the factories) offering lots of interesting situations. Once place with a lot of agitation turns
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out in a wasteland where nature calls back, little
rodents and birds are the only sur vivors in these black holes and taken over the places like humans did some
centuries before. It ’s fine to paint with nobody passing by or watching you, just do what you love to do, paint!
What was your most adventurous and dangerous piece? Comparing with the stories I heard from LA painters, I guess I don’t have any story that come close to this!
Yes, I undergoing some strange situations, mostly the more dangerous situations were abroad at night time
but never get troubles by that, mostly I get troubles with Legal walls from council haters etc. The most adventurous pieces are the most creative challen-ging ones; the ones you cannot have a fear of heights, and when you
suddenly look down you realize that fear lunges in your veins meanwhile you need to focus on your piece.
Have you been arrested for graffiti? Yeah I had some problems in the past, but mostly not in my country, because the tolerance here is quite ok when you compare this with London or Barcelona nowadays.
What kind of reaction do you want your art to evoke? Not a particular one, everybody reacts different and
that ’s the cool thing about it! Sometimes I hear reactions from people that I think that ’s more profound
than it was meant to, but that ’s nice, the more different reactions, the better!
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How’s the collaboration with other artists going? Between painters it ’s smooth and fun, even when we
can’t speak to each other because of the language, you have that common expression that offers a kind of
connection/communication which is very cool! A lot of times you met somebody for the first time just before
painting, you can not understand each other, but than you go painting and it ’s fun and works perfectly!
Ever had any serious graffiti beef? Nothing serious, like I mentioned before, Belgium is a quite small World…
What advice would you give to other up and coming graffiti writers and artists out there? I am not the person to give advice, but for myself it is painting, painting and painting and keep it fun!
With who would you like to paint? It ’s difficult, in Belgium I paint a lot with friends with
different styles which make it sometimes more interesting than people with more comparable approach. I like style crashes and make it not to esthetically but more
organic and improvised. But you know, everything de-
pends on the contact with one person, a nice contact can generate a nice collaboration.
Does Street art make you free? Yes, I think so. Graffiti is one of the most free art
expressions of the world; you don’t do it for money nor
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for an institution, it ’s free expression and it liberates yourself creatively from a lot of restrictions.
Why do you paint? That happened over the years, it wasn’t a moment of awareness to decide to paint. My whole life I draw
and making stuff just for pleasure and discovering the
medium graffiti was a way of free expression. At the beginning I was using the medium in a very conventional way trough my huge respect to early painters, I never
thought about experiment too much with the medium for that reason. But after some years, I wanted more
because I like to paint with a spray can and latex rollers, I like to paint wild and doing big surfaces!
There seems to have been a sudden surge of interest in graffiti and street art recently, why do you think this is? I don’t know, but I do know there are some good paint-
ers including in the past exhibitions at Tate London and at Foundation Cartier Paris and people who like art get to know this people in a larger context. It is one of the most biggest continuing international movements that I can imagine, people from South to North America,
Europe, Russia... are connected by painting without any funds or institution involved. So sometimes it gets at-
tention and other times it gets denigrated, but the good thing is: all these guys (and some women!!) don’t paint to impress the press, they just do it anyway, so I don’t think it gonna ruin the scene.
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How do you see street-art in 10 years? Changed again and again. There will always be an
underground scene that improves the medium and bring it on a new and higher level. But I am pretty sure hot
cities will replaced again and street art will evolve where nobody expect it. In the nineties Barcelona was the
nicest city to paint nowadays the police of Barcelona
haunted on the painters meanwhile East-Europe became the perfect region to paint while a few years ago you
couldn’t paint there any wall, so it is unpredictable, but
everywhere there are creative people and a lot of regions we don’t know the talent yet! Let ’s hope that Asia also get more involved, like the South America styles and the Russian Styles do at the moment, they open the medium to flourish!
Do you practice other forms of art? Drawing…
Favorite 3 pieces of all time and why? Because it ’s under the chapter ‘perso’, you mean from myself ? Uuuhhmm, The NY cranes, the dead bird, and…the lenticular rabbit.
Why? The NY cranes: because it was a real pleasure to be back
in NYC and painting there stays something very special. The cranes are partly paint with rollers (latex) and
finished with cans, which I don’t do often, but it ’s great,
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it ’s so fast and nasty…I want to do this more. When it ’s about action painting, this one was great to do.
The dead bird: I just liked the situation; being on the
silo and try to cover every piece of it, sometimes I need to be very athletic to get my last stripes on, but I was
satisfied with it and I want to find more situations like this.
The Lenticular rabbit in London: Painting that gate
wasn’t easy…it was wintertime LND, cold and dark and I needed to be focused to get that rabbit in 2 angles
well proportioned and right. It was a hell of a job and
it was probably the piece that I swore constantly under my breath!
Favorite city to paint and why? NYC because of the history of graffiti and the big American sized walls!
What’s your real goal? Never had a real goal, maybe a dream that I could be in a situation that offers me satisfaction with my life and
it all comes more and more realized… something that I
never really could believe, I have a driver license, I have a great love, I do what I want to do and I travel a lot,
I have a passion for painting, that ’s really more than I EVER Expected!
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EXHIBITION CHECKLIST
EUROPE Sleeping Fox Bristol, UK Rabbit Zaragoza, S pain Swallows Katowice S treet Ar t Festival, Poland Bird Ber lin, Germany Le Penseur S iebensterngasse, V ienna, Austria Snake Festival Galore - Copenhagen, Denmark Pig Buxton S t. L ondon Fox & Rabbit Westbahnstrasse, V ienna, Austria Bat Rue O berkampf, Paris, France Turtle La Fabrica - Torino, Ital y Rooftop Birds L ondon England, UK Skinned Hare Cit yleaks Festival-Cologne, Germany Pig Half (behind) Pig Farm-Paris, France Pig Half (front) Pig Farm-Paris, France
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NORTH AMERICA Dead Cougar Miami, FL Bird Oil Refiner y - L os Angeles, California Bird (Closed Cabinet) LA River, L os Angeles, California Bird (Open Cabinet) LA River, L os Angeles, California Floridan Manatee Wynwood, Miami, FL Dead Fish S alton S ea, Colorado Deser t, California Eagle & Arrow Richmond, V irginia The Cycle of Mice L os Angeles, California Squirrel Living Walls 2011- Albany, NY Seals Bar let S t. S an Francisco, California Seal Jesse S t. L os Angeles, California Squirrels Bushwick, New York Alligator Atlanta, Georgia Rabbit Hemlock & Polk, S an Francisco, California
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AUSTRALIA A bilby Pilbara, Western Australia Kangaroo bones Pilbara, Western Australia Numbat Fremantle, Western Australia Platypus Mid land, Per th Echidna F itzroy, Melbourne An Australian still life Cockatoo Island, S ydney
Harbor NSW
SOUTH AMERICA Animal Still life MUJAM - Mexico Cit y, Mexico Bird Dr. O l vera #15 Col. Doctores at MUJAM, Mexico Cit y Buzzard S an Miguel de Allende, Mexico Bird S an Miguel de Allende, Mexico Horse ‘Museo A Cielo Abier to de S an Miguel’ - S antiago, Chile Goat Skull Valparaiso, Chile Bat Cholula, Mexico Turtle Valparaiso, Chile Collaborative Mural SANER & ROA Mexico Cit y, Mexico
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AFRICA Kudu Galoya, The Gambia Zebras Galoya, The Gambia Turtle Gunjur Beach, The Gambia Pangolin Makumbaya, The Gambia Toad Galoya, The Gambia Elephant Kubuneh, The Gambia Mosquito Kubuneh, Gambia Bird Kubuneh, The Gambia Beetles Galoya, The Gambia Snail Galoya, The Gambia
ASIA Firefly P hnom Penh, Cambodia Firefly at Night P hnom Penh, Cambodia Skull Kep, Cambodia Mantis Kep, Cambodia Centipede Kep, Cambodia
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