Graffiti Art in Wynwood 2017

Kenny Scharf.  "Comic Creatures."  New York

Each year the Wynwood area / Art and Design Center just north of downtown Miami

sponsors a great international festival of graffiti art / urban murals. In an area filled

with warehouses and factories, there is a lot of wall space.  Fifty international graffiti

artists were invited to participate and assigned wall space, and another hundred "street

artists / urban artists / graffiti artists" applied for and were given wall space.

Eduardo Kobra.  "Yoko and John."  Brazil

All the walls are whitewashed in October each year, and then in November the artists come

and prepare their works for the opening of Art Basel and Art Miami the first week of

December.  The murals remain up for a year.  Above is part of a mural by "Kobra," which

runs for 150 feet and is 16 feet high.  That's a big painting.

Kobra.  "The Sword."  Continuation of 150 foot mural.

Kobra.  Continuation of 150 foot mural.  Brazilian
All of these artists have web pages with photos of many of their other works, if
you are interested.  They are prodigious in their productivity.

Kobra.  Continuation of the  150 foot mural.

Kobra.  "Stop Wars."  Brazil

This is a part of the 150 foot mural by Kobra.  Graffiti artists paint for a variety of

reasons - to entertain and delight, for the sheer fun of it, to send a message.

They are often opposed to war, pollution, destruction of the environment.  But they don' t
make a living painting murals; so they also paint on canvases and sell them or create
prints or sculpture.  They are all very versatile.

Crash.  "Girl and Tags."  New York

Crash is one of the most famous of the graffiti artists.  He is from New York and began

spray painting on walls and subway cars when he was 13.  These paintings are meant to

be seen, free, by anyone.  This is public art / community art, not private art.  The 50 invited 

artists have their expenses paid, but that is all.  This not about making money,

but about making art and making people happy.

Rubem Robierb.  "Butterfly."  Brazil

Robierb is both an internationally famous graffiti artist, but also a "fine arts" artist whose

works are highly sought after.  Like many of the graffiti artists, he has been invited to

countries all over the world, by national governments and municipal governments, and

private corporations, to paint large murals on public spaces.  He is famous for his butterflies.

   Lady Pink.   "Reclining Figure." New York

"Lady Pink" is one of the many female graffiti artists.  She and others work sometimes 

with spray cans of paint, but also with brushes and other materials.  These works

are carefully planned long in advance.

Logan Hicks.  "Cityscape."  New York
Logan is from Brooklyn and specializes in urban scenes.  He creates stencils to get
the crisp lines he needs, and then spray paints over them.  Some scenes take five layers
of stencils.  This scene is based on a view of New York which he saw one night
between 1:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m.

Ron English.  "Stag and Green Hulk."  Decatur, Illinois
This one of the most popular murals, and lots of people pose for pictures standing on the rock
This man is trying to take a selfie with the picture.

Alexis Diaz.  "Mastodon."  Puerto Rico.

Alexis Diaz is one of the most popular painters and most well known.  He has five murals

at the Wynwood Walls Exhibit.  A couple of his works, like this one, are so popular,  that

he repaints them each year, and people look forward to seeing them.  Others are new.

The triangle imposed in the center is a motif he frequently uses.  Many of the murals

are also indebted to science fiction for inspiration.

Marka 27.  "Woman Praying."  Mexican-American
Born in Juarez, Mexico, with a BFA from Boston, Victor now works in New York
both as graffiti artist and easel artist.  He is recognized as a leader in the Hispanic / Latino
art world.

Dasic Fernandez.  "Girl with Paint Drops."  Chile

Fernandez is widely known throughout Latin America and often uses multicolor

splashes as in this image.

JVH Design.  "The Wynwood Building."  New Zealand / Miami
JVH (John von Houten) is from New Zealand but is now in Miami and heads his own
design firm working with interior design as well as advertising.  The building was formerly
a mall, but the space is now used for a variety of creative purposes and has become
a symbol for Wynwood Walls.

Maya Hayuk.  "Pastel Cross-Hatching."  Brooklyn.

The mural is very popular and she has repainted it several years.  People love
to pose with this as the background.

Lakwena.  "I Remember Paradise."  London

Lakwena is a Black female artist in London and one of the most famous of the

graffiti artists; she almost always uses words in her works.  They offer both
visual pleasures as well as meanings.

Michael Ortiz / ILLSON.  "Sleeping Figure."  Cuba
Ortiz frequently creates large, horizontal figures 60-80 feet long.  He often signs
his name as a Japanese chop ILLSON.

Caratops.  " Vodka" and "Masques."

Caratops has painted "Masques" before, but with a different image to the left.

I don't know whether this wall was painted by one person or several.  Skulls and palm

trees are both popular images for street art in Florida.

Bryan Deese.  "Thanks, Mr. Mixx."  Miami

This was a tribute to a Miami music legend.

Zed 1.  "Charge My Heart."  Italian

Zed / Marco is a very popular Italian graffiti artist.  He had six murals in various

locations around Wynwood and Miami.  They combine fantasy and whimsy.

This is a wall 50 feet by 8 feet high.

Alexis Diaz of Puerto Rico and Faith 47 from South Africa.  "Nude with Serpent."

Graffiti artists will often work together on a project and share ideas and combine

techniques and specialties.  This is a huge figure.

Elizabetta Fantone.  "Basquiat and Warhol."  Canadian - Italian.

Elizabetta was born in Canada but raised in Italy.  Her murals are often polemical

and make comments about art. 

Elizabetta Fontane.  "Andy Warhol."  Canadian / Italian

Andy Warhol is here dressed in prison-orange uniform for committing

"crimes against art."

Haas and Hahn.  "Striped Deli."  Netherlands

Haas and Hahn are two of the most famous graffiti artists from Holland.  They have created

large murals all over the world.

Davel, Claudia LaBianca, Others.  "The Wynwood Coloring Book."  Miami
They have actually created a coloring book for adults based on the mural art of
Wynwood; it is available in several gift shops in Wynwood.

Interesni Kaski.  "Exotic Flowers."  Ukrainian

"Interesi Kaski" actually means "fairy tales" and is made up of two men from Kiev in

Ukraine.  They are known throughout the world for their fanciful and playful murals.

For Wynwood they painted an entire building, all four sides, in a verdant green color, and

then added exotic flowers and small people inhabiting the flowers.

Interesni Kaski.  Close-up.  Ukrainian

Tatiana Suarez.  "Eve with Lizard."   New York

Tatiana Suarez is one of the most famous graffiti artists from New York.  She seems

to use several different names and often female themes.

Zosen and Mina Hamada.  "Tropical."  Japan
This is a husband and wife team that create murals around the world.

Mac Stewart.  "Three Masks."  Atlanta, Georgia

Mac is a 21 year old self-taught artist, the youngest of the Wynwood artists.

In the foreground is a Sea Serpent undulating through the lawn by Alexis Diaz.

In the back right is "Stag and Green Hulk" by Ron English, and in the center and left

at back is a 100 foot long mural by "The English Police," who live in Amsterdam.

This little house just off 29th Street is decorated with /crawling with giant insects.

Jennifer Becker.  "The Brick Bar"  Jacksonville, FL.

This is a mural painted about six feet behind a fence but visible from the sidewalk

 along 2nd Avenue N.W. which is the center of the mural district.  The car and man

 are painted.  The actual bar, with beer garden, is right behind the wall.

On her webpage, Jennifer explain how she applied for wall space and won it.  The

bar agreed to pay for her materials, and she went on-line GOFUNDME to ask

for donations to help pay her expenses.  She spent 127 hours over 2 weeks

completing the mural.

"Blue Bird and Pink Wall" were just two parts of many murals painted around a small

courtyard between several small houses.

"The Blue Bird and Graffiti."

"My Grandparents" stood alone on a wall beside an auto repair shop.

Zer 1.  "Zed 1's Theater."  Italian

This is a second of the popular Zed 1's / Marco murals.  It is pure fantasy, a huge goose

riding a sort of vehicle.  But the details, hyper-realism are amazing.

Jenna Morello.  "Blue Roses."  Brooklyn

Jenna has created similar roses in red and pink and orange and other colors

in other cities.  She has her studio in New York.

Cleon Peterson and Shepard Fairey.  "Running Man."  Los Angeles

These two men are two of the leading graffiti artists from the West Coast, with

international reputations and doing commissions all over the world.  This small

building was completely surrounded by parking lots and painted on all four sides

with these running men doing various things; all four walls are different.

"Deep Eddy Vodka" was a mural along 29th Street.

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