A year full of exhibitions, encounters and new works is drawing to a close. To round off the year, we are bringing together 16 artists who shape the Pretty Portal programme in a large group exhibition. There is no overarching theme, but instead a broad cross-section of the diversity of urban contemporary art.Prints and EditionsOne focus of the exhibition is on prints and editions. Screen prints, woodcuts and other printmaking techniques have a long tradition in urban art. Closely linked to the history of the poster and the stencil, they make it possible to bring a pictorial idea to a wider audience in a limited edition. As a rule, the sheets are signed and numbered, and with hand-pulled editions in particular, small variations make each impression something special.For collectors, editions are an ideal way to get started, and for many a chance to own works by their favourite artists. And anyone still looking for a special gift will find a real treasure trove here, especially in the run-up to Christmas.16 PositionsOn show are works by BTOY, DECYCLE, FAKE, Fin DAC, ICY & SOT, L.E.T., Limow, Natalia Rak, Otto Schade, PDOT, Pixelpancho, Roman Klonek, Rowan Newton, Shai Dahan, Sokar Uno and Wolfgang Krell. The range extends from stencils and paste-ups to figurative painting, drawing and woodcuts. Artists from Düsseldorf are shown alongside international positions from across Europe and the USA.YEAR END SHOW 2016Opening Friday, 2 December 2016, 7 – 10 pmExhibition 2 December 2016 – 10 February 2017Pretty Portal Brunnenstraße 12 40223 Düsseldorf

Groupshow feat. A1ONE, BTOY, DECYCLE, ELIOT, FinDAC, JANA&JS, kurznachzehn, L.E.T., Orticanoodles, Tankpretrol, Wolfgang Krell

On the street, repetition is what counts: a stencil allows a motif to be applied quickly, again and again. In the gallery, something else comes to the fore. Here it is about the technique each artist has found for themselves, a visual language that can be recognised at first glance, and the concept, the idea behind the image. In short: the artistic signature.Originals and editionsIn STENCILS ONLY 2013 we present original works by Jana & JS, L.E.T., Tankpetrol and Stefan Winterle. We are also showing the latest editions by BTOY, DECYCLE, Fin DAC and Orticanoodles, released by Pretty Portal in November and December 2013.Jana & JSJana & JS are an artist couple, she from Austria, he from France. They spray portraits based on their own photographs, often of themselves, on walls, wood and found objects.L.E.T.L.E.T. stands for “Les Enfants Terribles”. Since 1992 the Düsseldorf artist has shaped the streets of his home town with stencils and paste-ups. He already took part in STENCILS ONLY in 2011.TankpetrolBorn in Poland, Tankpetrol lives in Manchester, where he discovered stencil art. His works mostly centre on women in military-style clothing, surrounded by animals, geometric shapes and self-designed lettering.Stefan WinterleStefan Winterle was born in Lörrach in 1976 and started doing graffiti in 1993. Since 2000 he has focused entirely on cutting and spraying stencils, a process he describes as meditative: while preparing a set of stencils, he analyses the motif and plans the colours. Since 2010 he has also been curator of the Carhartt Gallery in Weil am Rhein.BTOYBTOY is the Barcelona artist Andrea Michaelsson. Her stencils are based on photographs and focus on strong female figures. In February she showed her solo exhibition The dispossessed with us.DECYCLE“Multi-layered is probably the best word for it,” says DECYCLE of his style (translated). Each picture is made from several stencils, one per colour, which are layered on top of each other to create the final motif. The content is multi-layered too: DECYCLE does not want to make a definitive statement but to make people think, and it is precisely the different interpretations that matter to him. His name stands for breaking out of habitual patterns of thought and out of his own daily routine, and for art that makes its way to places where no one expects it: the street.Fin DACThe Irish artist Fin DAC lives in London. He is known for portraits of women with a coloured band across the eyes, combining stencil and freehand painting.OrticanoodlesOrticanoodles are the Italian artist couple Alita and Wally from Milan. They are known for unusually complex, multi-layered stencil works.“STENCILS ONLY 2013” BTOY, DECYCLE, Fin DAC, Jana & JS, L.E.T., Orticanoodles, Tankpetrol, Stefan Winterle Vernissage: Friday, 22 November 2013 Exhibition: 22 November – 23 December 2013 Pretty Portal, Brunnenstraße 12, 40223 DüsseldorfNote (2026): Stefan Winterle ran the gallery in Weil am Rhein, now Colab Gallery, as its curator for a total of 14 years.

Behind round glasses, a calm and serious gaze. The face is set in red, orange and yellow over torn posters, with the remains of event notices still visible at the edges. The portrait shows the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. It is one of the pictures in which BTOY places women who have moved history at the centre.Women who move historyIn The dispossessed we present portraits of women whose lives took exceptional paths: thinkers, activists, feminists. Alongside Anna Politkovskaya, who reported on the war in Chechnya and was murdered in Moscow in 2006, BTOY paints the French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, whose book The Second Sex (1949) is one of the founding texts of feminism. Her portrait is titled Art is an attempt to integrate evil, after a line by the philosopher.They are joined by Angela Davis, philosopher and one of the best-known voices of the black civil rights movement in the United States, Helena Blavatsky, co-founder of the Theosophical Society, and Petra Kelly, peace activist and co-founder of the German Green Party.The title can be read as “those who have been deprived of what was theirs”.People who take risksOne of the pictures shows a demonstration. Masked people dressed in black march down a street carrying red-and-black flags, the emblem of the anarchists. On the left-hand edge, a sign points to “Angel” and “Bank”, two stations in London. The picture refers to the Occupy movement and the Spanish Indignados, who protested in 2011 against the consequences of the financial crisis. It shows people who risk their safety, and sometimes their lives, for a cause.Stencil, screen print and billboardBTOY works in a mixed technique of stencil, screen print, spray paint and painting. Her grounds are often scraps of billboards: torn advertisements, event posters, stars and lettering that show through the portraits. Over these she sets the faces in strong areas of colour, red, orange, yellow and deep blue. In this way the pictures carry the traces of the street into the gallery.About the artistBTOY is the artist Andrea Michaelsson, born in Barcelona in 1977. She studied photography at the Institut d’Estudis Fotogràfics de Catalunya. Photography remains the basis of her work, as her stencils are made from photographic sources. In 2002 she began working on the streets of Barcelona, initially as a duo with Ilià Mayer under the name BTOY. Female figures from past decades shape her work, inspired by old posters and by Andy Warhol. In 2008 she took part in the Cans Festival in London, organised by Banksy. BTOY is regarded as one of the best-known women artists in urban art.2013 begins with a full calendar for BTOY. In January her pictures were shown in exhibitions in Paris and Barcelona. In February her path leads via Venice and the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn to Düsseldorf. In Bonn the subject is Cleopatra, whom BTOY also sees as a strong woman. At the vernissage she will also present a book on her work, published this year.“The dispossessed” BTOY Vernissage: Friday, 22 February 2013, from 7 pm Exhibition: 22 February – 15 March 2013 The artist will be present. Pretty Portal, Brunnenstraße 12, 40223 Düsseldorf

Urban Art Künstler setzen sich intensiv mit verschiedenen Drucktechniken bei der Erstellung ihrer Werke auseinander. Als Paste-Ups sehen wir sie in den Straßen, wo sie Teil unserer alltäglichen Wahrnehmung werden. Die Ausstellung „Prints & Editions“ konzentriert sich daher auf diesen Aspekt. Zu sehen sind Holzschnitte, Radierungen und insbesondere Siebdrucke von 2SickBastards, Arno Beck, Base23, BTOY, C215, Decycle, L.E.T., Mexer, Mr. Penfold, Orticanoodles, Remed, Roman Klonek, Sam3, SMASH137, Sweet Toof, Tom Brane und weiteren Künstlern, die von Pretty Portal vertreten werden. Zudem zeigt die Galerie Drucke aus eigener Sammlung, darunter Arbeiten von Blek le Rat, Nick Walker, Paul Insect, Dolk, Faile und Hush. 2SickBastards, Arno Beck, Base23, BTOY, C215, Decycle, DOLK, Faile, Hush, L.E.T., Mexer, Mr. Penfold, Nick Walker, Oliver Räke (MAGIC), Orticanoodles, Paul Insect, Remed, Roman Klonek, Sam3, Shepard Fairey, SMASH137, Sweet Toof, Tom Brane, Valentina Brostean, u.a. Ausstellung : 30.03.-28.4.2012 Vernissage: 30.03.2012, 19-22h

By the time a stencil appears on a wall, most of the work has already been done. The image in the artist’s mind has to be broken down into areas and layers, each colour needs its own stencil, and every cut determines how the finished work will look. With multi-coloured stencils in particular, this preparation is complex. It shapes the style just as much as what happens after spraying, since many works are then painted further and reworked by hand. On the street, the stencil shows its real strength: a motif can be applied quickly, again and again and in many places, each time very much alike.Hardly any technique has shaped the image of street art and contemporary urban art as much. Stencilled images have become an integral part of public space and influence design, fashion and advertising.Between photography and graphicsAs last year, in STENCILS ONLY 2011 we present artists from the European urban art scene who work with stencils. The works of these seven artists show how much room for experimentation the technique offers. Some look photographic, others graphic. They draw on icons of everyday life and pop culture, or quote and reinterpret the messages of other urban artists.BTOY (Barcelona)BTOY is the artist Andrea Michaelsson, who comes from photography. Her stencils are made from photographic sources and focus on female figures from past decades, inspired by old posters and by Andy Warhol. In 2008 she took part in the Cans Festival in London.C215 (Paris)C215 is the French artist Christian Guémy, one of the best-known stencil artists in Europe. He mainly portrays people on the margins of society, children and, again and again, his daughter Nina. He often places his stencils on letterboxes, electricity boxes and doors, the furniture of the city.Czarnobyl (Berlin)Born in Poland, Damian Terlecki has lived in Berlin since 1993, where the punk and squatter scene of the 1990s shaped his work. His multi-layered stencil pictures combine precise portraits with machine drawings and found stencils. They look like visions of a dystopian future, influenced by films such as Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker and the cyberpunk of William Gibson.ESOB (Düsseldorf)ESOB comes from the Düsseldorf graffiti scene and works as a graphic designer.FAKE (Amsterdam)The Amsterdam artist FAKE works with icons of pop culture and everyday life. He reassembles them with humour and a critical eye on society.L.E.T. (Düsseldorf)L.E.T. stands for “Les Enfants Terribles”. Since 1992 the artist has shaped the streets of his home town of Düsseldorf with stencils and paste-ups. With a wink, he takes aim at the issues of our time and the shortcomings of our consumer and fun-driven society.PISA73 (Berlin)PISA73 is an artist and designer and has been active as a graffiti artist since the 1990s. He studied visual communication at the Hochschule Pforzheim. He is known for multi-layered stencils based on his own photographs.“STENCILS ONLY 2011” BTOY, C215, Czarnobyl, ESOB, FAKE, L.E.T., PISA73 Vernissage: Friday, 14 October 2011, 7 – 11 pm Exhibition: 14 October – 11 November 2011 Pretty Portal, Brunnenstraße 12, 40223 Düsseldorf