Stencil art has always been deeply rooted in protest. The technique was not born in studios, but on the street: a weapon made of words and images in times when speaking the truth was dangerous. In the 1960s and 70s, activists and artists used stencils to spread political messages quickly and effectively: against war, for freedom, for equality. Walls became the people's newspapers, and the spray can became the printing press of resistance.In the 1980s, stencil art took on new significance through artists such as Blek le Rat in Paris and, later, Banksy in London. Their works showed that protest doesn't always have to be loud. It can also whisper, with humour, irony and aesthetic precision.The Art of Protest continues this tradition in the works of FAKE and L.E.T. Both artists use stencils to question power, break open conformity and provoke thought. Their visual language is powerful, multi-layered and inevitably political, a reminder that true art still dares to disrupt.The stencil remains what it has always been: the voice of those who want to be heard.

Nomen est omen: STENCILS ONLY presents artists for whom working with stencils plays a central role.A Technique with HistoryThe stencil is one of the oldest image-making techniques of all, and at the same time one of the most defining in urban art. In the early 1980s, Blek le Rat took it to the streets of Paris and established it as an art form in its own right. Later, the legendary Banksy helped it achieve worldwide popularity. Today, countless exciting artists work with stencils, taking their interventions to the streets and creating artworks in public space.Precision and ImmediacyThe appeal of the technique lies in a contradiction. Cutting a stencil is a slow, precise process, often taking many hours and several layers. Spraying, by contrast, takes seconds. The stencil thus combines meticulous craftsmanship with the speed of the street. Every work is reproducible, yet remains unique, as the surface, the application of paint and the surroundings change the image each time.Eight PositionsIn this edition of the STENCILS ONLY show, we present new works by eight artistic positions that demonstrate how diverse this technique can be: from pointed social critique and poetic snapshots to richly symbolic visual worlds.FAKE Dutch artist FAKE is considered Amsterdam's best-known stencil artist, both on the street and on canvas. His vividly coloured works draw on icons of everyday life and pop culture, slightly provocative and always with a healthy dose of humour and irony. Among his best-known pieces is the award-winning "Super Nurse", a tribute to healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.Guy Denning British artist Guy Denning combines a traditional painterly style with a contemporary, punk-inspired element: collaged and stencilled text that adds a further, often political layer of narrative to his figures. His works are held in several public collections, including the MAGI'900 Museum of Contemporary Art in Bologna.Jana & JS The Austrian-French duo has been painting together since 2006 and is known for multicoloured stencil works based on their own photographs. Jana & JS combine portraits with urban landscapes and architecture, deliberately choosing old materials that speak of the passage of time. After years in Madrid and Paris, they now live in Salzburg.kurznachzehn German artist kurznachzehn discovered her technique in 2011 through nostalgic family photos from the 1950s. She first sprays her multi-layered stencils onto paper and then pastes them up in the urban landscape. For her gallery works, she also uses wooden panels and found metal.L.E.T. The initials stand for "Les Enfants Terribles". The French-born artist has been active on the street since 1992 and has shaped the cityscape of his adopted hometown, Düsseldorf, making him one of the street artists of the very first hour. He pairs his mostly black-and-white figures with charmingly provocative messages that expose the shortcomings of our consumer and fun-driven society with a wink.Monkeybird The Bordeaux duo, made up of Temor ("Monkey") and Blow ("Bird"), has been working together since 2012. Their entirely hand-cut stencils depict metaphysical architectures inspired by geometry, mechanics, cosmology and astronomy. The monkey and the bird represent the two sides of human nature: the realist and the dreamer.Otto Schade Born in Chile, the artist also known as "Osch" began his career as an architect and urban sculptor. He has lived in London since 2006, where his architectural understanding of space led him to develop his distinctive "ribbon" style. The intertwining bands shape his subjects and give them an almost sculptural presence.seiLeise Behind seiLeise is Cologne-based artist Tim Ossege, who uses stencils and other urban art techniques to comment on social developments and world events. His pointed motifs provoke thought without wagging a finger. He is also regarded as a pioneer of reverse graffiti, using stencils and a sandblaster to clean motifs out of dirty walls."STENCILS ONLY"Exhibition 2 December 2022 – 10 February 2023Opening Friday, 2 December 2022, 7 pmPretty Portal Brunnenstraße 12 40223 Düsseldorf

Bestranged combines two words that aptly describe the past year: "strange" and "estranged". For months, we lived through a situation that was new and unsettling for all of us. We kept our distance, wore masks, avoided encounters and, to some extent, drifted apart from one another. What remained were feelings for which there were often no words.Art from LockdownThe exhibition presents a selection of works that reflect this time. They tell of people in an exceptional situation, of isolation and estrangement, of covered faces and the longing for closeness. Eight urban art positions have engaged with the experiences of recent months in very different ways: sometimes ironic, sometimes poetic, sometimes with oppressive directness.Get an impression of the exhibition in our video.FAKE Dutch artist FAKE is considered Amsterdam's best-known stencil artist, both on the street and on canvas. His vividly coloured works draw on icons of everyday life and pop culture, slightly provocative and always with a healthy dose of humour and irony. Among his best-known pieces is the award-winning "Super Nurse", a tribute to healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Guy Denning British artist Guy Denning combines a traditional painterly style with a contemporary, punk-inspired element: collaged and stencilled text that adds a further, often political layer of narrative to his figures. His works are held in several public collections, including the MAGI'900 Museum of Contemporary Art in Bologna.Jana & JS The Austrian-French duo has been painting together since 2006 and is known for multicoloured stencil works based on their own photographs. Jana & JS combine portraits with urban landscapes and architecture, deliberately choosing old materials that speak of the passage of time. After years in Madrid and Paris, they now live in Salzburg.Natalia Rak The Polish artist graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź in 2012 and has been creating large-scale murals around the world since 2011. Her luminous, mostly female figures draw on folklore and fairy tales and have a surreal quality. Her mural Legend of the Giants in Białystok, showing a girl caring for a real tree, was included in the street art series issued by the Polish Post.Otto Schade Born in Chile, the artist also known as "Osch" began his career as an architect and urban sculptor. He has lived in London since 2006, where his architectural understanding of space led him to develop his distinctive "ribbon" style. The intertwining bands shape his subjects and give them an almost sculptural presence.Shai Dahan Born in Haifa in 1979, Shai Dahan grew up in Los Angeles, where he started out as a graffiti writer at the age of 14. He has lived in Sweden since 2010 and gained recognition there with his reinterpretation of the Dala horse, the traditional Swedish wooden horse. In 2019, he painted what was then Sweden's largest mural in Borås.Sokar Uno Born in Gotha in 1987, the Berlin-based artist found his way to art through the graffiti scene in the late 1990s. His partly realistic, often dark figures look as if they had been broken apart and reassembled, like fragments of a bronze sculpture. Self-taught, he processes current events as well as personal experiences and states of mind in his work.STF Moscato Born in 1976, Marseille artist Stéphane Moscato, aka STF, is a child of punk. For many years, he has been peeling entire layers of posters off the walls of his city and mounting them onto canvas in his studio. Using stencils and spray paint, he creates unique works guided by these street fragments, through which a social and political stance subtly shines.

A piece of cardboard, a cutter, a spray can: that is all it takes to put an image on a wall in seconds, again and again. This simplicity has made the stencil one of the most important tools of art in public space.Paving the Way for Street ArtArtworks created with stencils have decisively shaped the visual language of street art and urban contemporary art. Starting with Blek le Rat, who began working with stencils in Paris in the early 1980s, the stencil paved the way for art in public space as we know it today.One Technique, Many SignaturesThe stencil makes it possible to repeat a motif quickly, precisely and as often as desired, on the street as well as in the studio. The five positions in this exhibition show how differently this technique can be used: from ironic pop culture references and photographically inspired urban portraits to socially critical paste-ups, sculpturally intertwined ribbons and nostalgic family scenes. The artists live and work in the Netherlands, France and Austria, Germany, the UK and the USA.FAKE Amsterdam-based artist FAKE has been active on the streets since 2005 and is considered one of the best-known stencil artists in the Netherlands. His cleanly cut, vividly coloured works draw on icons of everyday life and pop culture, adding a twist of humour and irony. One of his best-known works, "FAKE Love", tells of how much love can hurt.Jana & JS The Austrian-French duo has been painting together since 2006 and is known for multicoloured stencil works based on their own photographs. Jana & JS combine portraits with urban landscapes and architecture, deliberately choosing old materials that speak of the passage of time. After years in Madrid and Paris, they now live in Salzburg.kurznachzehn German-born artist kurznachzehn discovered her technique in 2011 through nostalgic family photos from the 1950s. She first sprays her multi-layered stencils onto paper and then pastes them up in the urban landscape. Since 2016, she has lived in San Diego, California, where her work adorns numerous façades.L.E.T. The initials stand for "Les Enfants Terribles". The French-born artist has been active on the street since 1992 and has shaped the cityscape of his adopted hometown, Düsseldorf, making him one of the street artists of the very first hour. He pairs his mostly black-and-white figures with charmingly provocative messages that expose the shortcomings of our consumer and fun-driven society with a wink.Otto Schade Born in Chile, the artist also known as "Osch" began his career as an architect and urban sculptor. He has lived in London since 2006, where his architectural understanding of space led him to develop his distinctive "ribbon" style. The intertwining bands shape his subjects and give them an almost sculptural presence."STENCILS ONLY"Exhibition 15 May – 26 June 2020 Tuesday – Friday, 2 – 7 pmDue to current circumstances, there will be no opening reception for this exhibition. However, the gallery is open during regular hours, and we look forward to your visit. If you would like to receive the exhibition catalogue (PDF), please send us an email.Pretty Portal Brunnenstraße 12 40223 Düsseldorf