Bestranged

FAKE, born on May 15, 1980, in the Netherlands, lives and works in Amsterdam. Growing up in a gray and at times dreary environment, he felt an early urge to bring a smile to other people’s faces through irony, humor, and, above all, color. As a teenager, he discovered spray paint through graffiti and street art; he quickly discovered the art of stenciling and, starting around 2005, began specializing professionally in hand-cut, multi-layered stencils. Self-taught, he first designs his motifs on the computer before painstakingly transforming them into stencils by hand—hence FAKE’s very clean and precise visual style. His colorful works, which often feature icons of everyday pop culture, are provocative, infused with a healthy dose of humor and a sharp, ironic twist. FAKE tells stories and puts his finger on controversial topics.FAKE is considered a pioneer of stencil art: Since his youth, stencils and spray paint have been his artistic tools of choice. Through his work, he continually responds to current events, leaving his artistic commentary in public spaces. He made his way from the streets into galleries and museums—his murals and street art can now be found in international cities such as New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Los Angeles, and Bangkok.FAKE gained worldwide attention during the COVID-19 pandemic with his mural “Super Nurse,” a tribute to healthcare workers—now part of the permanent collection at the STRAAT Museum in Amsterdam. His canvas works and editions have been exhibited internationally, including in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, and Iran, and are included in collections such as that of Rabobank.

Guy Denning was born in North Somerset in 1965. Even as a child, he was obsessed with the visual arts, and at the age of eleven he painted his first oil paintings, inspired by old, dusty paintings that a relative had given him. In the 1980s, his applications to study fine arts were rejected, but this did not deter him from pursuing his passion. He studied art history, continued to paint, and learned painting techniques from various older artists in the West of England. In 1992, he exhibited throughout the United Kingdom, followed in 2007 by exhibitions in the United States, Germany, Italy, and France. His works have been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions and are part of various public collections, including those of the Department of Political Science at the University of Bristol, the Department of Political Science at the University of Galway, and the MAGI’900 Museum of Contemporary Art in Bologna.Denning's works combine a traditional painting style with contemporary, punk-inspired text incorporated as collages and stencils. His visual language and aesthetic, blended with the political narrative that runs through his work, have earned Denning a loyal following among art collectors and urban art enthusiasts.„Urban art is not a new phenomenon. People have been declaring their presence, their humour, their fears and their anger in the streets for as long as there have been streets for it to be seen in. It’s the most democratic form of art; it’s a medium that is available to any that feel the need to use it. With the acceptance and celebration of graffiti culture in the twentieth century it has come to a point where it is now sited behind the streets, in fashionable galleries. Yes, fashions change, but don’t ever think that the graffiti will fade away. That particular writing has always been on the wall.“ – Guy Denning

Jana & Js are a well-established duo: Jana, from Austria, and JS, from France, have been collaborating since 2006 to develop a visual language that is equally at home in public spaces and exhibition halls. Inspired by the city and its architecture as it changes over time, as well as by its residents and observers, they spray-paint urban landscapes, architectural details, and portraits in a play of reflections and transparencies.In their images, they explore the human condition within the urban environment: Against backdrops of densely packed architectural landscapes, they depict individuals who appear at once lost and isolated, yet also searching, yearning, and hopeful. At its core, Jana & Js’ work focuses on transience, the physical dimension of time, and the emotional relationship city dwellers have with their ever-changing urban surroundings.They work using a multi-layered stencil technique in the Artiste-Ouvrier style—developed collaboratively within the WCA (Working Class Artists) collective—using exclusively their own photographs as templates. In addition to painting, the artist couple also creates sculptures from wood and metal: complex, interlocking facade elements onto which they paint house fronts reminiscent of honeycombs.Jana was born in Salzburg in 1985, and JS in Paris in 1981. After spending many years in Madrid and Paris, Jana & JS now live and work in Salzburg. Their works have been exhibited in public spaces and at the Urban Nation Museum in Berlin, among other places.

With luminous colours, clear compositions and a deliberately female perspective, Natalia Rak brings fresh energy to urban art, a movement whose global presence keeps growing. Her paintings tell stories and draw viewers in with an almost magical intensity.From Canvas to FaçadeNatalia Rak was born in Poland in 1986. As a child she already wanted to paint, and she experimented with drawing, screen printing, graphic design, painting and sculpture. At the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź she studied fine art with a focus on graphic design and illustration, graduating in 2012. Her first large-format works, on canvas, date from 2011. Since then she has painted murals on commission around the world, on brick, concrete and façades several storeys high.Stories Between Dream and RealityAt the heart of her work is the threshold between reality and dream. Her figures inhabit surreal scenes that draw on Polish folklore and the tradition of the fairy tale. Influences from Polish painting, including Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz and Jacek Malczewski, as well as from comics and illustration, also run through her work.Colour heightens the power of these stories: luminous red meets turquoise, orange meets deep green and violet. Much of the intensity comes from oil paint, which she often combines with acrylic. Her classical training shows in the assurance with which she renders bodies, fabrics and light. Her figures are stylised, yet deeply realistic.Murals and FestivalsNatalia Rak has been invited to many renowned urban art festivals, including the Walk & Talk Festival on the Azores, the No Name Festival in France, the STROKE Art Fair and Art Whino.In 2013, at the Folk on the Street festival in Białystok, she painted The Legend of Giants. It shows a girl, a giant, caring for a tree that grows directly in front of the wall. The mural draws on a local legend: giants first destroy the world around them, then learn to protect nature. She completed the work in seven days. The same year she was the only woman and the youngest artist at the Richmond Mural Project in the United States.Art magazines named The Legend of Giants one of the five best urban artworks of 2013, alongside works by Banksy and JR. Hi-Fructose highlighted the same year that her style and technical skill are equally convincing on canvas and on walls.AwardsIn 2013 she won the Art Battle in New York, a competition in which artists paint live in front of an audience.Exhibitions with Pretty PortalIn 2014 Pretty Portal presented her exhibition Through the Looking Glass, which is exemplary of her visual language: a figure steps into another world, like Alice. In 2016 she took part in the group exhibition Lovely People alongside Pixelpancho and Sokar Uno. In 2021 she participated in the group exhibition Bestranged.In 2024 Pretty Portal organised and curated the project Kultur meets Euro in Düsseldorf, in which Natalia Rak took part.