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 graphics
As 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
