Richard Estes, The L Train, 2009

From Wikipedia

Richard Estes is an American artist, best known for his photorealist paintings. The paintings generally consist of reflective, clean, and inanimate city and geometric landscapes. He is regarded as one of the founders of the international photo-realist movement of the late 1960s, with such painters as Ralph Goings, Chuck Close, and Duane Hanson. Author Graham Thompson wrote, “One demonstration of the way photography became assimilated into the art world is the success of photorealist painting in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is also called super-realism or hyper-realism and painters like Richard Estes, Denis Peterson, Audrey Flack, and Chuck Close often worked from photographic stills to create paintings that appeared to be photographs.”

Richard Estes at Marlborough Gallery

Richard Estes on Artnet

It’s my pleasure to introduce you to the work of artist/designer Christopher Pace. Like other artists I’ve spotlighted in this feature, Chris makes portraits of people on the subway. His process, though, is unlike that of anyone I’ve interviewed before. Chris’ portraits are digital, made pixel by pixel on his phone in a video game-esque style.

Here’s more about the artist in his own words:

Where are you from? How long have you been in New York?

I am originally from New York the state, but have been in NYC for the past 15 years. Moved out here for school and stuck around.

Why do you do portraits of people on the subway?

One of my favorite classes when I was a student was location drawing, it was always interesting (and pretty challenging) to draw an environment that was alive, and had little if any idea you were there. Drawing people on the subway is an extension of that. As for choosing who I draw a portrait of, sometimes a person will just sit down and I will think “wow, I need to draw that guy/girl”. It could be anything, nice clothing, interesting face, hideous hairstyle, not too much rhyme or reason there.

What is your process like? How long does each piece take you?

Pixel portraits are kind of new for me, so I am still feeling this part out. They’re all done on my phone while on the train, using a program called TinyPixels (unsolicited plug, it’s actually a really well-done app). I start with a quick sketch using some ugly color on white, and create a few swatches of any of the standout colors in the peoples’ outfits or skin tones, stuff I might otherwise forget. This part is usually really rough, especially in pixels; only I know what the different pieces are. Then I slowly work back into it laying in color and shading. The ads or maps are usually the very last piece, they’re usually whatever happens to be around me when I get to that part. I actually have as much fun with the tiny ads as the whole rest of the piece.

Because I do them pretty much only on the train (about 30 min back and forth) and sometimes I have to focus more on holding a rail or eating a bagel, a piece can take me upwards of a month and a half.

Why do you use pixelation in your work?

I grew up with Nintendo and SNES, so the small sprite thing resonates with me, but I was always very struck by the pixel work in Roberta Williams and Lucas Arts adventure games. They were great examples of illustrators given the restrictions of VGA graphics and they were able to create amazing pieces within them. I’d say that these pieces are in homage to them, but it really wasn’t so conscious a decision.

What is your art/design background?

I went to art school, and have a degree in interactive media, but have always had a huge interest in traditional design and illustration, so I love to explore where those places can overlap. I recently started an interactive design shop called Charming Robot with a friend of mine. Outside of all that, my own illustration happens in my free time, wherever I can grab it. Like on the train.

Visit Chris’ tumblr page for more of his wonderful drawings!

This is the amazing sight that I saw on my way home for the holidays while waiting for the Canarsie-bound L train.

Merry Christmas!

In case you couldn’t make it out to Miami, here is a walkthrough of the entire Underbelly show!

Aerialist Seanna Sharpe 285 Feet Over The Williamsburg Bridge from Ronen V on Vimeo.

This past summer, aerialist Seanna Sharpe performed and acrobatics show illegally on the Willamsburg Bridge, swinging high above the JMZ line for passers by. Check out this video about the whole shebang!

I found this awesome video piece by Leandro Erlich on the showroom floor at Art Basel. The video is a loop of views outside subway car windows from all over the world. Each clip is stitched together to look like one seamless trip. Even cooler is that the LCD TV is made to look like the window of a subway car, completing the experience.

Check out Leandro’s official site.

Poster Boy's latest.

Handmade sticker on the F line.

BAMN and CASH4 hit a huge wall off the J train.

Truth in advertising.

Illustration by Subway Art Blog veteran Jeanne Verdoux

Have you spotted some Occupy Wall Street subway art? Please share!

The New York Times recently published an article about an upsurge in graffiti in cities across the country. I have kept a close eye on the graffiti of the J train for the past few years and I agree that the amount of graffiti in my area has increased, but I can’t disagree more with them about the cause of this increase.

The officials interviewed in the piece come to the conclusion that the cause for the upsurge is “a tough economy.” As someone who has had a window into the secret world of graffiti for a good while, I feel I am coming from a strong position to be making these observations. Contrary to the beliefs of the interviewees, I believe that it has little to do with the economy and everything to do with the internet and the wider acceptance of graffiti as an art form.

Is this graffiti's place in art history?

Graffiti exploded in New York in the early 1970s. Kids from every race and economic background were writing their names on walls and subway cars across the entire city. The vast majority of the early graffiti writers ranged in age from about twelve to eighteen; that would put them in their mid 50s today. Like Rock & Roll before it, graffiti has become more widely accepted by society because the generation that grew up with it is now adult. Even though not all of them are still bombing, their kids are growing up in households that are more accepting of this phenomenon.

Even art institutions are starting accept graffiti onto their walls. The recent “Art in the Streets” exhibition at MOCA is the first of its kind—a major museum survey of graffiti and street art. This is a huge jump towards accepting graffiti into the history books as a modern art movement and yet another reason graffiti is on the rise.

Another contributing factor to this upsurge is the Internet. The widening availability and affordability of digital cameras hasn’t hurt either. Don’t get me wrong: graffiti has been fairly well-documented since the early days, but never has it been so public or available. When I first started paying attention to graffiti, I was barely able to understand any of it and very few names stuck with me. This was the case only until I started browsing through Luna Park’s flickr photostream and eventually posting my own photos for the community to educate me on. With the growing popularity of photography sites like flickr, an extremely transient art form has suddenly become more permanent. Graffiti pieces can now live on long after they get buffed or dissed or weathered.

Take subway artist Jilly Ballistic for example. She has said her stickers could last as little as a couple hours and as much as a few days if she is lucky. What’s the point? Ballistic posts all her work to flickr where it can live long after it gets torn down by the MTA. Jilly is a new breed of artist that relies on the internet to get her work out there.

The same applies for graffiti writers as well. While many of them do not post photos to flickr themselves, they do pay attention to the site to look at photos of their work posted by other users. This gives writers new incentives that didn’t exist a short time ago.

I am convinced that graffiti’s association with economic downturn can be added to the long list of stereotypes about this art form. There is more at work here than just high unemployment and slashed maintenance budgets. If The Times widened its scope, this article might have been very different. it would be plain to see that graffiti is on the rise because Graffiti is on the rise.

~

To demonstrate how much graffiti has popped up over the past several months, lets look at this one wall that is viewable from the J train:

The first time I flicked the wall in December 2010, SHIFT and EGGYOLK had throw-ups on it.

By the end of December, I was surprised when OVERUNDER and CASH4 roller pieces appeared on the top of the wall.

A couple months later, VIL and BAK had dissed the SHIFT piece—these guys have serious beef.

The wall had stayed the same until June of this year when BOWS and RAST painted this huge, colorful mural.

Most recently, SYKE has covered up RAST. It’s unclear if this was due to beef between the writers. My guess is no, because SYKE got a shout on the top left of the mural.

All photos by Jowy, through the windows of the JMZ.

I thought this was funny considering I play Pokémon on my commute and imagine what people are thinking also. Chances are that you do not. I apologize for wasting your time.

via loldwell.com