SwoonPioneer Works

Redhook, Brooklyn

SwoonGowanus, Brooklyn

SwoonFort Greene, Brooklyn

First Impressions…

• Kendell: I like the way the image blends in with the background.

• Moh: Makes me feel warm inside. The way She uses the wheat pasting is so articulate and detailed.

• Yeva: I need to see more images…• Tenzin: I wouldn’t expect paper to make art like

this….It’s cut in different shapes and forms, creating facial details and stuff. It’s interesting and fascinating....also the locations.

Wheat pasteNewsprintLinoleumPaper CutsCollage

First Impressions…• Nila: It’s realistic. • Promia: It’s surreal, and it combines abstraction

with realism. It’s all expressed with less definition in the design.

• Michael: Her artwork captures reality….sometimees you may see these things,

• Artan: Brooklyn based, she makes sketchy art with lots of lines.

• Katelyn: It’s really detailed art, that captures reality.• Julio: Some of her artwork is illegal…some is not.

• Sakin: It’s very 2D how it’s done.

Wheat pasteNewsprintLinoleumPaper CutsCollage

Follow her on Insta… @swoonhq

Swoon is a NYC based artist who has caught the eye of the world with her beautiful wheatpaste prints and cutout paper depictions of everyday street scenes. Her life-size pieces, often of her friends, family and neighbors, interact with their urban environment so well it often seems the city streets would not be complete without them.

Switchback Sisters2008

Swoon (1977- )

“When I first began to do street work, part of my impulse had to do with those things that are meant to disappear and the ability to just let things go. I use recycled newsprint that I order in 90-pound rolls. It’s extremely thin and is one of my favorite papers to use because of the way it decays. It yellows. It cracks. It has this whole life cycle that I really like.”�

Guerrero2006

Family Feeding Pigeons2006

Family Feeding Pigeons(or what’s left of it)

2006

Swoon“At first I was so wound up about being a woman in a man's field that I didn't want to talk about it at all. I was making art out on the street, and no one knew I was a woman for at least a year, maybe three.”

Buenos Aires, 2007

Family Feeding Pigeons (sculpture)2006

Zaharaprint on wood

2010

Linoleum cut for Zahara

Linoleum cuts for Nee Nee in Braddock

Thalassa

Thalassa installation at the New Orleans Museum of Art

“junk-sculpture, jellyfish goddess”

Swoon (1977- )Swoon (American, b.1977) is a notable Street artist, who has contributed to the STREET ART movement. She was born in New London, CT, and raised in Daytona Beach, FL. The artist’s real name is Caledonia Dance Curry. In 1997, Swoon moved to New York, where she obtained a BA in Fine Arts from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY.

“Street art had this kind of explosion recently. It’s a healthy practice of a healthy city to have people making things and putting them outside and being a part of the visual creation of their neighborhoods.”

2014 interview with NYTimes

“I always really struggled with how to be who I was as an artist…My relationship with image making is that sometimes the only way to move through something is to make work on the subject.”

Swoon (Describe this artist as a PERSON)Katelyn: She’s really into her art for the art. Not anything else. She’s into it for her passion.

Sakin: She follows her heart and believes in herself.

Sarah: She takes her time, unlike other artists who rush. She wants it to be perfect.

Ingrid: She wants her viewers to connect socially/emotionally.

Prince: “Drawing is a way of her connecting ideas and figuring out the unknown” She considers what she sees and what it may mean.

.

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Swoon (Describe this artist as a PERSON)Levy: She has a similar intent to other street artists, to get her work out there.

Benz: Some of her work covers up other street artists’ work.

Marco: She puts up the work and just lets them do their thing. If they break apart, that’s alright, she just puts them somewhere else.

Dakota: She’s dedicated to her work and doing it for the love of it. Just to share it with people and bring people together.

Azalea: She’s humble. She doesn’t want to be out there like a celebrity.

Adiba: Seems like she wants to capture beautiful moments for others to enjoy.

.

Swoon’s upbringing was complicated at times, as her mother dealt with alcoholism and drug addiction. Despite her mom’s explanation that she “just liked getting high” Swoon learned as an adult that this addiction (and most addiction) stems from pain and unresolved trauma. Swoon worked hard to help her mom. She states:

“Because this particular addict was my mother, I had the incentive to [find] the human being behind the nightmare, of letting go of the disgust and blame, and seeing an incredibly wounded person in need of our support. This is much harder to do when the person is a stranger on the street, or in the prison system.”

Swoon’s mother passed away in 2013 from lung cancer. Though her memory continues to shape Swoon’s political views on mental health care.

Swoon

Dawn and Gemma

2014

Swoon

Nee Nee in Braddock

2014

New Haven, CT.

Swoon

Nee Nee in Braddock

2014

Zahara (various prints)

Mixed Media:Wood, fabric,Cardboard, paper

Zahara (various prints, various sites)

Miss Rockaway Armada!

I lived briefly on a sailboat on the Amstel River in the Netherlands, and something about that felt very right. I saw the Viking ships in Norway and wondered, “Why in all of the art museums I have been to, have I not seen a form as beautiful, and as imbued with force as this single wooden ship?”

Slowly ideas of boats started to creep into my work. There followed a few years of talking about it, making little sketches and proposals until finally, one day, in a kind of a meeting of the minds with my friend Harrison (who I have worked with on boats for four years now), the plan to create the Miss Rockaway Armada emerged.

Miss Rockaway Armada!Mississippi River 2006-2007

Miss Rockaway Armada! Hudson River2008

Miss Rockaway Armada!

2009Slovenia Venice

Swoon at the Brooklyn Museum…2014

Swoon at the Brooklyn Museum…2014Brooklyn-based artist

Swoon celebrates everyday people and explores social and environmental issues with her signature paper portraits and figurative installations. She is best known for her large, intricately-cut prints wheat pasted to industrial buildings in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Swoon at the Brooklyn Museum…2014

For this exhibition, Swoon creates a site-specific installation in our rotunda gallery, transforming it into a fantastic landscape centering on a monumental sculptural tree with a constructed environment at its base, including sculpted boats and rafts, figurative prints and drawings, and cut paper foliage.

Why would an artist choose to work across all these different

mediums? Promia: Some types of artwork are best suited for specific areas or surfaces.

Sarah: She wants to try different things out to get a feel for what she’s best at.

Artan: Maybe she’s doing that to attract different audiences? (“Demographics”)

Ingrid: ARTAN STOLE MY IDEA. I HATE HIM.

Prince: This could be a time-waster, trying out so many things.

Adrianna: It could be tricky for other people deciding what she “is.”

Danisa: This could affect her “brand” The scratchy lines are obviously hers…but...

Promia: People COULD try to copy her style (biters)

Why would an artist choose to work across all these different

mediums? Mattia: So they don’t get bored.

Jaylieen: So there’s variety in what her viewers can see…there’s more things to enjoy about her work.

Azalea: TOTES AGREE.

Christian: More exposure. Like the wHeat pastes, everyone sees it…and in the museum, all the “proper” people see it.

So ”Intellectual-Kendell” can see it.

Levy: Outside, everyone sees it, but in the museum the “intelligensia” gets to see it.

Moh: Certain nieghborhoods are known for different street art...but in museums, there’s always good art.

Kristen: This “Good art” isn’t always cute or pretty or whatever, but people find it “worthy” to be there.

Final thoughts on Swoon? Tenzin: She’s very creative. She builds a lot of things, like art, and boats. Benz: I love that she built boats for other people and was like the ‘admiral’ of these boats.Gyaban: I like that she just runs with her ideas, so strong willed, so focused. And she succeeds with what she tries to do. Tatiana: Her work is really imaginative, there’s all these details in it that you don’t notice. Daymoni: Her pieces seem really “free” and she puts everything where it is for a reason…it may look random, but it’s precise. ...

Final thoughts on Swoon? Danisa: I like her more as a person than as an artist.I’m not a fan of her drawings, they’re a bit boring to me even though there’s a lot going on. There’s not much behind her images.Ingrid: Like she said with “The Secret” bringing people together. I feel like she’s trying to share meaning with people. Adrianna: I like her work. I think what she’s doing is making a good name for street artists. It’s not just bubble letters or throw ups or tags. Michael: I LOVE her style, the skechiness of it. ALSO, she puts EMOTION into it….taking her personal life and putting it into her work. ....

BTM CrewBig Time Mafia / Bout That Money / Big Time Mobb / Broadening The

Movement

Crewmember: Katsu

“My fake videos were all about the resourcefulness of graffiti writers. Graffiti writers make their tools, they make their stickers and pens and create everything from scratch. I thought, “Why not put my After Effects skills to use?”

Video located at: http://viralart.vandalog.com/read/chapter/an-interview-with-katsu/

BTM CrewBig Time Mafia / Bout That Money / Big Time Mobb / Broadening The

Movement

Crewmember: Katsu

Gyaban: I thought he was OG. I thought it was real.Kendell: um…I....am hungry.Moh: I’m disappointed that he’s fake. All other artists are real.....Tenzin: He’s creative in making these videosDaymoni: I’m somewhat disappointed...I wanted to know why but it’s not real....

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Video located at: http://viralart.vandalog.com/read/chapter/an-interview-with-katsu/

BTM CrewBig Time Mafia / Bout That Money / Big Time Mobb / Broadening The

Movement

Crewmember: Katsu

Katelyn: I was just so shocked that he would have the courage to do this.Danisa: I saw the black rectangle, but I thought it was there to cover the spray paint logo.

Conservation / restoration

Video located at: http://viralart.vandalog.com/read/chapter/an-interview-with-katsu/

BTM CrewBig Time Mafia / Bout That Money / Big Time Mobb / Broadening The

Movement

Crewmember: KatsuKatsu’s “Single Stroke Skull” began in the late 1990s

BTM CrewBig Time Mafia / Bout That Money / Big Time Mobb / Broadening The

Movement

Crewmember: HITOP

Crewmember: BLAKE Crewmember: GustoCrewmember: Malvo

Also…ApathyKerseAnd MORE!

Location Survey

Take out a sheet of paper and write…•Your Name

•Your Borough•Your Neighborhood

(name the cross streets if you don’t know the precise Nabe-Name)

MA

NH

ATT

AN

Washington Heights:BenzionLevyJennifer R.

Harlem: JustinHerbert

Morningside Heights:DelaniAdibaDakota

Upper WestTatianaKellyahJaylieen

UPPER East SideDaymoni

BRONXWakefield: Gyaban

West Farms:Jaylin

WoodsideVraj

JamaicaAzalea

Queens VillageKristen

RosedaleChristian

East ElmhurstNila

Caroll GardensMattia

BushwickTenzin

MohamedEast New York

MarcoWilliamsburg

CanarsieKendellAzalea

Coney IslandYeva

MA

NH

ATT

AN

.InwoodDanisa.Morningside HeightsArtan

HarlemMariama

Hells’ KitchenSakin

ChelseaCass.

Spanish HarlemSarah?

BRONX

ParkchesterPromia

Pelham Bay ParkAdrianna

AllertonNita

MorrisaniaAbdul

Bedford ParkKatelyn

Mt. EdenPrince

Claremont VillageDestiny

Long Island CityJulio

AstoriaM-Train

East ElmhurstIngrid

…....

Elmhurst/Jackson HeightsNoume

CoronaTheresa

Sunset ParkMarco

Ditmas ParkCass

…

….…

Lady Pink (5pointz, Queens… 2006)Lady Liberty is George Bush’s Whore

Lady Pink

(Sandra Fabara)

Women Breeding Soldiers

Mujeres Criando Soldados

2004

First Impressions

of….Lady Pink

(Sandra Fabara)

• Katelyn: It would attract your attention if you were walking by• Ingrid: Oppression (chain on her neck)• Danisa: There’s breasts that are exposed, the Statue of Liberty crown and

cowboy boots.• Sakin: Her work seems mocking and disrespectful to NYC. • Prince: I don’t think it’s disrespectful….If it was NYC, the woman would be

wearing Tim’s. • Nita: The crown is NYC specific.....• Promia: It’s kind of ironic that the lady is wearing all these things

associated with the south (but also nyc?)• Sarah: Maybe the artist isn’t from NYC? And she’s criticizing new york?• Adrianna: What if she’s just saying America in general????• .

First Impressions

of….Lady Pink

(Sandra Fabara)

• Benz: Chaotic. Like the wavy pink one is colorful and dynamic.• Yeva: Detailed, pink and exotic. It’s all over the place, the woman is

underdressed (exotic/erotic)• Jenn: Weird. The second one I like though. There’s brick walls on it, and

flowy and smooth.• Mattia: Cartoony, a pink statue of liberty. • Adiba: It’s bold coloring. The second one reminds me of a parallel world,

like the little girl in the picture has a sassy look. • Marco: There’s a monkey holding her on the chain, it represents

something but I don’t know what.• Kendell: The food she’s holding the first one, like she’s serving

someone. And in the second one, you see a lot of different things to focus in on.

Lady Pink (5pointz, Queens… 2006)Lady Liberty is George Bush’s Whore

Lady Pink

(Sandra Fabara)

Women Breeding Soldiers

Mujeres Criando Soldados

2004

Installation view

Women Breeding Soldiers Mujeres Criando Soldados 2004

Lady Pink (Sandra Fabara)

Lady Pink was born in in 1964 Ecuador, but raised in NYC. In 1979 she started writing graffiti and soon was well known as the only female capable of competing with the boys in the graffiti subculture. Pink painted subway trains from the years 1979-1985. She has been featured in documentaries such as "Wild Style,” and is often credited as making significant contributions to graffiti and hip-hop subculture.

From the late 1970s and 1980s

The Death of Graffiti

1982

Oil on Canvas

The Death of Graffiti

1982

Oil on Canvas

Lady Pink (Sandra Fabara)

While still in high school she was already exhibiting paintings in art galleries, and these days she is represented by Woodward Gallery on (Eldridge and Delancy) . As a leading participant in the rise of graffiti-based art, Lady Pink's canvases have entered important art collections such as those of the Whitney Museum, the Metropolitan, the Brooklyn Museum, El Museo del Barrio and several international museums too.

Lady Pink (Sandra Fabara)While still in high school she was already exhibiting paintings in art galleries, and these days she is represented by Woodward Gallery on (Eldridge and Delancy) . As a leading participant in the rise of graffiti-based art, Lady Pink's canvases have entered important art collections such as those of the Whitney Museum, the Metropolitan, the Brooklyn Museum and several international museums too.

….."I chose the name Pink because it's a feminine name and it had to be known that I was a girl, but also because of the way the letters look."

When boys would go out to do graffiti after school, Fabara was not invited but went anyway. "I picked up a very tough street persona, like a front, that had an extremely big mouth," she says. "I was a feminist without ever having heard the word.”

Source: Chicago Tribune

Brick Woman2005Giclee Print

Lady Pink Mural At Welling Court, Lady of the Leaf in Astoria Queens, 2011

Installation in Progress at Welling Court, Lady of the Leaf

in Astoria Queens, 2011

Also in this image: Cycle and Free 5

Lady Pink (Sandra Fabara)

“It's difficult for a woman to be involved with Graffiti. There is an attitude that women are too weak and also a liability, or the attitude

that they just can't do it. I was 15 at the time and I didn't want to hear that. As a woman in Graffiti you might as well throw your reputation

in the dirt. Everyone thinks you sleep around with the guys . I needed to hold my head up and prove that I could do it for other

women...”

Art Historical references…

Lady PinkThe Venus and the Penis1997Spray paint on canvas

The Venus of Willendorf is one of the earliest images of the body made by humankind. It stands just over 4 ½ inches high and was carved about 25,000 years ago. It was discovered on the banks of the Danube River, in Austria, and it was most likely made by hunter-gatherers who lived in the area.

Art Historical references…

Very little is known about its origin, method of creation, or cultural significance; however, it is one of numerous Venus figurines or representations of female figures surviving from the Paleolithic period.

Lady PinkThe Venus and the Penis1997Spray paint on canvas

Art Historical references…

Azalea: There’s a common trend of larger, thicker women. Jen R.: This is against social norms of the present Yeva: in both this image and the Lady Liberty image, both women are pink. Referring to her name?Christian: ALRIGHT. Vegetables grow on plants…and they’re essential to life....in this case, penises are growing, so they’re essential to women for breeding. Daymoni: Maybe it’s more about the artist competing with men in the art world…..does that really go with what she believes in??

Gyaban: Maybe this shows how as a woman she’s surrounded by all these dude, but she’s not actually having anything to do with them.

Lady PinkThe Venus and the Penis1997Spray paint on canvas

Lady Pink (Sandra Fabara)Similar to M.C. Escher…

OTHER…Art Historical references…

Art Historical references…

Her Website…

ladypinknyc.com

Final comments/questions on Lady Pink…Kendell : She’s cool because she’s persistent. She went out of her way to do what she likes. A lot of people these days don’t even go out of their way to do things they like. Dakota: I like her as an artist. She’s bold with what she’s trying to say, and expresses it well. I like how she uses the color pink as her “tag” it’s identifiable as hers, it’s like a “trend.”Vraj: She’s inspired other women to do graffiti.Delani: Her art is nice or whatever, but I don’t think she’s inspired anyone. Plus, there’s other women who do this.Levy: I like her, but Swoon is much more compelling.

Daymoni: What are the people she used to write graffiti with doing now? Azalea: Does she have kids? If she does, would she allow her kids to do graffiti??

Tenzin: Were her parents supportive of this?Adiba: What struggles has she gone through in her lifetime. What do people think of her now because of that? Delani: Is there any artwork she regrets making?Kellyah: What inspired her to make this?? Being a female in a “man’s field.” Moh: Do you prefer your work in the street or a museum?

Final comments/questions on Lady Pink…Danisa:She’s my fave.Adrianna: She’s an inspiration, she shows that anything is possible. Just because someone tells you “no!” doesn’t mean you can’t do it…especially for younger artists who wanna make it.

Artan: Does her Ecuadorian roots relate toher work at all?

Danisa: Why does she use the female body so much in her work? It’s a common theme for other artists, but why?Ingrid: Does this contradict the point of her work? Promia: Her using the female form in her work emphasizes the point of body-positive imagery. Adrianna: Yeah. The female body is sexualized by others, and the minute someone accepts their body, it’s not socially acccepted. It shows fertility, motherhood, womanhood....if YOU sexualize women, you’ll probably do that with her work, but if not, you’ll feel empowered by it.

.

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What does she seem like as a person?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_phSyiGAyjc

• Christian: Feminist. A peson who supports equal rights for women• Marco: She’s WAY older than I imagined. • Kristen: She’s serious about what she does. It’s for fun, but not just that…she

does it for a greater purpose. • Tatiana: She’s very blunt and candid and so is her art. • Gio: Agrees with Tatiana. Her art is bold and her statements are too, in what

she’s pushing for.• Kendell: Agree with Gio too….I can see in how she does her makeup as well,

there’s bold eye shadow on this.• Delani: Her make up looks like a four-year old did this.• Daymoni: We have an image of what we think she would look like….• Moh: Agree with Daymoni....it shouldn’t matter what she looks like, it’s what

she MAKES. Maybe this is why most artists keep their identity a secret, so people just look at that.

2:36- 4:50

What does she seem like as a person?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_phSyiGAyjc

• Danisa: She doesn’t wanna be objectified. • Sarah: She’s outgoing, she doesn’t care what others think and she

saying the truth for herself. • Prince: Her art shows confidence in women, and tells people to

see women in a different light…and she doesn’t want women to be used as items...(Ingrid: ...or Toys)

• Sakin: …She;s serious about this. She doesn’t want to be looked at as a joke. She makes sure people know she’s female and that she’s one of them.

• Ingrid: She’s one of them and is even BETTER than them. At the beginning, she was just “tagging” along, but she’s more than that.

• .• .

2:36- 4:50

Montreal Writers• so I made a list of Montreal writers because you guys already have seen the stuff from kuma, lush,

typoe and those other hyped writers, and my post with street artists wasn't even funny.• ZEK TFB, KG, 156, TFO, K6A, A'shop (this picture is a straight up lineup of kickass montreal legends,

except for indie whom I don't give half a shit about) Zek was the first writer in Montreal to approach murals in a professional way

• stare NME, KG (https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQS5-FjKLUyIHh4JGGI-96hpnDWKVz2XYeE1kBSZTsw_0iQJlgj)

• Bacer SVC In the early 2000s that guy and case fucking smashed Montreal's downtown with rolldowns, SVC and NME are the reason why rollers are so popular in this city.

• sake BTM Can't talk about montreal without mentionning him, nothing too impressive stylewise but he's been up and he stays up.

• Castro VC known for gigantic straights in quantity with a very controversial name, dude made the newspapers with scan in the early 2000s because of how many metro stations they were destroying

• scan TFB Same kind of bombing game as sake (altough he hasn't been very active illegaly this year), but with a lot more style and pieces.

• Serak k6a one of the illest throws and hand in the city as well as the foundator of k6a, which is probably the illest mural/rapper collective in the city

TRAP

@Tats Cru on Twitter

Thanks Gyaban!

TATS CRU, Inc. is a group of Bronx-based graffiti artists turned professional muralists. Their work can be found at the “Wall of Fame” on 106th and Park

Some current members of TATS CRU are Bio, BG 183, Nicer, HOW and NOSM.