I know it’s a big claim but C215 is possibly one of the worlds greatest stencil artists, well for the moment anyway. He has a distinctly unique stencil style. C215 has been putting his work up on the walls of New Dheli, India. Like a lot of artists currently, C215 has been getting around quite a bit. His stencil are gracing more walls in more countries and you can’t help but be impressed about the stamina these guys must have to be out all the time, and when they’re not out, they are getting ready to go out.

The ‘Cat’ above is one of my personal favorites. The detail is unbelievable and truly inspiring. I imagine this would just be a one layer stencil and so the level of detail and precision in cutting such a stencil must be tough.

C215’s work is usually just black and white so its great to see his work with a little colour in. The ‘Bikes’ above, also moves away from C215’s typical style with less detail. But I think less is more in this case and he’s onto another winner.

How solemn does this little donkey look? Another great example of why C215 is possibly the worlds greatest stencil artist.

Links:
C215’s Flickr

Orticanoodles is an inspring stencil artist who consistently impressive with his clean style. Noodles, from Milano Italy, featured at the London Cans Event with a huge stencil at the entrance of the tunnel. He doesn’t confine himself to just stencils which shows how he is such a versitile artist. On the street he gets his wheatpastes up and you’ll often see his brilliant canvases off the street.

The picture above shows one of Ortica’s most famous pieces - ‘Jesus’. I personally think this piece is awesome and I love the typography Ortica has put together for his name. As for the Jesus stencil I feel it to be a breath of fresh air in the overused ‘anti-religion’ graffiti.

Below is a flick of one of Ortica’s pieces at the origianl Cans Festival Event. ‘Freedom’ was one of my favourite pieces there and deserves a special mention. The colours are great here and the complexity of the total design leaves you speechless when you see it in person.

To sum up, I think and I hope you now do to, Orticanoodles is incredible talent with a spray can. I can’t wait to see what he does next and wait with bated breath.

SNUB23 is a name that rings with jealousy in the street art world: as an artist you probably wish you had his talent, if your not an artist, you probably just want a piece of his artwork. I know I fall into both categories. His work is inspirational and is now in a lot of places. SNUB23 was part of the original Cans event with one of the most iconic pieces there. His most recent work has moved away from stencils and concentrated on free hand characters.

We have been lucky to grab an interview with the artist from Brighton to talk about Lamp posts, wood and the latin alphabet. Click the link below to read the article.

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MIMI the clown has won FOTW this week. He’s an awesome stencil artists with deep meaning behind his work and how he started. A lot of his stencil work has the big red nose we all associate with clowns, the common theme throughout his work. MIMI, another Parisian artist, is full of orginality and postive meaning.

Below is a quote from his flickr page, some great words that made be sit up and read closely.

1916: the world is in the middle of a world war; the one meant “to end all wars”.

2008, or 92 years later (i.e. after a second world war and a host of other diCTators and plenty of genocides) human beings are even deeper in the shit. CAPITALISM has completely enslaved them while also destroying the planet’s resources.

” (…) as of now we want to shit in varied colours to deck the zoological gardens of art ”

Tristan Tzara, manifesto of mr antipyrine, 1916

After studying knife-throwing and as a failed tap-dancer I started to take an interest in the world of show business, circus and masks. By going to the SUPERmaRket, by watching TV, by listening to politicians and slaving away every day for a few euros I realised that the show went much further than the stage that used to fascinate me. It was everywhere. Everywhere!! With intelligent giraffes, elephants and poodles!! Zebra tamers, acrobats but above all clowns. A countless number of ClowNs, everywhere! Wooooow, isn’t (real) life magic!

6 and a 1/2 years of internments as well as of exhibitionS in every clinic in France later AND still I go on PAINTING. Painting that is intentionally miLITAnt, offhand and concession free ($$$$).

(turn off your mobile and sit down; open your eyes wide, the show’s started already!)

Paris, France

Links:
MIMI’s Flickr

New fresh work from Broken Crow with Drew Peterson will leave you tripping balls. Those of you who know Broken Crow’s work well will recognise some of his animal stencil’s limbs in the piece.

This piece is title ‘Big Game Hunter’, and is a huge 16×16 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

I’ve just bumbed into this picture on the t’internet and thought I’d share it with you guys. Possibly one of the best pieces of work I’ve seen that interacts with the environment perfectly.

Stencil by Orticanoodles, placement by SNUB23, photo taken by HowAboutNo!.

Links:
Orticanoodles
SNUB23
HowAboutNo!

Pahnl, a British artist, has just made me burst out laughing as I sit glaring at this screen. I’ve never laughed so hard whilst surfing through flickr. The piece of art in question isn’t even on the street but I think it should have a mention anyway:

His street art stencils are very simple but stand out. They show not all stencils need to be overly complicated with lots of layers to look good.

I LOVE FLICKR!

It’s brilliant! So many awesome artists on there and I’m just in awe of their work. This time Stencilab has caught my attention. Stencilab has once again proven that the Brazilians can paint.

The picture below really impressed me. It’s not particularly skillful and as far as I can see there isn’t any great message behind it. I just love the standoff between the dog and the cat. Which one is going to go first?

Check out his flickr for more of his work.

Links:
Stencilab’s Flickr

A major player in the Cans Festival, Alto Contaste has impressed again in Sao Paulo with a ‘Mr and Mrs Bear’. An awesome stencil.

For those of you that don’t know, Cans Festival was an event where Banksy invited a huge range of stencil artists to come and stencil the walls of an abandoned tunnel in Leake Street, London. I visited the Cans Festival site recently, away from the crowds that gathered there during the event. Even though the street installations had been removed, the art on the walls was as vibrant as the day it was sprayed (despite some dirty tags on the pieces). I could quite easily tell you about the work of the big artists that sprayed in Leake Street, but you can look anywhere on the internet to find that info out - what I want to take a closer look at is the smaller artists work.

There was an blank area in the tunnel left for any stencil artists to come and paint and they came in their masses. So much so, you’d be lucky to find a blank area in the tunnel now. Below are some of my favourites. Unfortunately, when I was there I didn’t take pictures of all the work I enjoyed so I think i’ll be taking a return trip to get pictures of some of the other great work.

Who wants sushi?

Lego man.

Dirty mouth Dog - great piece of work, I love the colours on this.

Gordon Brown on the 10 Pence coin. A little jab about the 10p tax rate?

Big thank you for some of the pictures from the Cans Festival flickr group.