Woodward Gallery Project Space

January 18, 2016

Royce Bannon
September – October, 2009
Woodward Gallery Project Space

Royce is an integral member of The Endless Love Crew, a street-art collective and has participated in various live painting events, group and solo exhibits throughout New York and Europe.


Royce Bannon identifies with his monster character and enjoys the interaction between the public and his message. Where monsters commonly evoke scary, menacing or evil reproachfulness, his are neither unnatural or grotesque. Royce shrewdly diverges from what is expected- his monster tags are colorful and emotive, prompting familiarity and accessibility.
Currently, Royce is the art director for Diamond Headz NYC, a new clothing line promoting the life and culture of socially conscious city kids.
January 18, 2016

Michael De Feo
November – December, 2009
Woodward Gallery Project Space

Woodward Gallery Project Space features an extension of Artist Michael De Feo’s acclaimed self-portrait series. Painting on antique maps relate to his urban play between spontaneity and structure, universal patterns in nature and how the world is connected. Most recently, De Feo’s urban portrait installations have been seen in Hong Kong, Buenos Aires, Amsterdam, Miami, and New York.


A professional artist for 17 years, Michael De Feo may be best identified for his ubiquitous flower image. Not limited to the streets as his canvas, his work has also appeared in galleries and museums around the world including the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; MASS MoCA; Museo de Arte, Puerto Rico; The New Museum of Contemporary Art, NY; the A3 Art Fair, Paris; Manifesta 7, Trento/Trentino, Italy; The National Gallery, Bangladesh…
Michael De Feo teaches art at a high school in Fairfield County, Connecticut and lives in New York.


Please visit mdefeo.com to explore more of De Feo’s artwork.
January 18, 2016

stikman
January – February, 2010
Woodward Gallery Project Space

Woodward Gallery presents the stikman: Double Vision installation on the Woodward Gallery Project Space.


The man on a wire image comes from the precarious nature of modern economic reality. The first large scale installation of the image was of the man on a wire that was stretched between two stacks of demolition debris. He was surrounded by a mass of falling figures that were reflective on one side and black on the reverse. There have been many paste-ups installed using the man (made of maps) on a line (wire) between two verticals. The man on the wire was attached to the top of two stacks of shipping pallets. The stacks were erected in an overgrown lot that had been cleared to build luxury condos, but is now abandoned. This installation is homage to that lot at sunrise.


Since the early 1990’s the artist behind these images has been exploring the realm of a mysterious man made out of sticks and pressed into a soft clay tablet. The basic elements of the original stickman continue to reveal themselves in ever changing forms.


Some observers claim to see shamanistic qualities in these feral glyphs and votives. The figures populate the urban environment with their endless repetition and variation, embellishing the ordinary streetscape while revealing the consequences of the physical world’s forces on an idea. They become alive in the natural cycles that grind them out of existence as we observe their deterioration day after day.


stikman is a self taught artist. The first stikman wooden figures began appearing on urban streets as early as 1991 and with a strong, continuous presence ever since. There have been thousands of stickman images placed in US cities and towns as metaphor for the fragility of human life.
January 18, 2016

El Celso
March – May, 2010
Woodward Gallery Project Space

El Celso is featured this Spring on the Woodward Gallery Project Space. Inspired by Matisse’s La Danse, this street artist offers his interpretation of the peasant dance in France. El Celso’s spray enamel and acrylic panels represent liberating motions as ancient as the Sardana dance itself. Within its simplicity, boundless energy is discovered.


The Art Newspaper described El Celso’s most recent show, Art Burn, an International contemporary art expo & immolation, as a “bonfire of the art vanities” and the Miami Herald declared it “a funky Basel sideshow.” The New York Times described his previous exhibition, “Post No Bills,” a street art gallery installation in Long Island City as “audacious.” The Brooklyn Rail describes El Celso as “a street artist with a taste for experimentation, a knack for making things happen and a predilection for drawing colorful naked women.”


The Artist was born in Newark, New Jersey. He lives and works in Manhattan and currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. El Celso’s work is featured in numerous publications, street art books, websites and blogs.
January 18, 2016

FARO
June – August, 2010
Woodward Gallery Project Space

FARO is New York City graffiti/street artist, illustrator, painter & photographer. Born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt, he moved to the USA at age 15 to attend school. While his father worked as a journalist in the United Nations, FARO took off with his friends to skateboard and attend heavy metal shows in the city. Over the last five years New York City has been FARO’s playground. With a distinct Mummy trademark, he has steadily been working his way up the ranks of street art. FARO created the iconic Mummy out of a love for drawing characters. His icon has taken on metaphorical significance; it is a reflection of his Egyptian nationality and takes on a playful appearance, mimicking cross-culture ironies and social issues.
FARO’s steadily gaining exposure both on and off the streets. His work has been shown in prominent gallery exhibitions and was featured in Bombin’ magazine (March, 2008). He has also created artwork for bands such as Ninja Sonik, Japanther and Horse the Band.
January 18, 2016

Kenji Nakayama
September – January, 2010
Woodward Gallery Project Space

Kenji Nakayama is an artist originally from Hokkaido, Japan. He got involved with street art to document his surrounding environment and as a method to capture significant moments in his daily life. His elaborate process involves crafting original, hand-cut multi layer stencils which become one complete image when illuminated with colorful spray enamel. This deeply personal technique serves as a diary from start to finish.


Kenji currently works and resides in Boston, Massachusetts. His hand cut stencil work premiered this past summer at Woodward Gallery’s The Great Outdoors group exhibition in NYC. Nakayama is quickly gaining significant attention for his fresh contribution to urban art and has a project currently touring Australia!
January 18, 2016

Cycle
February – May, 2010
Woodward Gallery Project Space

CYCLE grew up in rural Connecticut very close to nature. He remembers being young and curious about the woods and animals directly out his back window. He knew NYC was a playground full of adventure, but felt a connection with the nature he was familiar with. As a young adult, his curiosity found him climbing not on trees, but through train tunnels and high onto rooftops painting graffiti and zipping full speed through downtown NYC traffic on a skateboard. It didn’t take long before the urban landscape became his new backyard. The greens of a thick tree, spring woods was replaced by the grays of concrete and the damp rusty smell of the subways.


Recently CYCLE yearned for the easier time of his childhood, and the simple fun of the forest in his backyard. With so much of his legendary artwork based around experiences coming from urban living, he decided it was a time for a change- a conscious return to something meaningful. Cycle has begun to incorporate natural elements into his work.

 

I find the juxtaposition between the graffiti of the urban setting and elements of nature such as animals to be a fascinating combination. They seem diametrically opposite of each other, but both have influenced me to be the person I am today. With Forest Spirit, I try to once again to explore this contradiction.

 

CYCLE received a BFA from George Washington University in Washington, DC and a Masters Degree from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, CA. He has been featured in galleries in NYC, Washington, DC, LA, San Francisco and Paris, as well as at the prestigious, Art Basel, Miami fair. He has done exterior murals and installations in New York, San Francisco and Miami. CYCLE has been commissioned by KidRobot, Think Skateboards, and Disney XD for projects. CYCLE’s work has also been profiled in publications: Juxtapoz, Mass Appeal, Complex, and Time Out, New York and is illustrated in numerous books on street art. CYCLE currently lives and works in New York City.
January 18, 2016

UR New York
February – May, 2011
Woodward Gallery Project Space

Mike Baca, aka 2ESAE, and Fernando Romero, aka SKI, are a New York based artist collaborative team known as UR New York. Woodward Gallery presents their original work “Eye of the Beholder” on their Project Space at 132A Eldridge Street, NYC directly across from the Gallery; 24/7.


2ESAE and SKI spent years painting the streets before forming the collective UR New York based on the philosophy of creation from destruction- transforming the illegal graffiti perception into positive urban art. 2ESAE and SKI work collaboratively challenging each other to become better individuals, and more creative talents. Each adds not only a long history of graffiti experience, but also different styles, tools and creative elements to their process. As a result 2ESAE and SKI have developed a trusting bond, which identifies them from singular urban artists.


Eye of the Beholder is a montage of cities across the world and a special presentation for the LES of New York. Their mission statement as a collective is to:

…create an urban industrial feel to our art by combining mediums such as photography, silk-screening, graphic design, and graffiti. Each piece tells the story of our lives, our struggles, and our environments. We want to inspire creativity amongst people specifically the youth so they can pick up where we leave off.


UR New York have exhibited work in U.S. and international venues including the Museum of Modern Art in NYC, VH1, Sundance Film Festival 2007, Israel, Vienna and Australia. Aside from creating and selling art, they give back to the community with motivational speaking at elementary and high schools in the Bronx, Brooklyn and New Jersey. They offer hope to inspire and support children’s artistic dreams. As a collective, they strive to work together creating, showcasing, and educating about the urban art world. Their highly respected unified vision is an exemplary force to be followed.


Exhibition Features
Juxtapoz


UR New York featured on MNN’s Let Them Talk

January 18, 2016

Chris DAZE Ellis
June – September, 2011
Woodward Gallery Project Space

From 1981-1992, I lived in the East Village. That period of time seems short, a mere 10 years or so, but in reality I crammed enough life experiences during that time for several lifetimes. I loved living in the East Village then. It was always crowded, but somehow it was more artist friendly. You could have some crummy job somewhere and still come home and do your art. Things were more homegrown then and people, especially creative people, had to invent their own reality. One thing that I think hasn’t changed is that you can still find some of the best food in the city in the East Village and L.E.S. Years ago I would never cook, because I never had to. I could always find something good and cheap to eat…so much for the myth of the starving artist.


In the early 90’s I moved uptown so that I could be closer to my studio in the Bronx. I still came back downtown whether it’s to eat a great dinner somewhere or just to hang. Taxi Ride Uptown is about those fleeting moments in a late night cab ride back home. I loved looking out the window and watching how the landscape of the city changed on my way back uptown. Those fleeting moments were visually very inspiring.

– Chris Daze Ellis 2011

 

 

Chris Daze Ellis began his prolific career painting the gritty New York subways in the mid-1970’s while attending the High School of Art & Design. He is one of the few artists from that period to make the successful transition from the subways to the studio.


Exhibiting alongside Artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, in the now legendary group show “Beyond Words” at the Mudd Clubb in 1981, Daze sold his first painting, an impromptu collaboration with Basquiat.


Daze’s premiere solo show was held a year later in 1982 at Fashion Moda, a gallery in the Bronx. Since then he has had countless solo exhibitions in such cities as Monte Carlo, Hong Kong, Paris, New York, Beijing, Chicago, and Singapore. His work has also been included in numerous group shows and museum surveys internationally. Alongside these museum and gallery exhibitions Daze has also completed many public art projects over the years: a mural for the Star Ferry Terminal in Hong Kong; lectures at Hofstra University and the Bronx Museum; has designed an entire train station in Hannover, Germany alongside fellow artists Lee Quinones and Crash; youth workshops with kids during the Hutuz festival in Rio de Janeiro; and completing a mural for the Vivo City shopping center in Singapore. Daze’s paintings have found themselves in the private collections of Madonna and Eric Clapton among others.


Chris Daze Ellis’ work can be found in the permanent collections of such museums around the world including MOMA, New York; The Brooklyn Museum; The Museum of the City of New York; The Groninger Museum, Netherlands; and The Ludwig Museum in Aachen, Germany. Daze continues to live and work in New York City.
January 18, 2016

MOODY
November – December, 2011
Woodward Gallery Project Space

Moody’s Products featured on the Woodward Gallery Project Space clearly demonstrates the artist’s wit and original artistic direction. Mutz, aka, Moody, started to make his mark in the graffiti world in the late ’80’s smashing the streets of Brooklyn, New York and continuing on to the other four surrounding boroughs. After ten years of writing “Mutz”, he started to attract much attention from other writers—and policing vandal squads.


In 2000, Mutz decided to redefine his focus and created the alias “Moody”. He hit the street art scene with the same drive and passion as he did in his bombing career, now by plastering his patent sneaker “M” logo from New York to Japan!


Feeling the need to further progress his street brand, Moody began creating hand-cut, hand-painted wood “M” tags and installing them high over the streets of New York, as well as many venues across the country.


From the streets of Bensonhurst to fine art gallery walls, Moody has achieved the respect of his peers and art patrons alike. Moody’s vision is in social response to our visual culture today.