Urban Art Association

"Legalize Art", by Baurmann Gallery on Apr 26, 2008 0:02:45 GMT 1, All international orders were shipped out today and all US orders were shipped out on Wednesday. I am not sure purchaser name to screen name correlations on this forum yet, but most of them went oversees. Thank you to everyone who purchased one!!!

The process video is still being compiled too. My computer’s OS crashed the week before launch, so unfortunately I could not share the level of videos/photos I always like to provide. I will be posting them shortly though along with tons of new pictures of all in progress works and murals. Again, thank you to everyone as always for the support!

In terms of more information on “Legalize Art”:

The edition was done as a response to the city buffing his Meeting of Styles “Cultivate Love” mural.

naturetrumps.wordpress.com/2008/01/03/molinas-mural-mess/
It was a top to bottom piece almost 30 feet tall in the LA River. The “Meeting of Styles” event was historic in terms of bringing together so many diverse writers, crews, and onlookers together. All permits were received and the “Friends of the Los Angeles River” was worked with to make it happen. MEAR painted an extremely positive, powerful mural that received enormous compliments and praise. A few weeks after the event, County Supervisor Gloria Molina was enraged and called the FOLAR [Friends of the LA River] and MAN ONE for a meeting in which she berated them for the event and mural contents. Suspiciously, right afterwards that meeting the murals were buffed with large swaths of the same type of grey buff paint the city uses. The city denied buffing the mural location but the circumstantial evidence causes the city to be the prime suspect in many people’s opinions [MEAR and myself included], especially due to Gloria Molina’s continued fight against it. After that occurred, she introduced an emergency order [that passed] forcing the FOLAR and MAN ONE to either remove the murals or pay $70,000 for their removal. That is something that is a grave injustice in my opinion [meant to be punitive and/or coercive].

MEAR also thinks it showcases the ignorance and misperceptions many still have about art in general, especially graffiti artists. His art [and others] is obviously still being criminalized in Los Angeles due to stereotypical assumptions and circumstances they are manipulating and misrepresenting. The central message behind his piece was “Cultivate Love” [which he also translated into a fine art silkscreen published by myself, Baurmann Gallery]. MEAR does not comprehend how the city can accuse his mural of being inappropriate or otherwise negative in any way when the content of the mural is obviously the antithesis of what they claim.

“Legalize Art” is a response to the city destroying his beautiful, empowering mural and the larger issue of cities in general destroying or censoring art because someone [or some group/coalition] does like it and has the power to do something about it. His intentions and themes were still based on peace, love, and positivity but the need to protest and speak up about art and public space is the prevailing theme in this series of mono-distortions.

In terms of technique:
Each one was hand painted by MEAR with each of the characters, backgrounds, and cityscapes being unique. These took 7 full days to complete [8 if you include spraying the packaging], with MEAR perfecting the characters for over half of it. The first layer was hand painted/scraped with MEAR’s special techniques used in his live art and paintings. The clouds and cityscapes were then layered and scrapped on in brown, with the character then executed on top. Each girl is different and has unique characteristics and features, though all are similar in terms of overall composition. Each character was meticulously hand painted and refined to pull out the true individual nature of each character. Some have drawings added and other embellishing while others are more detailed in terms of their characters, cityscapes, or skylines. The paper used can hold up to a tremendous amount of abuse, allowing a wide variety of tools to be used in the creation process [most other papers would tear or go right through with many of the tools MEAR uses]. Overall, these were intended to be a closer reflection of his painting styles but still encompass the quintessential elements of the mono-distortion series.