Not a new discovery, but a firm favourite of mine, Seb Lester:

a1One.  This is Persian graffiti, rather than Arabic graffiti, but for those that think graffiti has 'gone soft', this is Iranian street artist a1One who (depending on your view of Iranian jurisprudence) was either arrested without charge by the internal security services or kidnapped and held in a secret prison for two weeks last year.






eL Seed and Hest1






Méta Parole

This ambigram piece by Seb Lester is brilliant 

Woah some of those pieces ^^^ are superb. Do you know anywhere that sells any of the artists' work?

New piece by Yazan and Tasso in Beruit


There's a little video about protest graffiti in Cairo on the BBC website here; "The political turmoil in Egypt has seen the overthrow of two presidents, as well as conflict and mass demonstrations on the streets.  The struggles are reflected in an explosion of graffiti on the walls of Cairo as people use their new-found freedoms to express different views.  James Reynolds has been on a graffiti tour of the city."

Liking these chaps especially that Kenji Nakayama must look him up

Cheers johnny

Great thread, some stunning stuff..

Great thread! Some amazing stuff here. Have to look more into Zepha, his stuff is bloody marvelous.

A few new pieces by artists previously mentioned on this thread.

Yazan: "Ali [Abdallah] was a homeless man, and the legend of Bliss Street. I have personally crossed Ali countless times on his street.  A few months ago, Ali died on the coldest night of Beirut's winter because he was living in pitiful conditions. Ali's death triggered short-lived actions to help the homeless in Beirut (for one or two weeks).  I painted this mural a few hundred meters from Ali's street to immortalize him and to remind us that we should not wait the death of another Ali to help others.  I wrote "Ghadan Yawmone Afdal"(Tomorrow is a better day) while listening to a song of the similar title by Mashrou' Leila, in the hope that tomorrow will be a better day."


Zepha


eL Seed

EPS


Ali Rafei


The Dihzahyners

Given the escalating conflict in Syria, I thought people might be interested in what's going on with art in the country.  In 2011 some schoolchildren aged between 10 and 15 years graffitied the manta of the Arab Spring - 'The people want to overthrow the regime' - on the wall of their school in Daraa.  The school children were subsequently 'arrested' and tortured by al-Assad's internal security forces and it was this action which sparked the Syrian uprising.

Beyond slogans strayed on walls, the main form of art on the streets are stencils of people killed over the last two years.

For obvious reasons there aren't any street artists producing detailed murals  and I know that this is a thread about arabic graffiti but there's some really interesting and important work being produced in the studio.

Youssef Abdelke
Abdelke was imprisoned for a month, and only released this week, for committing the apparently heinous crime of signing a declaration calling for Bashar al-Assad to step down; it's not a coincidence that unhappily Abadlke was also a political prisoner for two years under the rule of Hafez al-Assad.  Abdelke has been one of Syria's leading artists for years and his etchings and charcoal drawings cover a wide range of subjects from contemplative still lives to acerbic political commentry and satire.





Tammam Azzam
Azzam's 'Syrian Museum' images involve Photoshopping beautiful images of Western art onto war-ravaged Syrian buildings.






Ali Ferzat
Ferzat is a political cartoonist whose work has satirically poked fun at the successive al-Assad regimes and Syria's corrupt, wealthy elite for years.  In 2011 he was kidnapped and had both his hands broken but he's still drawing and still smiling.




If anyone would like to help those still in Syria and those who have fled across the border to other areas of the Levant you can do so by donating towards the Disasters Emergency Committee's Syria Crisis Appeal.

Looks like L'Atlas is having a show at Castanier Gallery in Los Angeles, set to open Sept. 21.  Will have to check it out. 

Will definitely post photos next weekend.