Urban Art Association

Dont let that get you down Rene! crikey ive been called worse than that by my cleaner!. Cant please everyone Rene. Peace back at you.

Im with wiz. Fuck em! The fact is we all know who is who and if there stupid enough then just let them make a tit of themsevles.

Join the club! ;D The thing is to turn that energy round into a positive that will drive you forwards even stronger than ever.

Rene you are a top bloke who produces some mighty fine work. Pay no attention to them

Dont wind me up, thats what J-Boy's here for ;D

JBoy, The official forum jester! ;D

People talk a lot of shit on the internet. A loooot of shit.

"what a fukin’ herb. go choke."

what does that even mean?

the peeps talking crap on that board, anyone here heard of them? any of those peeps had their pieces sold alongside walker, banksy, dface? exactly....ridiculous.....besides, i would think that the opinions on this board might mean a bit more rene!

and either way...do what you love. create your art, let your message be heard.....seems to have worked thus far.

i hear ya mates. thanks for the positivity.

been stressing a little lately, lifes been kinda crazy the past year. today that shit just rubbed me the wrong way. and without a real circle of friends where i live that understand the game its tough to vent and for people to understand. i'll never be one to get held up by this crap. its just a shame there are so many negative forces working against us, no matter how trivial.

thanks again.

Cleaner!, you mean home help right?, I think its shocking the amount of elderly folk that are abused by the very people that are supposed to be taking care of them... do you ever get any grief from the meals on wheels lady?

Hey Rene,

Time to shower you with praise to make you feel better.... No but seriously, I've sung your praises a lot. I was one of the first people on this board to really call out MBW for jacking your Graffiti Soup.

But beyond that, I think you're one of the better artists out there, someone who obviously experiments a lot. With that comes pitfalls, namely that you'll have misses. But I'd rather see someone take chances than put out boring work - in that sense, Pure Evil is often in the same category. And I think because you take chances and evolve, you're one of the more exciting artists out there, even if it will generate criticism... remember, criticism isn't necessarily a bad thing so long as its mixed with praise - because the two become the recipe for controversy - which I think is an artists best friend.

But beyond that, your canvases come to life more than most any other artist I've seen. I don't think any urban artist does a better job of melding the energy of abstract expressionism with the rigid execution and messages of urban art stencilism. No one. You're peerless that way.

I've always said if I had $100K, a big Rene Gagnon canvas would be one of the first things I'd buy because your large canvases are unbelievably impressive. The colour of your work is magnetic to eyeballs. Your pieces work both on the most primal level of "oh pretty colours" but then on a deeper level of offering the substance by way of commentary expected from great urban pieces.

You put a work like --- and god how do I pick just one --- but hypothetically speaking "Ulterior Motive" which is 56inX56in and an explosion of frenetic energy ladden with messages, and its the first thing anyone would ask about. I don't think there is a single work by almost anyone on this board that would draw in someone more - assuming tabula rasa.

Additionally, I've also always found your work to be more true to the New York graffiti roots of the urban art movement. Your pieces somehow bridge the freehand feel of the multi-layered tags on subway cars, with the high art concepts of the modern urban art mentality... something that I also think you're peerless in because I bemoan that even in Banksy, you'll sometimes find a bit of an antiseptic quality to the execution that divorces what was street from its roots. (Not at all to say I am not a humongous Banksy fan, but your canvas work has the feel of quintessential "street art" as it is on the street - complete with tags and mess in the background or foreground.

In all, and I'm taking some liberty here, I think when they do museum retrospectives of the street art movement, any broad retrospective will include your work in it both because of your stature in the street art world - which is steadily growing - and because of your importance in bridging artistic mediums - namely bridging abstract expressionism with stencilism and the NY graffiti tradition of tagging and freehand with the Bristol / UK / European street art stencil movement.

While the book as to whether this scene is a movement, and its still being determined how important of a movement this all is and how important the relative players are, I think you're poised to be looked upon as one of the top artists of the movement - particularly as tthe relative importance of NY and LA scenes increases against the UK, which his approaching a zenith in the ebb and flow world of art.

At the end of the day it all boils down to... I love your work.

I just never wanted to say any of this because if these points seeped into the zeitgeist, your works could reach prices higher than I will ever afford.

-R

Cleaner!, you mean home help right?, I think its shocking the amount of elderly folk that are abused by the very people that are supposed to be taking care of them... do you ever get any grief from the meals on wheels lady?[/quote]

Course! thats what i meant Mutedog, and the meals bint is a right cow!

how am i ripping MBW off?

raiden, holy shit, you know how to make someone feel good