NUART FESTIVAL 15TH ANNIVERSARY BOXSET: 2001 – 2015

ICY (born 1985) and SOT (born 1991) are stencils artists from Tabriz Iran, they continue on their creative crusade to dismantle pre-conceived perceptions of a fleeting Iranian tradition through their striking stencil artwork. Since 2006, they have made paramount accomplishments in Iranian urban art culture as both skaters and artists, creating an international buzz by playing it any way but safe, their works are about war, peace, hope, despair, society issues and human rights .The two brothers have held numerous exhibitions around the world and their out door works have been seen on the streets of Iran, turkey, Paris,Sao paulo San Francisco and New York to name a few. Martin Whatson (b. 1984) is a Norwegian born and based stencil artist. While studying Art and Graphic design at Westerdals School of Communication, Oslo, he discovered stencils and the urban art scene. He had been interested in Graffiti for years, following the development within street art closely. In 2004 he started his own artistic production. Martin has a continuous urge to search for beauty in what is commonly dismissed as ugly, out of style or simply left behind. He looks for inspirations in city landscapes and old soon to be demolished buildings. This interest for decay has helped develop his style, motives and composition and he enjoys creating either unity or conflict between materials and motives; a wrinkled old lady on a shiny plate of aluminum. His artistic expression started off more political, inspired by DOLK and Banksy, but has developed into a more subtle expression. His stencils are a mix of urban scenes with a poetic, hippyish make peace not war-message. He has a cheerful, very much recognizable and almost feminine touch; butterflies, doves and hearts in soft, nonetheless vibrant, colours. Still, his expression is very much masculine, filled with in your face-statements that represents a young and vigorous group Screen printing is a printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink-blocking stencil. The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink or other printable materials which can be pressed through the mesh as a sharp-edged image onto a substrate. A roller or squeegee is moved across the screen stencil, forcing or pumping ink past the threads of the woven mesh in the open areas. Screen printing is also a stencil method of print making in which a design is imposed on a screen of silk or other fine mesh, with blank areas coated with an impermeable substance, and ink is forced through the mesh onto the printing surface. It is also known as silkscreen, seriography, and serigraph. Futura 2000 (born 1955) is an internationally acclaimed graffiti artist. He started to paint illegally on New York's subway in the early seventies, working with other artists such as ALI. In the early eighties he showed with Patti Astor at the Fun Gallery, along with Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Richard Hambleton and Kenny Scharf. Futura 2000 began painting "legally" as the live on-stage backdrop painter for The Clash's 1981 European tour. More recently, he is a successful graphic designer and gallery artist. One of the most distinctive features of Futura's work is his abstract approach to graffiti art. While the primary focus, during the 1980s, of the majority of graffiti artists was lettering, Futura pioneered abstract street art, which has since become more popular. Conversely, his aerosol strokes are regarded as different from those of his peers, as they are as thin as the fine lines achieved only through the use of an airbrush. While he's primarily known as a graffiti artist, much of his work is as an illustrator and graphic designer of record sleeves, first becoming involved with The Clash; producing a sleeve for their "Radio Clash" 7" single and handwriting the sleeve notes and lyrics sheet for their Born in Turin in 1984, Pixelpancho was introduced to color and form by his grandfather who painted occasionally. With time, his passion for art and design led him to the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts followed by the Academy of Fine Arts in Valencia, Spain where he obtained his degree. During this time he became familiar with the graffiti and street art scene. Influenced by this world, he began using spray cans and marker and working on outdoor surfaces which stood out from the classic paper and canvas formula of other students. Traveling between his hometown of Turin and Valencia Pixelpancho took every opportunity to be noticed on the streets, using different mediums such as tiles, wall painting and sticker/poster art. Pretty soon his work was adorning the walls of many European cities. Pixelpancho’s work draws from several diverse influences. Traces of historic painter Joaquin Sorolla, the surrealist Salvador Dali, the political painter group “El Equipo Cronica” to the more modern Ron English, and Takashi Murakami can be seen in his work. Traveling to Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw, Vienna and many other cties for graffiti jams and gallery exhibtion, has allowed his style to evolve from a simple Robot character to