We Bare Arms

Stencil technique in visual art is also referred to as pochoir. A related technique (which has found applicability in some surrealist compositions) is aerography, in which spray-painting is done around a three-dimensional object to create a negative of the object instead of a positive of a stencil design. This technique was used in cave paintings dating to 10,000 BC, where human hands were used in painting hand print outlines among paintings of animals and other objects. The artist sprayed pigment around his hand by using a hollow bone, blown by mouth to direct a stream of pigment. Dutch artist FAKE from Amsterdam was born on May 15th 1980 and has been doing graffiti and street art half his life. Growing up in a grey and boring environment, FAKE felt the urge to bring a smile on other people’s faces through irony and humor. After discovering the power of stencils, he was hooked. FAKE is self-taught and started experimenting and combining styles early on to come to a unique signature. FAKE’s work is some of the cleanest stuff around. His clean, taut work, full of color, has been in shows all over the world; from Holland, Norway, Denmark and the UK until the US and even countries as Iran. Apart from being a perfectionist, FAKE’s signature style is that of storytelling. Stencils give him the power to use any image on any desired background and give it a humorous or ironic twist. One of his most iconic works, FAKE love, tells the story of how love can hurt. Seeing people around him being heartbroken, inspired him to make this artwork. FAKE has been working on the streets for many years and started to put his art on canvas, paper, wood and glass about three years ago. However, this is not holding him back