The word “graffiti” is often associated with vandalism. However, for modern street artist Eltono, graffiti is just another word for art. That’s because Eltono’s work can be found painted onto buildings and walls, in the same places one would expect to find graffiti. But don’t be fooled — Eltono’s work is more than just graffiti — it’s modern art.

Eltono, Spanish for “the tone”, is an artist who is known for painting a uniquely geometric and abstract version of a tuning fork as graffiti. Eltono, beginning in Madrid in 1999, has spread his work all over Europe, South America, and Korea painting buildings, walls, rail sides, and any other surface you can find in a modern city.

When many people think of graffiti, they envision bright colors and big shapes that can be overpowering. Eltono’s work is a statement against this type of graffiti — his work is subtle and understated. Eltono does such a wonderful job of keeping his work simple that it’s possible you could walk by it and never notice it.

Part of the reason that Eltono’s work is so different from other street artists is that he uses a different technique. While many of his contemporaries use spray paint, which usually renders art that is bulbous and rounded, Eltono uses plastic paint and masking tape. These materials allow him to create art that is linear and geometric, making his work stylistically unique.

Eltono’s work seems to draw one’s eye to obvious discrepancies in the cityscape. For example, one can imagine a brick wall with windows that have been haphazardly boarded over by previously weathered plywood. Perhaps it’s easier to imagine the side wall of a building, constructed of different types of brick, lumber, and iron. These are both common sights on a run-down block of any major city. For Eltono, these scenes are a blank canvas.

Once Eltono has discovered his canvas, he will paint a variety of geometric shapes and straight lines to draw illustrate the inherent discrepancies of the surface. But his work is in sharp contrast to graffiti because it is so subtle, and this characteristic may be the reason Eltono has received wide international recognition.

Like all good art, Eltono’s work generates more questions than it answers. Does Eltono work in geometric shapes to draw attention to the harsh city environment? Is 1000 their a political statement? Because Eltono’s chosen medium is often associated with vandalism, will his work receive the attention it deserves? While only time will tell, Eltono’s work certainly deserves your attention now.

By: Jason Lancaster

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Author: Jason Lancaster enjoys reviewing and discussing modern Latin art. He has a Latin Musica website emphasizing Tonos. To learn more about Eltono, visit his website Eltono.com.
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Fafi was born and raised in Toulouse France – the home of another “graffiti girl”, Miss Van.

She has been on the art scene since 1994 when she first witnessed the graffiti street art on her hometown walls. Inspired by the scenes depicted, she started her work and hasn’t looked back since.

Fafi’s style is quite unique. Fafi tends to depict women in various forms. She identifies a particular stereotype and will render it to create a “Fafi Girl”. She paints exaggerated stereotypes of women in a cute and “Fafi” way. Her style helped re-define the graffiti scene and open new doors with what the artwork could be.

After she drew the public eye upon her, she started to travel around the world. Europe, USA, Japan, Hong-Kong, all got “Fafi’ed”. Her work would appear around the world in galleries and advertisements. The world was truly her canvas!

Sony became infatuated with the cute and iconic figures Fafi would create and hired her to design a six-character toy set for their Time Capsule videogame set. This only furthered her career as she made the transition from two dimensional to three dimensional work. Other companies followed suit and she procured contracts from Collette, Coca-Cola, M.A.C cosmetics, Adidas and other companies for her figurines.

Fafi got a lot of press coverage as well during this time. She was featured in many prestigious magazines such as Vogue, Elle, XLR8R, and Yen. She then published a few books, Girls Rock (2003) and Love and Fafiness (2006). These prints are very successful and can be seen in libraries and museums to purchase.

Fafi entered a new stage in 2007 when she became a mother. She moved to Paris and a change in her work can be seen. Her Fafinettes not only are “Flygirls” but they can be seen in other life aspects. They can be a whole assortment of creations now Fafi calls it the “Carmine Vault” and invites everyone to enter her dreamy and peculiar world.

Author: Melanie Ullman. Click here to see some of Fafi’s gorgeous Graffiti Street Art!   Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Melanie_Ullman

Fafi

As you know Fafi is a Graffiti artist from Paris who has tagged so many walls around the world from Brooklyn To Germany and even Mexico that she’s almost a household name to may girls around the world.

Fafi graffiti artist

Fafi is a graffiti artist that started out studying under Miss Van and Miss Kat. Originally from Toulouse, her graffiti was first noticed on walls of her hometown in 1994. Fafi captures the attention of the main stream and begins to …  

Fafi – Graffiti and beyond

Her work is vibrant and colourful. I see a lot of copy cat versions of Fafi’s work out there she has inspired a lot of people. Female graffiti artists are still quite rare. Did you see that massive Strawberry Anarchy logo on the Eiffel … 

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I suppose I should be more cautious and say that I assume that it’s her real name. Frankly, I didn’t think it was important enough to ask her about.

The lady graffiti creator is getting a lot of ink these days. Maybe we need a new term for that; let’s say she’s propagating billions of editorial pixels. That would be in addition to the untold gazillions of pixels that her art generates on computer screens around the world, those well-lit but low-resolution 2D images that, try as they might, just can’t quite do justice to the lady’s work as seen in Real Life.

Started with comics Let’s back up a bit as long as we’re talking Real Life, and hip you to Toofly growing up in Corona, Queens (New York) “around some Italians and a lot of South American and Dominican families, in a small little one-family house” with her grandparents, mom, uncle, aunts and younger cousin. Toofly liked drawing as far back as she could remember, and confesses that she would “sneak into my uncle’s room and grab his X-Men comics and try to draw some of the female characters, especially Jean Grey.”

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Those were the early days, the artist recalls, of “discovering what a strong female looked like.” Soon enough, when Toofly started at New York’s High School of Fashion Industries in 1991, she would discover what a strong female acted like, too. “I was taking fashion design classes but realized that I would much rather draw and paint than sew clothes. When I walked into a classroom with walls full of graffiti tags and character illustrations, that did it for me. I had discovered what I was meant to do.”

Graffiti markers available here for your own graffiti art

Street walls to Wall Street Toofly has since taken her street-wall sensibility into areas that Wall Street can relate to, like commerce. “I do a lot of everything these days,” she says, “and there’s always something new I’m doing. My freelance pretty much supports me, and everything else is extra fun stuff.” Even with her illustrations licensed for all manner of t-shirts, bags, totes and prints, she doesn”t claim to have “made it big,” and admits, “I just recently arrived to the gallery scene, and little by little I’m starting to send my press kit and proposals around to various corporations for those big commission deals. It’s got to be right though,” Toofly asserts, “because I’m not just going to do anything for money.”

Still, the fact she can make money today — with an art style born of equal parts bravado, talent and, quite often, misdemeanor trespass — testifies to her persistence as well as savvy marketing skills. It is also good timing for artists of her ilk to go legit, as the march of progress has made itself known in many urban areas by the presence of video surveillance cameras and other anti-graffiti measures. Whether it’s on canvas, a brick wall or a greeting card, Toofly says, art is still art. “I still have a purpose, and the freedom to dream up my own reality, and no one can take that away from me.”

Toofly has  plenty of tools — spray cans, brushes, pens , crayons, chalk, mop heads, whatever works — and plenty of influences too, “from all over the place,” she says, “like fashion photography, graphic design and various contemporary and historic artists.” Comic (excuse me, graphic novel) illustrators like Jim Lee and Scott Campbell are faves, as she “grew up drawing their female characters.” Boris Vallejo’s fantasy painting was a strong influence, but perhaps the greatest influence was graffiti writer Sabe — “because,” Toofly admits, “if it weren’t for his drawings and tags in those classrooms I may have ended up somewhere else.”

Graffiti books

The Muses knock on a lot of doors at Toofly’s house. “I’m moved by emotional music,” Toofly says, “whether it’s Led Zeppelin, Muse or Mary J. Blige love songs. I also listen to freestyle and 90s hip-hop classics to get me back to my roots.” The lady is a virtual melting pot herself, and the rhythms of her life and times are easily discerned in the characters she draws, taut as coiled springs, energy ready to blow up into something new and unexpected.

Enjoying “every good moment” Besides all her work that people can find on the web (just the term “artist Toofly” will get you well over a thousand hits), she has some group gallery shows coming up, graffiti productions throughout New York’s five boroughs and various events where the artist will paint live or speak. Toofly is also starting to sell her line of products and art prints on her own site as well as different boutiques and lifestyle shops in the U.S., Europe and, soon, Japan.

Toofly has her priorities in order. She is involved in organizing and promoting youth workshops of various kinds, helping kids find places to create their art without ending up on video security tapes, trying to give back to the community that nurtured her. “I was given a chance to experience life, good and bad, to learn and have fun in it,” she reflects. “You have to accept that things do not last forever, so try to enjoy every good moment you can create. It helps to know that at the end of the day, I can fall and get up again, and if it’s not meant for me anymore, then that’s okay too.”

Toofly’s art, her vision, is uniquely hers, and doesn’t ask to be compared or contrasted, just accepted for what it is — which is all she asks for herself, as well. “All of this and the freedom to do art unapologetically?” she muses. “It’s very inspiring.”

Author: Scott McQuarrie

By Scott McQuarrie, representing the EZWatch Pro brand, a leading provider of computer based Security Camera Systems for business, commercial and government applications.

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