1. And So it Begins.....(Part I)

Welcome to STREETsmArt: The People's Art. 

STREETsmART is about street art. If you don't know what street art is, you might want to have your pulse checked - you could be dead! 

Street art is quite simply the fastest-growing art movement in the history of the world. It's everywhere. Every continent. Every country. Every city. From Moscow to Mecca. Toronto to Tehran. Johannesburg to Jerusalem. Buenos Aires to Bombay. Paris to Punta del Este.

Street art truly is the people's art. You don't have to walk into a fancy building, pay a hefty fee, or show up during restricted hours to see it. It's right there outdoors, 24-hours a day and it's free for the looking. You don't have to stand behind a line on the floor or check your camera at the door. You can shuffle up as close as you want and take as many pictures as you'd like - flash on or flash off.

Keep it Rotating

DEIH

(2014)

As a street art fan, you won't get telemarketing calls at suppertime hounding you to renew your membership or donate to a fundraising campaign. And best of all, you'll never hear anyone utter Banksy's ironic words, "Exit Through the Gift Shop".

Now don't get us wrong. We like art galleries. They acquire, restore, curate and display great national and international cultural treasures. We'd just like to see the world of art made more democratic and accessible -- and not just for three hours on a Thursday evening. That's why we created this blog - to share with you some of the great street art we've seen around the world. And to promote a greater awareness of how street art is helping rejuvenate our cityscapes and restoring pride in our neighbourhoods.

STREETsmART (http://streetsmart319.blogspot.com) is brought to you by the same folks who created WOWchitecture: Architecture Outside the Box (http://WOWchitecture.blogspot.com), now viewed in 92 countries. We promise you here what we promised you there: to showcase the bold and the colourful, the wild and the weird, the edgy and the "off the wall" (even though it's more than likely on a wall!)

All we ask in return is that if you like what you see, please pass the word (and our web address!) on to your friends and fellow street art lovers. And if you'd like to leave a comment at the end of a post, we'd love to hear from you.

Now, let's stop with the gab and get on with the art. Since we live in Valencia, Spain we're going to focus our first few posts on some of our favourite local street artworks and the creative artists behind them. Then it's on to the rest of the world!

Multi-talented DEIH is a street artist, illustrator and animator. His work marries together science fiction images with comic book superheroes:

El Dorado
DEIH
(2013)

tiboo's greatest claim to fame is an enormously wide piece commissioned by the Valencia Botanical Garden. Hopefully, we're adding to that fame by using a detail from it in our masthead. When he's painting for his own pleasure, tiboo's style can be very different:

tiboo

(2012)

Cere, which is the Spanish short form for "cherry", is the name used by Miguel Maestro Cerezo. He paints in a variety of styles and though now living in Valencia, he appears to have an unusual fixation on his hometown (Burgos) black pudding:

Cere
(2012)

We only know a couple of things about Fiz. First, he likes to paint skeletons. And second, he's very good at it:

Fiz
(2011)

Julieta has a unique style that is undoubtedly, the most colourful, cheerful and playful in the city. Her work invariably focuses on a young cartoon-like Japanese girl, surrounded by Asian iconography such as dragons, deer, peacocks, and flowers:

Julieta

Felipe (his real name) Pantone (not his real name) was born in Buenos Aires, but today calls Valencia home. His work has a colourful kinetic quality to it:


Felipe Pantone

(2013)

For one so young, Merypinta (real name Maria Barrachina Fuentevilla) has a genuine feel for the 1960s.We can vouch for that.We lived through the sixties, road in VW vans in the sixties, and saw psychedelic colours in the sixties:

Merypinta

(2013)

Normally we're not huge fans of "tagging" or lettering. But we like the way this international effort created by Siko (France) Exas (Portugal) and Wreck (?) has come together with clean, colourful lettering and a lion's head that makes it ROOOAAAR!

Siko Exas Wreck

Italian-born, Valencia educated, Pixel Poncho usually paints robots. That makes this portrait either a rarity, or someone painted over PP's original image but left his signature there. Either way,it's a stunningly precise artwork that shows a skilled hand on the paint brush/spray/roller.

Pixel Pancho

Another successful collaboration blends together the talents of Argentinian born, now Valencia resident, Hyuro, with those of Valencia born Escif. The two share some common traits: they're political - something depressingly rare in Valencia street art; they're active globally; they take a minimalist approach that emphasizes the message over the artwork; and they like to paint in shades of charcoal.

El Dorado

Escif and Hyuro

(2013)

That's it for this post, and we've barely touched the surface. In our next post we'll share more of our Valencia favourites.