Posted on 04/20/2013 5:49:15 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Graffiti artists The Yok and Sheryo swear they’re not on drugs.
“It seems like we’re just taking acid and putting all this s--- together, but it really is a collection of what we’ve seen,” The Yok said.
The duo, who now live in Brooklyn, just put up a city-commissioned mural along 16th and Morgan streets as part of 25th Ward Ald. Danny Solis’ public art initiative.
The viaduct wall now sports a Vulcan-eared monkey eating deep-dish pizza along with a sunglasses-wearing skeleton head wearing a hat that says “Zap Rap.”
The Yok and Sheryo won’t give their full names because of the time-honored tradition among graffiti artists not to reveal their identities.
That and they don’t want to get arrested for illegally spray-painting walls. The Yok is a blonde 35-year-old Australian man with a penchant for surfing and Mad magazine. Sheryo, 29, hails from Singapore. She left her home country because of the strict punishment for graffiti artists: caning.
The couple started working together after a random meeting at a sidewalk cafe in Cambodia. Seeing similarities in their work, they banded together.
“I like to call her style 'leprosy' because it looks like the skin’s falling off of all her characters,” The Yok said of Sheryo’s work.
“Our styles have kind of merged,” Sheryo said. “We like to inject humor in our art. We bounce a lot of ideas around.”
Since meeting a year and a half ago, they’ve painted about 50 walls in Vietnam, Dubai, Mexico and New York.
The Yok said traveling allows them to see the “fables, gods and traditions” of other cultures, which in turn makes for some crazy, inspired art. “It’s like, ‘Remember that Hanuman monkey god? Let’s get him on a skateboard,'” he said. The artists were connected to the Pilsen art project through Pawn Works, a public art collective contracted by the 25th Ward to bring national and international artists to work on 25th Ward public art projects.
Nick Marzullo, co-director at Pawn Works, said Chicago has a history of famous public art by international artists.
“It’s about overall awareness. By working with international artists, you start to intermix the worlds,” he said.
The Yok and Sheryo head back to New York Friday, but if you’d like to grab a small piece of their work for yourself, you can find them on Instagram and snag a hand-drawn graphic on a postal sticker for just $5.
They should go “legit”. People would pay them good money to do ads for them.
Since meeting a year and a half ago, they’ve painted about 50 walls in Vietnam, Dubai, Mexico and New York.
I thank God I’ve never had to live in a dead gray place like that.
It’s hideous.
Looks like they are influenced by Pablo Picasso
http://openwalls.com/image/7889/guernica_painting_by_pablo_picasso_3200x1200.jpg
http://www.pablopicasso.org/images/paintings/the-weeping-woman.jpg
It makes me ill.
UGH!
I think it shows a lot of talent
I like it
I does show talent, but not in a direction that appeals to me.
I can appreciate the craft in that mural, but the subject and expression does nothing for me.
Emotionally, it seems to impart on me the equivalent of hitting my fingers with a ball peen hammer. Looking at it has the same emotional impact on me that I get when I listen to Rap.
I think I prefer the ball peen hammer. (figuratively speaking)
This mural is on the far eastern end of the community called Pilsen which is maned after a brewery by the same name begun by Czech immigrants. As Mexican immigrants began to replace the “Bohemians” it later was called “Little Village”. It is bounded from 16th street and Halstead on the north to the south fork of the Chicago river on the south and eventually extended west to the suburb of Cicero.
A name mentioned in the article Marzullo, is a relative of a famous alderman of the 25th ward Vito Marzullo a remnant of the large Italian community still residing in that area between 18th and 26th streets from Ashland to Western Avenues.
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