Urban Art – cole blaq

Levitation (Source bounce edit)

2020-12-222020-12-22 Cole

Presenting my latest street art project, a massive graffiti mural.

I was urging to paint the wall/bridge for some time. It’s close to where I live and located at a highly frequented main road. Last year I managed to get the permission to paint the wall. Furthermore the cultural department of our city financially supported this project for which I am very thankful.

The process from idea to execution took some time. Living almost next door was definitely an advantage here for regularily having a cup of tea. I was lucky, the weather supported me as it was much warmer than usually for this time of year. The bypassers were highly attracted and most were happy to get a new painting/picture in their hood, which is a rare thing in our barrio.

The picture itself is an adaption of a previously built brick art sculpture from 2014 and contains elements of style writing, graffiti, space and collision. It could be described as interlocking graffiti brick art tech space.

The meta behind this project is that the sculpture, which is inspired by graffiti and contains style writing is being transformed back into the source graffiti, completing the cycle of adaption and inspiration. Also the bricks echo the structure of the canvas, the brick built wall, therefore refer to the deeper structural connection.

A great article published in print newspaper highlighted the work. Thanks to Rheinische Post for showing a serious interest in this project.

Here’s the full process from a desolated wall to the mural.

Special thanks to Ace Radeski for making some great moody photos!

Graffiti Corner

2020-08-172020-10-02 Cole

In the summer holidays I hosted a workshop with a bunch of kids in a suburb town of Monchengladbach, Germany.

Although the kids had no spraypainting experience before, they worked hard and by the end of the project we had a massive mural painted on the corner of the youth center! Big up to everybody involved and especially the kids!

It was a challenge to work a two-story wall with two sides on a corner, and I think the result is great.

The full progress:

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And the final wall with straigtened perspective lines.

>>> If you are interested have a look here at my portfolio for further information or send me a mail for any requests. <<<

Build me a Longboard – from scratch do design

2020-08-112020-08-31 Cole

Last week I made my first complete longboard. It was a long term wish on my to-do list as I consider skateboarding as an integral facet of urban culture and the decks being an artistic medium of it’s own kind. An object, a canvas, something useful being further modified by the marks of the urban playground.

My starting point was a blank uncut deck. The designs were spontaneous ideas. I wanted to use the griptape in a designful way. Therefore I cut it out partially and made an underlying colour fading first. The second element is the triangle with the rounded corners. This icon is a reminiscence of the ‘play’-button on tape decks.

The bottom design was a result of a few thoughts coming together: I wanted to honour the material of the deck and leave part of the deck free so one can see the structure of the fabric – wood. I also wanted to paint a picture and include the message of sustainability. Therefore the idea of a cosmic tree was born.

Here are some shots of the progress and the final design.

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On a sidenote, the sharkwheels are awesome!

DIY Longboards 2020 in Kamp-Lintfort (Workshop)

2020-08-092020-08-31 Cole

From blank uncuts to self-designed finished boards.

Additionally this workshop was done under the star of sustainability, which was a guiding aspect alongside being an integrative workshop where refugees and established kids came together for this successful project.

With almost 40 degrees we had a seriously hot time. The kids were very keen and worked hard to achieve their own board, including shaping, cutting, grinding, coating, developing own designs and applying them, the final coating, attaching griptape and the final assemble of the trucks, bearings and wheels.

Without further ado, here are some impressions:

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Press review

>>> If you are interested have a look here at my portfolio for further information or send me a mail for any requests. <<<

El Groupo [the gathering]

2020-05-172020-08-31 Cole

Presenting a small series of spray can characters I built over the last few months.

They’re all in midi scale compared to the 1:1 Inside the Spraycan series. Further down you can find the single interpretations.

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To celebrate the series and to share my art work as a hard copy I have released an edition of 20 of the Ethereal Being. Each piece comes with a signed and numbered certificate of authenticity. One piece will be available for 100€. Your support will help me and my family in this uncertain lockdown situation. All planned creative workshops have been cancelled.

If you are interested shoot me a mail.

There is also a chance to get a piece for free, check my instagram account for details.

Ethereal Being

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Tales from the Crypt

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Top Gear

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Deity

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Metatrain

2020-05-042020-08-31 Cole

Meta is one of the rare Street Artists in my city who’s work is absolutely original. He inittiated a spontaneous project, after finding a book with pictures of trains in a pile of rubbish on the streets. He forwarded all of the countless fantastic images of real and model trains to many of his Graffiti and Street Art colleagues. I was lucky to be able to pick a train from the book and the SNCF Jouef BB 26000 locomotive immediately caught my attention with the vision of a brick-ified version. The project sat on my desk for about two years before recently I managed to make my version.

I concentrated on the basic shape, the color scheme and some distinct details. As just copying something in existence does not attract me, I decided to implement two twists. First of all I wanted to break the train while keeping the shape. Secondary I included my alias into the sides of the trains, referring to Graffiti and the expression bombing a train.

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The blueprint (Original image courtesy to Bernard Canet / Jouef)

And a WIP shot of the sketch and the forged side wall.

Gore Lordz Pt. 4

2019-10-242020-08-31 Cole

Part four of our collaboration series

When we arrived at the Aeromigos Jam we expected a huge collabo wall with many artists. So it was with the little difference that my mate Niklas and me hat a 7meter high wall and mostly just a ladder and just a day time. Therefore we used the night and painted until dawn and short after continued.

The spirit of the Jam was great, positive vibrations with many other great artists. Much respect to the Aeromigos boys for organizing and inviting us!