Via Grafik Sculptures

Via Grafik is both a graphic design studio and an art collective based in Wiesbaden, Germany.

Working in the fields of graphic design, motion design, art direction and illustration, we are interested in developing design solutions at a unique visual level. Our aim hereby is to provide the best suitable design for the specific content of each individual project, wheter it be large or small.

The realisation of art projects increases our range of experience from which we richly profit on the creative process for commercial projects.

Our clients come from industries such as music, culture, art, and advertising as well as youth culture oriented brands. We work for clients like Nike, Adidas, Nintendo, MTV, VIVA, Junges
Staatstheater Wiesbaden, We the People.

Calma aka Stephan Doitschinoff

Calma creates street art which is the antithesis of anything obvious and urban. His murals and canvases are covered with graphic images that are an unusual fusion of Brazilian folk art, religious and gothic imagery and a subtle touch of Sao Paolo’s graffiti heritage. As his first monograph published by Die Gestalten Verlag shows, Calma is a dark original.

Dazed Digital: How does Brazilian folk art and engravings influence what you do?
Stephan Doitschinoff: I grew up in Sao Paulo and as a child I spent a lot of time with my grandparents in Bananal, a small village in the Paraiba Valey country side near Rio de Janeiro. Even though most of my family were working class, my grandfather is an educated man and had a nice collection of woodcut prints and a few originals by names like Anita Malfati, Caribé and Volpi. I find really interesting to look at Brazilian folk art today and learn how Christian art was brought with the Portoguese and Spanish conquers in the 16th and 17th centuries and ended up getting so influenced by Afro and Native Brazilian culture. Today you can see the syncretism present in folklore and religion. You will find churches that have altars with Christian saints mixed with Afro and Native Brazilian deities such as Preto Velho, Iemanja and Boi Bumba.

DD: What do you paint with?
SD: I use acrylics when I’m painting canvasses but when it comes to paint murals I use anything, mainly cheap house paint but also any latex, gesso, acrylics, spray, whatever I have. In Lençóis the only paint they used to sell at the local shop was so bad and watery that you would need 2 coats of black to cover other colours. Sometimes you have to improvise. I have used big chunks of bbq charcoal to sketch the murals.

DD: You've been living and working in Bahia. What do you find interesting about the place?
SD: I have been living there for more than 2 years but I have been travelling the countryside of Bahia for almost a decade. Most of these secluded places are so hard to get to that the local culture - their traditions and festivities - are still not suffocated by the internationalized culture and globalization. It is still possible to find craftsman working the way they learned from their grandparents. Afro-Brazilian culture there is so rich. In the slavery times they use to captured whole tribes from Africa and bring them to work in plantations or diamond mines, so there are quite a few African traditions that you wont find in Africa anymore but you do find it in small villages out in Bahia.

DD: What do you like about making street and outdoor work?
SD: Getting people to interact with the work. I have had some strong response in small cities especially. I painted this mural in Alto da Estrela called ‘Daniel’s Prophecy’, that depicts the image on the angel of death condemning the false churches of Satan. It happens that in the same street there was an Evangelical church. A couple weeks after I finished painting I passed through that same street and noticed the mural was all dilapidated and saw chunks of the wall and rocks on the floor. A neighbour described me how kids would come out the church and with bibles and stones in hand and would stone the mural while spitting and yelling things like “For the Blood of Christ” or “Out of my way Behemoth from Hell”. It has happened with a couple more of my murals in the same area.

DD: What draws you to religious imagery?
SD: I guess I was always close to it. My grandmother was a practicing spiritualist.
My dad was a Minister in an Evangelical Church any my mother worked there as well. I basically grew up in the church. I personally see the church as an archaic institution that always aimed to control the masses. I think it is an appropriate symbol for the corrupt modern institutions - like the big corporations, media chanels and governments.

Calma: The Art of Stephan Doitschinoff with text by Tristan Manco and Carlo McCormick is out now

Found Here: http://www.dazeddigital.com/view/default.aspx?Category=22&ArticleID=1639&PageNum=1

Acorn's Outlandish Characters | Erratic Phenomena

At Thinkspace's "Ink Advance" show Friday night, I discovered Acorn, a street artist who's been showing with GhostpatrolMiso in Melbourne, Vienna and Berlin. Together, the three of them have created a limited edition book of drawings titled Ink Advance, which was released earlier this year. Acorn, a.k.a. Scott Kennedy, originally hails from Vancouver, but has been living in Edinburgh recently and now seems to be traveling so much I imagine he's not sure exactly where he lives at the moment. Reports are that he's settling back down in Vancouver for a while. Apparently Acorn has only been drawing seriously for about four years (he's just 21), but he's already developed a really singular style and a cast of intriguing characters.

Acorn is a true street artist who's getting up all over the world. He says that this first character's arms are unfinished because he was caught while painting it in Bucharest. I want to stress that this intricately detailed piece was painted with brushes, and is not a pasteup. I think that's pretty amazing!





Fortunately, Acorn hasn't limited himelf to painting graffiti in places beyond the reach of most of us artizens. His insanely detailed drawings, which span the realms of pen, pencil and watercolor, are loaded with cryptic symbolism and feature a cast of characters that include (in my interpretation) Icelandic ninjas, a cat army, tree-eating Chinese dragon wood-processing stills, futuristic fashion-forward Yakuts with winged chandelier headdresses, children inside cumbersome robotic exoskeletons styled after ancient Japanese armor, and a host of strange rubbery monsters.

Acorn gave some insight into his work in a recent interview:

"Usually when I start a drawing, I don't have much of an idea what I'm going to do until I get halfway into it.

I think mixing cultural influences has really helped me progress when it comes to style. I guess I was first into Japanese stuff, but then I got really into Mexican and Aztec patterns and such. Also Russian costumes and stuff like that from the east are really inspiring. I guess that got me more into it, because it seems more like fantasy than just fashion.

I think imagination is far more fulfilling than reality. If someone can look at my work and make up their own story for it, then that makes me happy."

Some of my favorite Acorn drawings are in his forest series. I guess it makes sense that someone named Acorn would have an affinity with trees. (Though to be fair, he says he started out as Acornlique and shortened it to Acorn for convenience in tagging, and not due to any particular affinity with oaks.)

You're going to need to click into these to see how cool his detail work is. Keep in mind that the originals are small drawings... the linked images are just about actual size.

Found Here: http://commandax.blogspot.com/2008/05/acorn.html

Banksy To New York: 'Let Them Eat Crack'

(Photo: Brian 'Money' Ries)

The Colossal Media painted Banksy ad featuring a massive rat with an umbrella on Howard and Broadway will soon read "Let Them Eat Crack." An eagle-eyed street scout noticed the traced out letters and snapped this photo of the work currently in progress. Well that's certainly one way to promote your new gallery Mr. Lazarides. UPDATE: Completed ad below.

by ANIMAL on October 2, 2008

Found Here: http://animalnewyork.com/news/2008/10/banksy-to-new-york-let-them-ea.php


Although many successful gallery artists do employ assistants to execute their ideas or concepts, Banksy is not generally one to relegate work to others, except when it comes to NYC. In what must be a huge disappointment for street art fans, the infamous stenciler's imagery has been popping around the city up but he didn't paint any of them himself, instead relying on outdoor advertising company Colossal Media. Now that's just weak. At least Nick Walker painted his own shit while in the city this past summer even if it was all legal walls. UPDATE: Jump for the almost completed rodent. |Gawker|

Found Here: http://animalnewyork.com/news/2008/10/more-banksy-ads-going-up-in-ne.php