Alexandre Orion is internationally renown street artist born in Sao Paulo, Brazil in the year 1977 . Alexandre Orion is my favorite male street artist with Swoon being my favorite female artist. He has combined street art with photography to make what could loosely be defined as installations. They are indeed street works of art painted on buildings and in public view, but Orion takes it a step further by imagining how actual people can be used for further impact. The result are some truly unique works where you might have some painted flowers fall off a ledge from above and land on a passerby.
Alexandre Orion is known for his street artwork but also for being world class photographer working mainly in black and white images.
Another funny image has a person riding a motorcycle in real life, whilst Orion has painted a person holding on for dear life. Its this use of people in his photographs with his graffiti that makes this the highest form of street art at the moment. With the use of someone besides just the viewer and the artist it gives us an extra dimension to work with in art appreciation. Awesome!
In this clip we see Orion at work on a piece and then the fuss by police that follows. A great glimpse into the production and demise of a work of street art. Its also great to see the artist work differently than most street artists. Many draw their works line by line, Orion prefers to make a large black shape and wipe out the positive shape. In essence he creates a stencil using a freehand method.
This piece was used to show people how fumes and car exhaust can hurt people. The artist just wiped away the exhaust and black tar that built up in the tunnel, it wasn’t necessary to use paint. What a clever idea to get the public to think about car exhaust and a healthy environment. In fact the government had to develop a law that called what he was doing illegal because in fact he was CLEANING the environment by wiping away dirt and grime, not defacing it with paint.
In this clip we hear from the artist and see a montage of works involving the use of people passing by.
A link to the artist’s own website: http://www.alexandreorion.com/
Orion started doing graffiti at age thirteen.
Like my favorite female artist Swoon, I draw much inspiration for Alexandre Orion for not only his art skills, but for his ideas to improve his local community by using art.
Price range information: Books available on the artist but no original works.
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