FAILE

I’ve never even thought about trying a hand at graffiti art, unless you count drawing on school desks or answering to bathroom stall questions. Even though graffiti isn’t apart of my own work it is my favorite kind of illustration, most likely because it’s so physical with energy that a flat surface cannot compete with. I recently fell in love with a collective graffiti trio, FAILE, because of their mixed media style of wheat pasting and stencil collages, paintings and prints. Their simple messages in the contrasts of war and peace, sexual images with cute icons, or religious idols in their pop culture style, also draws my attention.

This

image in Amsterdam is one of my favorite stencils, really only because the it is so odd it makes me laugh; a woman giving a blow job to a bunny tit, awesome. I also enjoy the mix of cultures of japanese cute bunny and a western comic art woman. I do get an almost Andy Worhol feel, or Roy Lichtenstein only because it's pop cultured, but both of these artists are overused in the art world though, so it's kind of a turn off. However, they are not either of these artists and their work has a mind of it's own too.

Collages and stencils do have a sculptural aspect to them, but Faile goes more than this with their prayer wheels, also one of my favorites as it also includes a participant to turn the wheel and read the words like a prayer. When illustrators skip over the line of editorial work or book arts and goes to gallery work, I want to celebrate because it almost smacks art elites in the face especially if it's a graffiti gallery. I would love to go to one of Faile's galleries. If you want to see more art, http://faile.net/site/, this is where I got these images.