A SHOUT OUT FROM MY CITY 2" Hello, Salut, Hallo, Hola, مرحبا "

"Urbanizing walls" connecting cities and bringing the thrill of the street from Jordan and the world... A selection of fresh artworks featuring: vibrant portraits by Dutch artist Monique Van Steen; the urban culture and rock ‘n roll of the street on the canvas of French artist Stephane Moscato; the dynamic encounter of bodies and a universe full of life with Spanish artist Albert Coma; the friendly monsters of American artist Matt Sesow; an amalgamation of architecture, movies and fashion composed by German artist Markus Haub; a flower plucked from the wall by French artist Viviane Michel; & Venezuelanartist Irene Bou's recreation of a tension in which the insecurity of man in his environment is reflected. Amman also strives for a role in this international conversation with the hybrid streets of Amman by Rawan Kakish while distinguished photographer and artist Hani Hourani renders an urban photography mural. 

 

MARKUS HAUB- Born in Germany; Haub studied transportation design at the School of Applied Arts in Pforzheim till 1997. He later on moved to Barcelona to work for Volkswagen and Renault as a designer; in 2004 he moved to Paris for two years and he is currently living in Barcelona.

In parallel he is working as an artist and displaying his work in various exhibitions in Barcelona and France. His artworks are always based on photos he takes and digitally manipulates. Bringing these manipulated images on canvas and modifying them manually. 

A game of destruction, exaggeration, conservation using different materials and tools; to Haub little accidents that happen lead to unique pieces of art. 

His inspiration is drawn from architecture, movies, fashion, Milla Jovovich or beauty in general. Marcus portrays a unique vision of all that surrounds us and with it draws us into a place where he would like us to visualize. Using fantastic colors which both blend into and stand out from the scenery, Markus' work conveys a sense of closeness and ease to the onlooker.

2001-2010 held numerous solo exhibitions and participated in collective exhibitions in Barcelona, Stiges -Spain and Paris. 

 

Albert Coma- Born in Barcelona- 1970; Coma has used multiple forms of artistic expression throughout his career, mostly drawing, painting, photography, installation and performance. 

He graduated in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona. In 1999 he received a grant from the Leeds Metropolitan University where he was the artistic director of Tanvir Bush's short film "Changeling," which was selected for the Fuji Film Festival in London. 

Albert has participated in many solo and collective exhibitions in Spain and he is a recipient of prestigious awards. 

ABOUT EPHEMERAL ENCOUNTERS

« The ephemeral encounters series is a cry of the freedom of the individual, a cry of the obviousness, a cry of the fear of your own limits. 

The ephemeral encounters are the sigh to have felt the world as it is, to be part of Nature.

Never had a human being been so close to another human being... I have used painting throughout the past years to express my own life experience;

scribbling an adventure where lightness and change are the seed of life, drawing a line that appears and disappears, a line that strokes, moving in an unlimited space, where the main aim is relationship, the encounter of bodies, creating a universe full of life, dynamic, where everything is related, a spread net of lives that meet each other, of ephemeral encounters. »

 

MONIQUE VAN STEEN- Beautiful faces, vivacious and penetrating eyes, attractive features: "it is impossible to escape from the subtle seduction of these portraits made which such vibrant, modern and unexpected colors. Their glances express emotions, reflections of souls."

When the feminine figure is the center of the scenes, Monique represents women in their more private daily moments: intimacies magnified, risen up into pure art.

The works stand out for their saturated, bold color tonalities which are full of life: applied in a super-flat way, without shades or color transitions, reflecting the influence of comics on this artist. The dripping is what culminates the works: bold drips of synthetic painting that joins and gives form to the colored areas, adding a second dimension in depth and reading.

Van Steen studied Life model-drawing, Cercle artistic Sant LLuc, and Barcelona in 2007 and took litography-classes at Traç, Barcelona in 2005.

1999-2010 Monique has held numerous solo exhibitions and was part of collective ones in Spain, Holland and France in addition to receiving many prestigious awards & Grants.

 

VIVIANE MICHEL- "My paint relates histories... there where I narrate my daily life, a little intimate newspaper. To see it, it is necessary to read the canvas in detail. The link to my childhood is strong and the words that I track in the art work are essential; they invite you to a reading. As a Polaroid of personal memories: the support is the photo, the words are the link; a simple act of picking flowers, the arrival of the neighbors, the children playing outside. ... I stick, superimpose, and interweave: this is the memory of the artwork. I work in an almost instinctive manner, with rapidity; my gestures, the colors evolving around with a small figurative element placed in a corner. I throw; place colors in a big space to envelop it, with the light matter and transparency". All my paints are mixed techniques: huile, acrylic, ink and pastels with collage photos and drawings. 2004-2010 Michel has held solo and collective exhibitions in France and Spain.

 

MATT SESOW- Born in Omaha, Nebraska September 10, 1966, of American parents; Matt Sesow is a "self-taught" painter from Washington Dc working and living entirely off the sales of his paintings. Sesow started painting in 1994 as a hobby during the nighttime and weekends as a diversion from his life as a computer programmer at IBM.

As a child, Matt was struck by the propeller of a landing airplane that subsequently severed his dominant hand while growing up in the farmlands of Nebraska. He credits his childhood trauma as being the main influence for his decision to become a painter ... Matt has exhibited in galleries around the world and is part of the inventory of several outsider and naive art collectors.

 

IRENE BOU (1982)- Born in 1982 Caracas, Venezuela; currently resides in Barcelona-Spain.

"Through my paintings, I strive to recreate a sense of tension, in which is reflected the insecurity of man in his environment, but also his fears, his angst, his misery facing life events: a being perpetually aggressed, but an aggressor in turn. This violence implicit and at times invisible, leads him to a degenerative process which unveils the pathos in human relationships and existence itself.

The characters of my paintings are deformed by frenzied passions. Faces are dehumanized, reduced to the most primitive instincts which move humanity forward. These faces are of no one in particular. Portraits are of no interest to me: my characters have no identity.

The skin has been ripped from their faces. The eyes, the mouth, the nose, the features are deformed and almost disappear. Characters move between paintings, trying to demonstrate the challenging of despair and the sadness of a tragic solitude. We, human beings, are uncertain by nature. The feeling of our helplessness makes us live a crazed anxiety.

Hostile, worried, inert faces cast into the void remind us that Man knows that he is miserable and aware of his condition. The paintings act as self-portraits describing our deepest fears.

The trivial confusion from the city and the crowd rhythms our life... By walking distractingly, we separate ourselves each time more from discernment. Marginalized, we accumulate bitterness and imprint our faces in the streets fissures". Irene Bou

Bou has held Solo and was part of collective exhibitions in Spain, France and Venezuela.

 

STEPHANE MOSCATO (1974) aka STF is an autodidact and a stencil artist who lives and works in Marseille, France. He is in love with urban culture and rock'n'roll. He reclaims the skin of the walls through his practice of wheat pasting street posters. Then he uses them as landscape for the background and mixes them with various fonts. Stencil and spray are mixed in a classical result which highlights his obsession with the body. Since 2006, Stéphane Moscato has been working in his studio, exhibiting in different gallery spaces and festivals.

STF tries to bring some parts of the street into the canvas, and sources some materials by looking around the city and taking posters of concerts and events off of walls. He remains reactive; some can be erased or covered at any time. He uses these posters as a background, even with its faults of collage.

As for stencil; he remains faithful to black and white, because to him, the impact is more visible on a colored background. He deforms parts of the visual, in order to attract the viewer's attention to one or more points. 

To him the typography used, reinforces the message and visual as a pictorial landscape. As the stencil design has been used for a long time, he believes that the typo has its rightful place next to the stencil; especially since some fonts are very artistic and would strengthen the subject even more. STF held numerous solo and was part of collective exhibitions in France and Switzerland.