VARIOUS
"BREEZE"
SEPTEMBER 26TH - OCTOBER 25TH, 2020
In the mid-1980's hip hop culture had spread like wildfire throughout the mainstream culture - reaching the far corners of the world, impacting every aspect
of life - speech, attitude, movement and mindset. The world re-known infantile culture that stemmed from the heart of
deprived neighbourhoods in New York City blossomed from the limitations the inhabitants had in the fields of the arts. A budget slash in school music programs left the children with no formal knowledge of playing instruments to create music similar to the sounds that their parent's generations enjoyed. In the truest of natural forms, they
adapted - using their parents records to create a new sound. With the lack of oil panting and canvas supplies - they took everyday-use aerosol cans and used the
subways as their studio. With no formal dance schools - they laid down pieces of cardboard and invented new dances to accompany the newly formed recycled
rhythms from their parents crates. This phenomenon acted like an octopus, reaching its tentacles out and grabbing a
hold of every pop corner of the globe. Influencing the worlds of film, political campaigns, advertisement, and fashion.
One of the key individuals in defining the outward facing style that acted like a billboard to outsiders looking to identify a B-Boy or B-Girl was a young man named Shirt King Phade, hailing from the same borough that birthed the art form. Phade took his lessons from the subway train
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canvases and transformed his skill set onto fabric, creating colourful, wearable, art using airbrush and a t shirt. More than thirty years later, his creations have graced the bodies of major celebrities and legendary album covers, in turn inspiring following generations to pick up the air brush, and transforming the medium into their own.
"Breeze" features six artists using the same tools that the tradition provides them, but stepping outside of the world of hip hop culture, they've expanded upon the art form and brought it to the world of modern art. The six artists, hailing from New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Mimi, represent all corners of America, the same corners that the culture born by disenfranchised teenagers infiltrated more than thirty years ago.
