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Street to Gallery, Graffiti to Art – Brasilian street artists paint the embassy

The guys take their responsibilities seriously when it comes to moving from the street into the gallery though: street art lovers would do well to remember the curiously castrating effect that the Hospital Gallery had on English stenciller Banksy’s work (Banksy vs. Warhol exhibition, August 2007). According to Tinho, Pato and Flip, as soon as their art is moved into a setting such as this, the very term ‘street art’ is left at the door. “You get different types of people coming up and analysing your work”, says Flip, “ - they’re gonna be questioning things that maybe people on the streets would simply pass by.” Yet these veterans of the urban art scene don’t seem too phased by the pressure of higher-browed scrutiny. Flip has been graffing since ‘97 and Tinho still remembers his times as an aspiring artist under the military dictatorship. “Pato started a little later than us”, Flip sniggers as he jabs Pato in the ribs.

Perhaps the most outspoken, Tinho is eager to recount anecdotes of the censorship that he experienced personally, moreover in places one might not expect: “I was asked to paint the walls of this bar, like a pub - nothing fancy, where normal people would go and drink - and I wanted to show how lots of people at that time were talking about ecological issues and planetary issues but not really doing anything. So I drew the piece on the wall, representing that idea, of hypocrisy. When I came back to the bar a few days later, someone has scrubbed it out.” Tinho sombrely reflects that perhaps censorship isn’t limited solely to governments, and as the three joke around, it’s simultaneously clear that the three men are passionately involved in the deeper questions that their art throws up - and perhaps this is what is most refreshing: that the spotlight will rest on individuals that invite intelligent social and political conversation - topics that they reflect through a medium that, crucially, speaks to the younger generations.

STREET ART BRAZIL
8th – 30th Apr / 11am to 6pm / Free @ Gallery 32, 32 Green St.
WWW.BRAZIL.ORG.UK/GALLERY32