"Stain", Santander, Spain, 2011
Hello Again Addictees!
We have new listings coming in thick and fast (if you missed the last lot, click here). The latest works are from the muy caliente Spanish street artist Pejac.
Working in various mediums, Pejac is known for his recreations of classic masterpieces, like the installation Don't Look Back in Anger (2016), which features a rendition of van Gogh's Starry Night (1889) carved by key into the hood of a Jaguar. Although he graduated from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan, Pejac is a fierce proponent of street art who believes art should be accessible to all. His works can be found in Paris, London, Milan, Moscow, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Tokyo, and the United States.
“Don’t Look Back In Anger (Tribute To Vincent Van Gogh)”, London, United Kingdom, 2016
Arty-Fact: "Don’t Look Back in Anger” recreates Van Gogh’s "Starry Night" as a response to the UK’s decision to exit the European Union (Brexit).
By scratching onto a Jaguar, an iconic British car, Pejac addresses the human obsession to cover marks and scars by turning them into something positive.
”Passion can lead us to destroy and in a split second it can push us to create. We are unpredictable beings, anger is a necessary emotion.” ~ Pejac
Pejac is very particular when choosing the right place, context, and medium or tools for a specific message. This is why he decided on the alleys of Istanbul to create trompe l'oeil window pieces; the bustling streets of Bushwick, New York, for a fossil trompe l'oeil; London's light posts for gravity-defying shoes; Tokyo for a miraculous appearance of shark fin on the sidewalk; Amman for the poignant materialisation of people's memories on the weathered walls of the Jabad Al-Weibdeh refugee camp; or Moscow for My Only Flag, depicting a child raising a flag made of branches.
In his studio practice, Pejac uses his fine art education to experiment with various techniques, continuously searching for the one that best conveys the desired atmosphere of his vision and concepts. Working with everything from oils and watercolour, over charcoal and pencil, to scarping, burning, stencilling, and spraypainting, but no stranger to sculpture or installation, the artist sees his practice "more like a marathon than a sprint while valuing the importance of the route".
Enjoy the ride...
Medium: Single-coloured hand-pulled photopolymer on hand-coloured monotype printed on Korean Kozo mulberry paper, mounted on Velin 'Arches cotton paper 300gsm with acrylic paint and pencil hand-finishing, signed and numbered by the artist
Edition: #33/60
Year: 2022
Size: 80.0cm x 110.0cm
Arty-Fact: This artwork depicts a bird’s-eye view of a battle in an infinite trench - Pejac's artistic rendition of the absurdity of combat.
‘Sometimes perceiving someone as a friend or foe is just a matter of perspective." ~ Pejac
Medium: Serigraph print combining 17 hand-pulled silk screens on Arches BFK Rives white 100% cotton paper (300gsm fine grain), hand embellished with silver leaf (999/1000), signed and numbered by the artist
Edition: #43/60
Year: 2022
Size: 103.0cm x 103.0cm
Arty-Fact: Pejac has used a serigraphic printing to revisit an iconic work he first exhibited in London in 2016, entitled ‘New Wave’. The image invites the viewer to explore his dreamlike world, where the laws of physics are replaced by the poetic.
“I like to think there’s always the possibility of opening up a new route, a new path. Alternative routes have always fascinated me. You can choose to take them or not, but what interests me is knowing they exist. And in this case, one of the protagonists has chosen that new path." ~ Pejac
Medium: Single-coloured hand-pulled photopolymer on Korean Kozo Paper mounted on Zerkall Artrag Handmade Paper 300gsm, signed and numbered by the artist
Edition: #21/40
Year: 2021
Size: 77.0cm x 106.0cm
Arty-Fact: Pejac feels the character depicted in this work is best described using a famous quote from Oscar Wilde: ‘‘A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.’’
Also available...
Medium: Hand-painted mixed media sculpture inside PET bottle mounted on a beech wooden base, signed and numbered by the artist
Edition: #3/30
Year: 2017
Size: 35.0cm (L) x 13.0cm (H) x 9.7cm (W)
Arty-Fact: In November 2002 oil tanker "MV Prestige" split in half and sank off the coast of Galicia in northern Spain. Carrying 77,000 metric tons of heavy fuel oil the structurally deficient vessel caused the largest environmental disaster in the history of both Spain and Portugal.
With "Desprestigio", Pejac wanted to create a dark souvenir to human ignorance and lack of environmental responsibility, while producing his 1st sculptural edition to date. The spill polluted thousands of kilometers of the Spanish, French and Portuguese coastline, strongly affecting the artist's native region.
Turning the disastrous real life story into a poetic sculpture, Pejac tirelessly hand painted and assembled each of the 30 exact replicas of the wretched tanker. From recreating all the details of the aged and weathered carrier, tenaciously stencilling its name (desprestigio – discredit / disgrace), to using a PET plastic bottle as a common example of a derivative product of crude oil, the artist developed a complex process using different techniques and setting new standards for his editioned works along the way.
In the words of the artist:
"This piece talks about the tragedy (of Prestige) that covered the coast of my country (and my region) in black [two decades] ago, and whose damage to nature is still visible today. I chose this particular case, but want to extend it to all the environmental tragedies that happen on our seas and oceans every few years. Desprestigio works as a dark souvenir of a fact that should not be forgotten: we must, and can, be much better guests on Earth. After all, this work is a message in a bottle.’’ ~ Pejac
If you're looking for excelente urban art to adorn your home, get in touch with us at blair@addictedgallery.com or elena@addictedgallery.com
Until the next one Addictees, "Hey Macarena, ay!"
Blair & El xoxo