Just as the world has seen with 5 Pointz and a bunch of other iconic graffiti spots throughout the world, nothing gold can stay. This same maxim holds true in the San Francisco Bay Area. Last weekend, Hashimoto Contemporary opened a two-person exhibition, featuring the works of San Francisco-based painter Jessica Hess and anonymous graffiti legend GATS. Through their works, the show takes a look at the way graffiti and street art have influenced and changed the Bay Area's landscape.
A photorealistic landscape painter, Hess actually celebrates the art of graffiti through a fine arts lens. She has immortalized her city's street art scene by painstakingly capturing the vibrant throwups and tags around her using oil paints. Her larger canvases spotlight spaces and structures strewn with graffiti, while her smaller works emphasize the more subtle details of crumbling walls and peeling paint.
Oakland-based street artist GATS, on the other hand, continues to work with contemporary mediums. Inside Hashimoto Contemporary, visitors will find his signature, hawk-eyed mask staring vigilantly from the gallery walls. As for the names and cracks in his iconic mask? "The cryptic names that decorate the mask remind me to appreciate people in my life and those I respect," the artist told Hashimoto Contemporary. "Every tear is to remember a specific individual who was murdered by the police. The mask becomes more and more cracked as it ages."
The show is on view from May 3 until May 24th. For those who can't make it to San Francisco, click through to see some of their impressive works.
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