The Top Street and Graffiti Artists to Watch in 2015

Image via Complex Original

Location: New York

Mender has dedicated his practice to bringing awareness to the injustices that have been dominating the media. Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Trayvon Martin all appear in his work, shown above over a monkeywrench quilt pattern. His message spans mediums to include graffiti, printmaking, and textiles. His varied approaches powered by important messages make him one of the most important artists to watch this year.

Location: New York

Since visiting Hawaii this year, Elle's imagery has taken on a tropical tone that mirrors her color palette. Starting in New Jersey, Elle accomplished her first wall that required a cherry picker. She has spent the last few weeks, thanks to Yasha of Urban Nation, in Penang, Malaysia completing her second and third large-scale murals. If this past year is any indication, Elle will continue challenging herself with new graphics and monumental walls in 2015.

Location: Transient

Wolftits 907 has always dominated the streets with his multiple-breasted wolves. This year, for both 17 Frost Gallery and Art Basel Miami Beach, the artist moved into the third dimension with his work, welding it into sculptures and candles. With Wolftits pushing himself creatively in streets and galleries, he is one to watch develop this year.

Location: Hong Kong

In a genre where styles often blend together, Caratoes has managed to create an aesthetic that is completely her own. Her characters, typically female, are encircled by smoke and rendered in a memorable color palette of chrome alongside saturated blues and reds.

Location: Southwest

While many use street art as a medium to give voice to injustices, Honor the Treaties is a group of First Nations muralists who work to give their own communities a voice. Through murals and wheatpastes (which are made accessible for download and print) the group not only brings awareness through their work, but enables others to do so as well.

Location: Transient

Heya WCC (Who Cares Crew) has made a name for himself this year through his mastering of typographical style in multiple mediums. Stickers, rollers, extinguishers, hybrid pieces: the artist writes his name with anything he can get his hands on. This hybrid piece remains one of the best that went up this year.

Location: Barcelona

Francisco de Pajaro, otherwise known as Art Is Trash, came to our attention through his painting of garbage in New York's summer heat. He also adorned walls with his simplistic characters, usually riding horses with roller brush in hand. Through both his style and his unusual canvases, Pajaro brings to life the parts of the city that are often forgotten.

Location: Montreal

Like Honor the Treaties and Mender, Zola's practice fully incorporates political action into her street work. Through organizing the Off-Murales Festival and zine, which critiques mainstream festivals, to her patches and wheatpastes, she aims to inspire action. While Mender and Honor the Treaties operate in the United States, Zola focuses her impact on Montreal and adjacent locations like Turtle Island.

Location: Newark, New Jersey

Last year alone, Mata Ruda exhibited in two major museums: El Museo del Barrio and the Newark Museum. His pieces have called into question what the Latino-American experience means. These themes continue in his exterior work, where he frequently collaborations with friends, such as LNY.

Location: Buenos Aires

Each year, Ever produces some of our favorite murals, which seamlessly combine political icons, such as Chairman Mao, with the saturated colors associated with South American murals. In 2014, the artist continued to impress, with his collaboration with Smithe. Indoors, his "Villa Ocupada" exhibition brought his message to three-dimensional fruition, with painted books hidden amidst a sickle and hammer flag and banners extending from his murals. By turning his work into a small, experiential room, Ever pushed himself outside of his usual comfort zone of large-scale murals.

Location: Oakland, California

We were first introduced to the work of Faring Purth after hearing a story that involved a friend, the street artist Roa, and a burning building. From that moment, we were hooked on her work. The loosely rendered lines, melancholy faces, and names lovingly given to each mural pull at viewers’ heartstrings beyond the initial harrowing story. Similar to Caratoes, Faring has found a way to carve out her own style of characters, making her work easy to distinguish.

Location: New York

2014 was a busy year for Hanksy, with the launch of his “Surplus Candy” webseries and the illegal art exhibition of the same name. For spring of 2015 Hanksy will move away from the pun-based stencils he is known for, instead lending his own illustrative hand to his humor.

Location: New York

For years, Dasic has consistently provided bright walls with masked figures throughout New York. In the past year in particular, he expanded to complete several large-scale murals throughout Brooklyn, including a particularly touching portrait of his yet-to-be-born child.

Location: New York

Through “Surplus Candy,” their personal work, and murals from Bushwick to Norway, Icy and Sot have become more outspoken in their beliefs. Raised fists and Molotov cocktails have started appearing throughout their stencils. Originally hidden behind metaphors of mind-controlled children, the duo have done away with the analogies, presenting only their beliefs.

Location: New York

Specter has been dedicating his street practice recently to the utilization of Cemusa bus shelters. Unlike many other artists who have access to these spaces, the artist cleverly creates work that overflows from the main ad space to the smaller one above it that is often forgotten. His abstractions replace the noise of advertisements, allowing for some quiet contemplation while waiting for the city's unpredictable bus service.