10 Los Angeles Street Artists To Watch

Image via Complex Original

He’s been around for a little bit, but the installation street artist known as Plastic Jesus is still our number-one to watch right now. Somehow, Plastic Jesus manufactures these amazing intricate sculptures, such as a giant $100 bill in a pile of faux-caine, next to a massive “American Excess” credit card, or a giant spilled can of Mountain Dew cordoned off as if it were toxic waste. Plastic Jesus is clearly not too happy in the environment he finds himself in, but that never leads to apathy—he’s consistently creating public mixed-media pieces that culture jam the aspects of his environment he’s least happy with into something thought provoking—it’s impossible to miss the in-your-face and inventive work of this guy.

“If society is crumbling, I brought the jack hammer,” reads one wheat-pasted poster from this socially critiquing artist. His work consists of little mantras like this, pasted up around the city, paired with what appear to be self-portraits. Bumboy WC manages to push past ennui to while also making us laugh. Sure, he’s ready to embrace anarchy, but the subject matter for his work wouldn’t be so potent if things weren’t so messed up. Bumboy’s got a chip on his shoulder that’s only widening by the day. But the sorer he gets, the better his work becomes.

This artist possesses a consistent, near-photo-realistic style with a spray can that he blends with an abstract verve we rarely see applied outside of wildstyle. He’s known for massive murals blending classic imagery of fallen angels with raw materials, the canvas of the street, and found objects. It’s the blend of new technique and neo-classic images that speaks to both this moment of creation and the deep history of the art. His non-public works are starting to sell, and at a relatively low cost, so he’s worth investing in now.

Calder Greenwood has a sense of humor that extends to the materials of his street-art installation practice: papier-mâché makes us chuckle, if only for the youthful memories it elicits. Along with recycled cardboard, that’s what Greenwood uses to create his installations that comment on city life while interacting with it: sculptures of giant pigeons, comically oversized security cameras, a sunbather lounging in what is essentially a vacant lot, giraffes, trees growing out of lobbed tree stumps.

There’s something endearing about the black-and-white painter known as Morley. Rather than wear his heart on his sleeve, Morley wears his heart on the streets. His work consists of pasted-up self-portraits, accompanied by little written snippets of inspiration or his own constant, almost naïve hope. “You give me something to fight for,” reads one poster, an excerpt from an E.E. Cummings poem; “You are the spring to my winter of discontent,” reads another, taken from the opening lines of Shakespeare’s Henry III. Even if, or because he’s drawing so much influence from literature, we’re fans for Morley’s ability to remind us the streets don’t have to be all pain and culture wars.

If life imitates art, then we should all be prepping for the apocalypse, based on the work of Dog Byte. He reminds us through subtle juxtaposition how fleeting innocence is, where slightly shocking images demand examination. Instead of just toying with images ingrained in our culture, he utterly destroys them. It might be a well-worn trope, but one that Dog Byte applies to a large scale and an unnerving edge in a new, innovative way.

This artist embodies a philosophy enough to take on its name. That’s Free Humanity, an L.A.-based painter who mixes icons of pop culture with symbols of social degradation to reinvigorate thought. “Taking back the Humanity stolen from our minds by social manipulation and planting seed of positivity through art and consciousness,” is the artist’s mission statement, a kind of reclamation of the streets for the reclamation of our souls. Certainly a bit dogmatic, but this artist is developing a style destined for a strong suit. He’s also not afraid of learning from his forebears—his work can resemble that of KAWS or Banksy or Kenny Scharf.

For an artist with no formal training, Annie Preece sure knows how to use a brush. And she applies her talents with an unusual approach to street art. Namely, she often uses the streets of Los Angeles as a repository for her canvases, a gallery of itself. Though she got her start on the streets and underground of San Francisco (where she was born) she has since moved south and taken up residence in Los Angeles. Her canvases have caught the attention of many passerby and even other artists. Her work is unmistakable, vivid, and wonderful. What makes it so strong is her unmistakable fingerprint, finding common ground somewhere between Ralph Steadman and Bill Watterson. It’s not that she’s exactly disruptive in subject matter; her work is so striking it disrupts the day of passerby by technical merit alone.

The art of GAW Crew’s Duce has an intense honesty to it, along with raucous color palettes and smiling characters. It’s obvious this dude draws from a variety of influence—the Calaveras, graff culture at large, images from his youth. But there’s something just so joyful in the expressions in his murals, even when they are smiling skeletons, hinting at the machinations of life and death—every moment is precious in his work.

He’s been around for a few years now, but we want to keep an eye on the artist Keith Biele, known as Teacher, for two reasons. First, his entire oeuvre is dedicated to bringing education and awareness back to communities. “I was motivated to get into street art because there were cuts to the education budget,” he told L.A. Street Art Gallery in 2012. “Teach every child,” read many of his works. Second, he’s been innovating new ways to use spray cans, such as the device he calls the “8er.” This allows the artist to use eight cans of spray paint at once, creating a loose, calligraphic look that’s as interesting as it is inventive. Teacher truly is out there with the best of intentions, trying to bring a message of awareness back to the streets.