Image via Complex Original
Street art is nothing new, and neither are the art dealers and banker douchebags who try to cash in on "the next big thing". But what the high art world often fails to realize is that the core of street art is the public display of the work and the interaction with the world—it has little to do with screenprints on gallery walls. This is also probably why it continues to remain a valid art form no matter how many Banksy paintings Brad Pitt buys.
One guy who does get this world is Sebastian Buck, the founder/curator/writer of unurth.com. If it's happening on the street and if it's any good, this guy is on it. To get a legit read on what's going on in the global street art scene right now, we tapped Sebastian for his opinion on the 50 greatest street artists working right now. Click on the gallery above to check out his countdown.
#50. Bumblebee
flickr.com/theuglyyou
Base Country: US
Type of work: Installation/ Stencils
Bumblebee's stencils often juxtapose the charm of innocent childhood scenes against the gritty urban landscape. His installations around L.A. are interesting, where phone booths and newspaper boxes are taken over by beehives with industrious miniature bee sculptures inside.
#49. Shepard Fairey
obeygiant.com
Base Country: US
Type of work: Pasteups/ Collage
This man needs no introduction. Shepard Fairey's Andre and Obama Hope images are some of the best known artistic images of the past decade. His recent street work has mostly focused on complex layered patterns as backdrops to propaganda-style images.
#48. Other
flickr.com/other
Base Country: Canada
Type of work: Murals
Other is from Canada, but seems to be in a different country every month; his unusual figures made of composite patterns and features find their way onto walls and freight trains around the world.
#47. Liqen
liqen.wordpress.com
Base Country: Spain
Type of work: Murals
Liqen does not seem to court attention, but his talent demands it. His detailed narrative scenes draw you into looking at them for a long time, trying to untangle all the different aspects. Originally from Spain, he now paints in Mexico.
#46. Stinkfish
stink.tk
Base Country: Colombia
Type of work: Murals
Stinkfish has two distinct styles: monochromatic portraits and stencils, and wildly colorful, patterned walls.
#45. Aryz
aryz.es
Base Country: Spain
Type of work: Murals
Young and supremely talented, Aryz paints huge walls with a dark, illustrated style.
#44. Swoon
flickr.com/groups/swoon
Base Country: US
Type of work: Pasteups
Swoon is based in New York, but she is active all over the world. Her wood block images are precisely cut and then pasted on the street. The pieces often depict characters with expressive faces and elements of their life composed to form the body. She also founded the 'Swimming Cities' artist collective that creates eccentric boats for various adventures.
#43. Hyuro
flickr.com/hyuro
Base Country: Spain
Type of work: Murals
A relative newcomer, the Argentinian Hyuro is now based in Valencia, Spain and often paints with Escif. She creates dramatic, introspective scenes of characters exploring their thoughts and emotions.
#42. Iemza
flickr.com/photos/iemza
Base Country: France
Type of work: Murals
Iemza's abstract portraits use a variety of styles, but always use color and decaying walls effectively to create a mysterious, alien feel.
#41. Sten & Lex
flickr.com/photos/-sten-
Base Country: Italy
Type of work: Stencils
Sten and Lex collaborate to create very unusual stencils, using benday dots and lines of varying thickness.
#40. Seacreative
seacreative.net
Base Country: Italy
Type of work: Murals
Often working with Vine and ReFreshInk, Seacreative's illustrated characters in abandoned buildings are reminiscent of Barry McGee's figures, but they convey their own type of wonder and emotion.
#39. Gaia
gaiastreetart.com
Base Country: US
Type of work: Pasteups
Gaia's printed pasteups of portraits, animals and hybrid creatures (e.g. a lion with rabbit ears) are beautifully detailed and quietly powerful.
#38. Jaz
flickr.com/photos/franco-jaz-fasoli
Base Country: Argentina
Type of work: Murals
Humanoid figures with great use of color. Jaz's "Stamina" series of walls feature hand to hand combat.
#37. Mesa
flickr.com/photos/el_messa
Base Country: Spain
Type of work: Murals
Little known, and with only a Flickr of an online presence, Mesa creates wonderful photo-realist works in Spain. His ghostly faces on rural buildings and his ominous black birds are standouts.
#36. Ludo
thisisludo.com
Base Country: France
Type of work: Pasteups
Ludo is best known for his "Nature's Revenge" series, where military and industrial images are collaged to create natural forms—nature begins to regain ground in the urban environment. His style is immediately recognizable, particularly because of his signature bright green color.
#35. Zilda
flickr.com/zilda
Base Country: France
Type of work: Handpainted pasteups
Zilda's hand-painted classical images are unique for the sense of history he brings to street art—from ancient mythology in his most recent series, to classic Italian movies from the '50s in another. Particularly effective is his placement of movie characters on streets where the movies were filmed.
#34. Know Hope
thisislimbo.com
Base Country: Israel
Type of work: Murals
Know Hope's poetic figures accompanied by lines of poetry deal with the tricky balance of life, love, and the struggle between optimism and pessimism that his name immediately conveys.
#33. Best Ever
flickr.com/photos/mr_omus
Base Country: UK
Type of work: Murals
Only painting together for the last couple of years, Best Ever is a collaboration of Neil Edward and Hadley Newman that has quickly developed a strong reputation. Their photo-realistic walls are anatomically-based, but go beyond the pure form to convey emotion and turmoil.
#32. Becca
beccamidwood.com
Base Country: US
Type of work: Handpainted pasteups
Becca has been pasting hand-painted characters for over a decade, mostly around L.A. Her pieces are typically glamorous ladies or playful kids, which become especially striking in gritty urban alleys and soulless Los Angeles streets.
#31. El Mac
el-mac.net
Base Country: US
Type of work: Murals/ Graffiti
L.A.-based El Mac paints photo-realistic portraits, often in collaboration with Retna's calligraphy-based backgrounds. The pieces become local landmarks.
#30. Nunca
flickr.com/photos/-nunca
Base Country: Brazil
Type of work: Murals
One of the Brazilian greats, Nunca paints indigenous-style characters and strong political statements around the world. He has painted everything from a castle in Scotland to the exterior of the Tate Modern in London.
#29. Philippe Baudelocque
baudelocque.com
Base Country: France
Type of work: Murals
Philippe Baudelocque paints huge animals around Paris that are striking from a distance, but even more interesting on closer inspection because they're made up of intricate patterns and details.
#28. Specter
specterart.com
Base Country: US
Type of work: Murals/ Sculpture
Specter has a huge variety of projects, from street sculptures to portraits to recreating storefronts.
#27. Luzinterruptus
luzinterruptus.com
Base Country: Spain
Type of work: Light sculptures
Based in Madrid, Luzinterruptus creates light-based installations using small battery-powered lights. The installations are beautiful, and each is accompanied by a statement explaining their commentary on society.
#26. Zoo Project
flickr.com/groups/zooproject/
Base Country: France
Type of work: Murals
More elusive than Banksy, Zoo Project creates amazing walls in Paris, and recently in southern France. Simple characters impart philosophical messages.
#25. Conor Harrington
conorsaysboom.wordpress.com
Base Country: Ireland
Type of work: Murals
Conor Harrington's military-inspired murals incorporate suggestions of calm figures against turbulent, graffiti-inspired backgrounds.
#24. Eine
einesigns.co.uk
Base Country: UK
Type of work: Graffiti/ Sign-writing
Eine's best known street work is his "Shutter Font" (bold letters on storefronts), including a complete alphabet in London. Recently he became more known when David Cameron gave Barack Obama an Eine canvas.
#23. Steve Powers
aloveletterforyou.com
Base Country: US
Type of work: Graffiti/ Sign-writing
Legendary graffiti writer ESPO ('Exterior Surface Painting Outreach'), recently better known as Steve Powers, created his "Love Letter" murals in Philadelphia and Syracuse, where he used traditional sign-writing techniques (and a lot of local young people) to create witty proclamations of love. So sick.
#22. Herbert Baglione
herbertbaglione.blogspot.com
Base Country: Brazil
Type of work: Murals
Herbert Baglione's simple human-alien characters are complemented by beautiful, detailed patterns.
#21. Fauxreel
fauxreel.ca
Base Country: Canada
Type of work: Photo pasteups
Fauxreel's black & white photography-based work is both striking and purposeful. His projects often reflect social issues, and are rooted in the local community. His recent "Face of The City" series merges portraits of local residents with the character and blemishes of the walls.
#20. C215
flickr.com/photos/c215
Base Country: France
Type of work: Stencils
Frenchman C215 creates romantic stencilled portraits, often of his daughter Nina. His monochromatic stencils are great, which he paints on surfaces with character, like rusty doors or mail boxes.
#19. Slinkachu
little-people.blogspot.com
Base Country: UK
Type of work: Sculpture/ Photography
Slinkachu's work is almost impossible to see because it's only a few millimeters tall. Very detailed scenes with incredibly small people—almost everybody sees his work through photographs. But it has the power to make you see the world a little differently—maybe there are small people rowing on that splash of milk?
#18. Phlegm
phlegmcomics.com
Base Country: UK
Type of work: Murals
An incredibly skilled illustrator, Phlegm creates beautiful hand-made comics as well as huge walls with detailed scenes of mythical animals and characters. He's not based in a major city, which is why Phlegm is not as well known as others on this list, but that won't last long.
#17. Alexandros Vasmoulakis
vasmou.com
Base Country: Greece
Type of work: Murals
Alexandros Vasmoulakis is known for enormous, often surreal walls that seem to embody a fashionable glamour and dream-like quality.
#16. M-City
mcity.org
Base Country: Poland
Type of work: Stencils
M-City creates huge stencil-based images with a heavy industrial aesthetic, with beauty in the details. It's like looking at satellite images—you can see the big picture, or zoom into a completely different world through the detail.
#15. Space Invader
space-invaders.com
Base Country: France
Type of work: Mosaic
One of the longer-established and better-known street artists, Invader's mosaic tiles can be found in cities around the world. The creation of a real-world game (of hunting the invaders) from an electronic game character is a fun twist. As simple as they are, the space invaders still manage to bring personality, and often have a local flavor.
#14. Aakash Nihalani
aakashnihalani.com
Base Country: US
Type of work: Tape
Aakash Nihalani creates geometric shapes with brightly colored tape, from simple illusions of cubes to very complex patterns. Some of the pieces incorporate people or an aspect of the wall into the illusion.
#13. Claudio Ethos
claudioethos.com
Base Country: Brazil
Type of work: Murals
Ethos paints surreal scenes with monochromatic characters, often with photo-realistic faces, amid a swirl of imagination.
#12. Ericailcane
http://www.ericailcane.org/
Base Country: Italy
Type of work: Murals
Ericailcane paints huge, detailed anthropomorphic animals in a style that reminds me of animations in old children's books; there's a fantasy and wonder about them.
#11. EVOL
evoltaste.com
Base Country: Germany
Type of work: Stencils
EVOL, like Boxi, is a master of stencils; he creates life-like buildings from electric boxes or bare walls by stenciling windows and balconies. In photos of the work, it's often hard to tell that you're not looking at real buildings.
#10. Boxi
boxi.eu.com
Base Country: UK/ Germany
Type of work: Stencils
Boxi and EVOL (previous) take stencil-based street art to a new level with multiple layers and photo-like detail. Boxi's work typically conveys a haunting, post-apocalyptic world, but there are frequently charming touches of humanity. His hazmat-suited character with a shopping list is particularly wonderful.
#9. Interesni Kazki
interesnikazki.blogspot.com
Base Country: Ukraine
Type of work: Murals
Amazingly under-known, Interesni Kazki is a Ukrainian duo (AEC & Waone) that paints huge, incredibly complex murals that you could look at for hours and still see new elements.
#8. Vhils
alexandrefarto.com
Base Country: Portugal
Type of work: Etching
Vhils' powerful portraits are created by subtraction rather than addition: he etches, tears or acid-burns the surface, which adds a depth and character from the wall to the image that you don't see with paint. Most recently, he's started using explosives to etch shapes.
#7. Sam3
sam3.es
Base Country: Spain
Type of work: Murals
Sam3 is most famous for his fluid silhouette figures, which despite lacking facial expressions, still manage to convey struggling, striving, loving. There's a magic about his work.
#6. Escif
flickr.com/photos/escif
Base Country: Spain
Type of work: Murals
Escif holds down Valencia with poetic murals that hold attention longer than most because there's always more ways to interpret them. In his words, "I'm not looking for decorative paintings, I try to wake up viewers' minds."
#5. Banksy
banksy.co.uk
Base Country: UK
Type of work: Stencils
Not the first or entirely original (see Blek le Rat), but indisputably the most impactful in elevating street art from unknown to broad public consciousness. His wit, wry political statements and ability to spot opportunities for subversion make him as exciting now as when he became famous over a decade ago. We all wish there was less hype and circus around him, but he probably feels similarly.
#4. Roa
flickr.com/photos/roagraffiti
Base Country: Belgium
Type of work: Murals
Roa is one of the hardest-working and most talented muralists in the world. His fascination with animals translates into huge still-life walls around the world, and large-scale wildlife take dominant positions in urban environments. His work is striking, particularly given the animals are often in various states of death, decay or slumber.
#3. JR
jr-art.net
Base Country: France
Type of work: Photo pasteups
Making social commentary arresting, beautiful and impressive is no easy feat; TED-Prize-winning JR achieves it. From his native Paris to Africa to South America, JR celebrates communities' quiet heroes by elevating them to massive scale and showing elements of their character.
#2. Os Gemeos
osgemeos.com.br
Base Country: Brazil
Type of work: Murals
The twins have an entirely unique, surreal style, and they are able to convey an incredible amount of emotion through their simple characters.
#1. Blu
blublu.org
Base Country: Italy
Type of work: Murals
Huge murals, strong political statements, powerful imagery and a few multi-million-stream animated videos; everything Blu does is ambitious, and he's talented enough to pull it off. He also stands admirably outside of the commercial art machine.