Urban | ChinaShop

Art/Design Featured Low Riding with Lalo Cota

January 10, 2011 - 7:16 am

Lalo Cota is known by his trademark colorful skull-infused art that represents his Mexican heritage and pays homage to his love of Dia de los Muertos. Unlike many of today’s top artists, Lalo never attended art school. He believes that, “Art schools teach you to be like everyone else and that defeats the purpose of being an artist.” Lalo took advantage of classes throughout his public school days and focused his advanced education on developing his business practices. His work can be seen in the form of murals, billboards, stickers, paintings, and his own t-shirt line that will be soon launching on his website. He’s also done his share of painting on human canvases and has even designed actual bust casts from real models in the name of Breast Cancer awareness.

Lalo set down his paintbrushes to share his artistic thoughts with ChinaShop:

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Art/Design Gallery BUA-YA! The Art of Justin Bua

by Nicole Pajer

September 16, 2010 - 10:28 am

Saturday night, the Little Tokyo district of downtown Los Angeles was bustling. I passed by a plethora of shabu-shabu restaurants, bars, and boba tea joints and made my way into Hold Up Art to see the BUA Pops exhibit. Urban Art legend Justin Bua joined fans to proudly show off his collection on its opening night. I walked around the gallery for a bit and took in Justin’s masterpieces. He had a variety of work on display, some revealing city skylines, while others featured musicians, DJs, and other interesting urbanites. People were loving his art and after a gallery employee explained to me that the paintings with the red dots on the tag meant that they were sold, I took inventory and noticed that many purchases were being made. While Justin mingled with fans and autographed his original pieces, one of his friends ran around with a Macbook signing people into their Facebook pages and having them “Like” Justin’s page which really wasn’t a bad idea as far as a grassroots marketing campaign goes.

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Featured Gallery New York City Graffiti perseveres in the ever-changing NYC

by Max Herman

August 11, 2010 - 12:56 pm

Graffiti and New York City are inseparable. Regardless of how many security cameras are installed or other preventative measures enacted, there is no way to completely stop writers from leaving their names on surfaces across the expansive five boroughs. It’s a decades old tradition that not even rabid gentrification can cease. And in 2010, it’s good to see that walls, doors, street posts, and all reachable surfaces are still being hit up with style.

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Art/Design The New Wave of “Public Arts”

by Mike Bucher

July 8, 2010 - 1:03 pm

I remember driving around the valley as a kid, staring tiredly out the window of my mom’s Mazda Protegé, disgusted by the graffiti that littered Rosco Blvd. The three letter gang tags haphazardly sprayed upon the walls often crossed out and covered over by a rival gang. I remember thinking it to be like dogs marking their territory, and I always thought it looked ugly.

20 years later, and for some reason unknown to me, I don’t see nearly as much of that junk graffiti. What I do see is a movement of artists using the urban landscape as their canvas, blessing cities with a sense of wonder and awe. I’ve just recently entered this rabbit hole and I am enamored by the beauty and baffled by the vision of these clever zealots. If you are already privy, forgive me and carry on, but for the rest of you, take a second to revel at the imagination and vision of these captivating urban artists. Let the yarn bombing and graffiti animation begin… Oh and don’t forget about the inflatables division. You’ve got to see this.

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Art/Design The Amsterdam Urban Art Festival

by Molly Crabapple

July 8, 2010 - 11:44 am

On June 26th, girlthings and art monkeys were let lose over Amsterdam. They climbed trees, jumped from buildings. The little bastards even bit.

Unleashing evil art imps was my part in the Urban Art Festival. Produced by the sprawling American Book Center and sponsored by Red Bull, the UAF is a celebration of craft, street, DIY and underground art. Creators gathered from as far afield as Greece and the US to transform the Spui into a guerilla art playground. The Ladies Fancywork Society crocheted elaborate cozies for bikes. Autobahn carved tweets in stone. The stunning Lotta from Utrecht rocked a pirate hat at a free, sun-drenched Dr. Sketchy’s.

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Art/Design Confessions of a Yarn Bomber

by Molly Crabapple

July 6, 2010 - 10:45 am

Imagine a city after it snows. Imagine the white blanket softening all the sharp edges, hiding the filth. Now, imagine that blanket is real.

This is something of what yarn bombing strives to do. Yarn bombers do knitting as street art- creating cozies for chain link fence – throwing lace and flowers over the harsh contours of urban life. Yarn bombers mix the illegal daring of graffiti writers with a traditionally female craft-form, making something both joyous and subversive.

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Featured Urban Exploration The Heidelberg Project: Home Sweet Home

by Dustin Downing

June 17, 2010 - 12:24 pm

The Heidelberg Project was created in 1986 by artist Tyree Guyton and his grandfather Sam Mackey as a form of political protest to the deteriorating Detroit neighborhoods of his youth. It is comprised of numerous decrepit houses adorned with stuffed animals, brightly colored dots, and strange number patterns. The main goal was to develop the city’s first indoor/outdoor museum, creative center, and neighborhood gathering space.

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