Top 8 Street Art Sculptors

Ride in peace, Paris

Street art is traditionally practiced on flat surfaces and walls, but today the new urban scene is increasingly investing the third dimension to create more interactive and immersive artworks! Street art sculpture or installations, the nature of these artworks is yet to be defined, but cities are becoming one big playground for those street artists. Artpser has selected 8 works and artists who stands out in the art of three-dimensional street art.

1. Mark Jenkins

A self-taught artist from United States, Mark Jenkins is The emblematic figure of the movement of three-dimensional street art! His hooded people have been seen in the streets of Rome, Dublin, Rio de Janeiro and Barcelona among other towns. Their faces are often hidden and the staging generally unsettling: Jenkins’ characters seem in distress and in need of help. His technique is also unseen since he wraps up living models in plastic films and tape. He then cuts out the “cast” and assembles it again without the model before dressing it up and adding realistic elements such as hair or hands.

2. Isaac Cordal

Like Slinkachu and Pablo Delgado, Isaac Cordal is specialized in miniature Art: his works represent miniature creatures made of cement –the material that typically represents the mark of mankind- and are placed in places to which we generally do not pay much attention to, gutters, puddles etc. His miniature figurines turn the city into a gigantic cinema set. They are often represented in daily actions and the choice of the location has the power to open the scene to other worlds. They generally reveal the absurdity of the world we live in. Isaac Cordal’s work reflects on progress and its secondary effects on society.

3. Gregos

Gregos is a self-taught Paris-based artist who started graffiti in the 1980’s. In 1997, he started experimenting with sculpture and molding. It is only years later that Gregos started what is today his trademark in cities he intervenes with: displaying small molds of his own face with different expressions and patterns painted on, sometimes with a message. Each face portrays his current mood. Today, there are over 1,000 of these quirky figurines in Paris and other cities throughout the world.

4. Christiaan Nagel

Christiaan Nagel is the artist whose hallucinogenic mushrooms proliferate on the roofs, the walls and the streets of London, Barcelona and Berlin. These mushrooms of different sizes, in unique samples or flocks, are made of polyurethane. According to the artist, mushrooms spontaneously grow, however, they need the perfect climate and environmental conditions… like unique artistic and scientific ideas. A way to re-enchant the world?

5. David Mesguich

Belgian artist David Mesguich produces large scale geometrical works in paper or recycled plastic and “abandons” them in public spaces of France and Belgium. His purpose? Question cities as places of isolation where everything is conditioned, controlled and sterilized.

6. Ride in Peace

« Ride in peace » is a French phenomenon, and more precisely Parisian. He appeared in the streets of Paris about 2 years ago. The concept of his interventions are simple: put bits and pieces of bikes –wheels, handlebars etc.- on the façades of buildings. Obviously a biker himself –he earns his life as a bike courier- Ride in Peace wants to raise awareness on the difficulties of biking in Paris: “the urbanist who created Parisian bike lanes clearly did not bike very often”.

7. Urban Solid

Behind the name « Urban Solid » there is a duo of Italian urban artists graduated from the Fine Arts Academy of Milan who disseminate their urban installations all over Europe. Their work is based of anatomic molds and objects. Their inspiration is our contemporary society, its contradictions and paranoia. Each installation tackles a current issue under a provocative and humoristic angle.

8. Fra Biancoshock

Fra Biancoshock is another Italian artist who chose to twist urban space as an artistic means of communication. His installations are witty and playful: they aim at disrupting our daily life by twisting familiar objects around in a satirical way: public toilets turned into juice boxes, a wall with a huge crack covered up by a Band-Aid and so on. His work appears light and cheerful but it also tackles the big issues of our time such as poverty, capitalism and nature. For the artist, the ephemeral aspect of his pieces is crucial and he coined a movement name for himself called “ephemeralism”.