StreetLove THE ARTIST
We keep on highlighting the work of street artists with a frenchie: SPRAY YARPS from Paris.
Born in the 15th district of Paris in 1966 and still living in the city of lights, now in the 14th – on Rue des Artistes 😉
His signature is made from a palindrome: take YARPS and it gives you SPRAY – genius! He started doing street art in 1985 in his 20’s as he loved being on the streets to give away his vision, his art. Always attracted by art, he developed the stencil technique – mostly mono layer in the 80’s which was pretty efficient at that time “quickly and well done” with an immediate impact on passers-by.
He recently opened an art gallery in Saint Ouen (93), north suburb of Paris, with his friend and photographer Rock Pierre Terrasson: One Toutou gallery (Stand 122 at Marché Dauphine) in reference to number 122 Rue de Provence which was one of the most famous and prestigious parisian brothels 😉
He is also involved and working on a great project named “Film In Situ” with his great friend Claude Degoutte (journalist, film maker and author on a numerous street art books). The aim of the project is to create a stencil of a cult movie scene, at the exact place of where the movie happened and has been filmed. More info on the website: www.filminsitu.fr
To promote his artwork and projects, he is using:
– His website: www.spray-yarps.com
– Facebook: facebook.com/spray.yarps
– Instagram: instagram.com/spray.yarps
– Facebook for the gallery too: facebook.com/galerieonetoutou
One word: go and check out his website which perfectly tells the story of 35 years of being a street artist and shows all his projects!
StreetLove THE ART
Obviously, his main inspiration comes from music and the movie industry.
He did his first street art piece UNDER the street, in the parisian famous catacombes and after this in the 18th in Paris where he lived for more than 10 years, Rue des Abbesses.
His stencils are size small to medium with mainly black & white colors and easy to find around Europe and also in China and the USA. His art pieces had the chance to travel the world to South America as well thanks to the project “Street art Without Borders” created by traveller Eric Maréchal.
We advise you to take a look at the section WORLD on Yarps website to discover more about the project “The Art Fabric” – aimed at bringing art to people where there is no chance for them to discover in other way (in brazilian favelas for instance).
StreetLove THE TECHNIQUE
He loves painting on the walls directly but the project ‘Film in Situ’ pushes him to develop new techniques to paint on the sidewalks.
Yarps mainly works with multi-layers stencils cut by hand thanks to a nice magnifying glass, and put in color with spray paint cans.
StreetLove THE FUN
Spray Yarps has of course worked with numerous artists, to begin with the collective “Zen Copyright” with whom he opened a huge number of squats early 90’s with artists such as: SP38, Edouardo (RIP), Pedrô, the Bateleur and also Momo.
More recently he worked with Jérôme Mesnager who he likes and respects a lot, but also Ludo Basto, Tarek, Mat Elbé, Gregos, Pioc PPC, ERS, Crey132 and of course his friend and photographer Rock Pierre Terrasson and Gerard Lavalette with whom he has worked with since his beginnings. Many others, but just thinking about all of them seems impossible – memory default?! Don’t get him wrong 🙂
3 things he likes: life and all its good things and fortunately, they are numerous! Music above everything plus his friends & relatives.
3 things he hates in general: opportunistic people, politicians and their perpetual lies (pleonasm!) and consumer society, fashion, planned obsolescence, individualist society in which we unfortunately live, …
StreetLove WHAT’S NEXT
He told us that he is working on a big project: he is making stencils on safe boxes coming from the Banque de France which used to contain 48kgs of gold. Each of them will be numbered in collaboration with “La salle des coffres” – with the gallery next door to his at Marché Dauphine in St Ouen (132 rue des rosiers). Very limited edition with stencils of famous public enemies like Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Baby Face Nelson, John Dillinger or also Jacques Mesrine… Stay tuned!
A message for the StreetLove team?
Thank you StreetLove to be here and support artists to promote our art, street art which is to my mind, essential.
