Street Art United States is thrilled to share some exciting news about the Spanish street-artist Sebas Velasco. In December his solo show “States of Transition” will open in his hometown Burgos featuring a new collection of work. With the exhibition only running for about ten days, it will be one not to miss.
Over the last few years, Sebas Velasco has identified himself among the great documentarians of the transitional countries of Eastern Europe. With frequent visits to countries that includes the former Yugoslavia, Poland, Hungary or Ukraine; Velasco observes the shifting relationship between the urban environment and economical/political structures. While this disturbance interests historians or economists, this young Spanish artist sees these countries of ‘Transition’ as an El Dorado of visual inputs and inspiration.
Concrete utopias have come to identify Velasco’s work, a visual metaphor for the former political or economic systems. Indestructible, brutalist structures, become poetic narratives speaking to both the past and the present. In capturing these decaying structures in symbiosis with modern-day elements, Velasco isolates societies based on socialism and communism that have been transformed into consumerism and capitalism-powered economies.
Language is a persistent theme, often visually expressed with a dazzling portrayal of neon signage and advertisement. Throughout landscapes, faded vintage examples in both Cyrillic and Latin are subtly pinpointing the remote places and not so distant times, when these signs shined in their full glory. This juxtaposition of styles is what makes the public space so important in these narratives, physical remnants of the transitioning cultures who have moved through them. Portraits of people in this body of work are limited, with life often appearing more subliminally.The expressive use of light suggests a human presence as we watch it flickering in neon, or emanating from the darkness with a Blade Runner-like ambiance in nearby buildings.
The opening will take place on Thursday, December 5th at the historic Consulado del Mar building in Burgos’ city center and will include new original work combining oils on canvas and charcoal drawings on paper. The two mediums juxtapose the texture of these States of Transition, the colorful presentation of the contemporary, against the old black and white photographs of the past.
About the Artist
Sebas Velasco was born in Burgos, Spain and started in the graffiti world around 2004 painting the streets of his hometown. He defined his creative process while completing a Masters Degree in Fine Arts at the University of País Vasco (UPV/EHU) in Bilbao.
His art often deals with an enviable naturalism technique. His “canvases” are mainly the walls and tables. Materials used are oil, acrylic, spray and pencils. It is also in the streets where he finds inspiration for his studio work. His photographic, expressive brush stroke style reveals a precise academic technique that contrasts sharply with the rawness of the street content in his works. In that sense, many of his canvases act as a window for us into everyday moments where strangers are caught in the act with their writer friends. During these moments, darkness has become increasingly more important.
His work has been exhibited individually and collectively, and he has received several awards.
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