Image via Complex Original
The month of May was an incredible time for street art across the globe. From contemporary collaborative works by collectives like CYRCLE, to innovative "GIF-iti" from INSA, the street art world has expanded into new dimensions. Also, May saw a variety of street art festivals across the globe, including the Day One Festival in Belgium and the Artscape Festival 2014 in Sweden. Check out all the top murals that went up around the world last month with In These Streets: The Best Street Art From May 2014.
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CYRCLE
Location: Malmö, Sweden
CYRCLE, the LA-based art collective, recently created a mural in Malmö, Sweden, as part of the Artscape Festival 2014. The mural is titled Collapse Part I and works as an extension of their "OVERTHRONE" campaign that explores power structures and fear. CYRCLE's style is a mash-up of visual traditions, drawing from graphic design, collage, and ancient sculptures.
Vhils
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Portuguese urban artist Alexandre Farto, also known as Vhils, is opening a solo exhibition at the Electricity Museum called "Dissection." Vhils explores the urban space through the act of dissecting and also interconnecting. Instead of painting his murals on walls, he chips away at surfaces to let his works emerge from the material.
Sam3
Location: Porto, Portugal
Artist Sam3's newest mural was organized by Prova de Artista. The simple, block colored mural depicts a black figure climbing over the edge of a page in a book to see the galaxy. His work is simplistic yet symbolic.
Maya Hayuk
Location: Charleroi, Belgium
Maya Hayuk is the New York-based artist behind this vibrant mural in Charleroi, Belgium. Each line is a meter thick (making it her largest mural), and instead of her iconic "drip" painting style, Hayuk created a clean, woven pattern of hues.
"Project M/4"
Location: Berlin
"Project M/4," curated by Thinkspace Gallery and Urban Nation, asked artists to create window murals and other street art pieces. The roster of participating artists included Dabs Myla, Joao Ruas, C215, and Curiot. The streets of Berlin were transformed into a canvas for the variety of colors, styles, and textures explored by the artists.
DALeast
Location: Roeselare, Belgium
Chinese born artist DALeast created this fascinating tangle of a mural for the Day One Festival in Roeselare, Belgium. With his piece, DALeast wants to communicate the burden of materialism alongside the powerful nature of mankind uniting. His style is very minimal (mostly composed with lines of spray paint) but still very potent.
Etam Cru
Location: Gaeta, Italy
Polish duo Etam Cru created this gigantic, somewhat creepy mural for the ongoing Memorie Urbane Festival in Italy. The artwork is of a detached, precocious-looking boy selling his toys, symbolizing the end of childhood. The mural almost looks like it's made from watercolors: soft and dreamy, yet troubling.
Faith47
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
If you've seen Die Antwoord's newest (and arguably most insane) music video, then you've seen the work of artist Faith47. The music video, "Pitbull Terrier," called for a gritty, run down, and aggressive backdrop. The South African artists asked Faith47 to create two works: one of a gnarly Pitbull terrier on a huge wall, and another of a Pitbull attacking a swan.
INSA
Location: Paris
UK-based artist INSA's newest mural is mesmerizing. Integrating street art and the Internet, he has created "GIF-iti." The spinning, rainbow skull GIF took INSA eight layers of paint to complete.
Pejac
Location: Santander, Spain
You won't believe this is a painting the first time you see it. Spanish street artist Pejac utilized the exposed brick on a wall to create the optical illusion of a paper plane breaking through the fired clay.
Suso33
Location: Madrid
Spanish street artist Suso33 created a stark mural of abstracted silhouettes in Madrid. Up close, the shadowy figures are solitary and eerie, but when looking at it from afar, they create the larger image of a brick wall.
Aakash Nihalani
Location: Brooklyn
Aakash Nihalani's geometric tape pieces are surreal. His latest work is a row of 3D puzzle piece-shaped holes along the Domino Sugar Refinery in Brooklyn. Nihalani challenges perception, creating "new space within the existing space of our everyday world for people to enter freely, and unexpectedly 'disconnect' from their reality."
Case Ma'Claim
Location: Frankfurt, Germany
Secured Liberty is a new piece by German graffiti artist Case Ma'Claim (founding member of the crew Ma'Claim.) True to the group's reputation for hyperrealism, Secured Liberty depicts a daunting figure sticking his photorealistic fingers into a cage of seemingly frightened birds.
How & Nosm
Location: Hong Kong
Art duo How & Nosm created End of the Line and Sunset during Art Basel Hong Kong for a mural project. The project, called "The Vaford Gates," began at the Vaford Group Warehouse in Hong Kong.
Kamea Hadar
Location: Honolulu
Hawaiian artist Kamea Hadar teamed up with POW! WOW! Hawaii and the Polynesian Voyaging Society to create a three-part project representing a sacred canoe narrative. Hadar, with the help of the POW! WOW! art students, painted the sacred canoes, Hikianalia and Hokulea, and a breathtaking portrait of master navigator Papa Mau Piailug. The project was done to honor the upcoming project, "Malama Honua: The Worldwide Voyage," a three-year canoe trip around the world.
Cleon Peterson
Location: Poland
LA-based artist Cleon Peterson is known for his chaotic artwork that plays with the ideas of power struggles and violence. He painted this black and white mural on the streets of Poland for the Katowice Street Art Festival.
David Walker
Location: Roeselare, Belgium
Artist David Walker completed this colorful mural for the Day One Festival in Roeselare, Belgium. Walker is infamous for his signature of technicolored women and his self-imposed rule to use "no brushes or stencils, just spray." The gorgeous mural brings the building to life, as if it were closing its eyes and contemplating, like Jessica (the mural's subject) seems to do.
Smates
Location: Roeselare, Belgium
Another mural from the Day One Festival in Belgium, this one is hyperrealistic. Belgian street artist Smates worked with lighting and shadows to create the illusion of a shark breaking through concrete. The huge scale of the mural makes it that much more awesome.
Icy & Sot and Sonni
Location: Brooklyn
This collaboration between Iranian street artists Icy & Sot and Sonni is as literary as it is aesthetically mind-blowing. The mural references a scene from Jonathan Swift's 1726 novel Gulliver's Travels. It depicts a soldier being tied up and disarmed by Sonni's iconic bubbly characters.
Damien Mitchell
Location: Bushwick, Brooklyn
Damien Mitchell's mural invites you into a subway car in the middle of the street. This incredible optical illusion was created for The Bushwick Collective, cleverly showing his mastery of perspective.