Graffiti artist: Fafi

I have been trying to post graffiti artists that paint faces every week, and this graffiti artist Fafi, does paint faces but she also paints bodies as well, a lot. The photos here focus more on the face. I think most of the graffiti artists faces really correspond well to Condo's work that we saw in the New Museum. Most of these faces are portraits of imaginary people - and often they have interesting characteristics. What I think connects more with Condo, in Fafi's work, is that she usually, if not all of the time, paints these characters with acrylic paint and a paint brush - which is something that will separate her from other graffiti writers. She also deals with this specific archetypes at times!  Enjoy.

in Toulouse, France. Source

in Barcelona, Spain Source

Jaber profile

The only stuff I have seen on Jaber's were theses profile streaks - but after some research he also does some filled in characters as well. Enjoy!

(source)

 

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Hitler in animated cartoon form.

How has the Hitler image been visually represented in different animated cartoons?

Hitler on The Simpsons "Revenge is a Dish Best Served Three Times" episode in 2007

Hitler and Eva attempt to commit suicide Season 4, Episode 8 on The Family Guy

Cartman as Hitler on South Park from the Passion of the Jew episode, Season 8, episode 4


Then, I also found Donald Duck as Hitler from a film titled "Der Fuehrer's Face" from 1943.

Instead of losing face, I found it!

So, funny story! Last Thursday evening after class, I was looking online for some photos of 'Lister', a graffiti artist who does a lot of work with faces and I found an image from somewhere in Brooklyn that was taken fairly recently. I was trying to figure out where it was but couldn't figure it out. I was going to scout out some areas over this coming weekend. 

Then amazingly, on Friday, I was going somewhere with my mom and she had to stop in Williamsburg. As were leaving and turning the corner, there was the face I was trying to locate! I found it totally by mistake. It was great!

The face I found:

Facial Action Coding System #AU6 exercise.

After doing some exploration in Paul Ekman's website, I found a link to one of his books, the Facial Action Coding System which has all of the coding information for facial movements. The first two chapters of the book are available online! In the second chapter, Ekman goes over action unit 6 which is the cheek raiser and lid compressor. There is a listed step by step instruction on how to do this action with your facial muscles. I tried doing it and while it seems super easy - it is a bit difficult to control the facial muscles as so.
The directions I followed:

• Try winking, using your cheek in the wink. Note how your cheek lifts. Now do that cheek lift without the wink. 
• Try squinting your eyes as though to block out a bright sun, and although this motivation is likely to produce AUs 4 and 7 as well, you can refine these movements to exclude all but AU 6. 

The end result:

Street artist Vhils

This street artist, vhils, creates his work in Europe (at least that is where all of the pictures are coming from when I searched them). He scratches large scale portraits from walls. It is quite amazing!

Mole mapping

This was the map I found last week that I spoke to the class about!

from the source:

"RED colored words are positive

BLACK colored words are negative
feel free to add your own notes
this word "凶" shows up a lot in the mole map. it refers to a non-specific unlucky thing. according to the text to the left of the drawing of the girl, it could mean bad luck in your career, marital troubles, losing money, a sickly body, your friends are gonna bring you troubles (like they'll borrow money from you), etc..
i grokked this mole map from a mole buster's night market stall in taipei. the mole-buster's mobile number is on the lower right of the flyer. call him to arrange for a mole-removing session (in case your mole happens to mean something unlucky)."

Smize!

In class on Thursday we were discussing eyes and smiling. I remembered Tyra Banks always telling the contestants on "America's Next Top Model" to smile with their eyes. News to me, Tyra Banks actually has a term for it, called "smize". Please enjoy, haha!

Exercise in Memory and Faces

Inspired by James Elkins in his "What Is a Face?" chapter in The Object Stares Back, I did an exercise in memory. I first tried to write a description for a face I see a lot in my life, then I tried to draw it from memory. Now, naturally, I have a more cartoonish look to my illustrations, but it is really interesting how I described them, how I drew them and then what these faces look like in real life.

 

Graffiti and faces!

After the music video for "Sledgehammer", I immediately thought of graffiti and characters and how a lot of writers will focus on the face if they are making characters, myself included.

I took this picture around 2005, in Texas. Most of Pars streaks on trains are of characters and faces. It is amazing how much can be illustrated with a seemingly basic face and some drips. The next writer I thought about was Broke, who is from Texas. While I took some photos of his stuff while I lived there, I did not take the following photo which depicts his fun style. He has totally animated and made candy corn emotional. He also adds faces to a number of objects in and around Austin like trees and dumpsters, among other things.

(via)

Face Mapping for Acne

When I did a google image search of face mapping, this advertisement came up for dermalogica. What I found really interesting about the advertisement was the language used in it. "With Dermalogica's unique Face Mapping zone-by-zone skin analysis, you can discover the real reason behind your skin concerns." (emphasis, mine) Similar to the language used in describing the face as the window into the soul and discovering the true person, apparently the face can also give information concerning acne and other body ailments. It also reminded me of the face maps that came up a lot in the film Chinese Box.

Face of the 80's!

The first thing I did when I arrived home from the first class was look up this epic music video from the 80's that focuses primarily on a face! The great thing about the Peter Gabriel "Sledgehammer" video is that while just shifting his hair style, and some minor facial expressions, Peter Gabriel really transforms the mood and emotions that he is exerting. Even if the background was not changing as well, his facial expressions would still be in transit!