Welcome to the new/updated site! The Archives and search function may look a bit different, but it is still the same good time. Since 2002, your old-school website for all things stencils. Please consider donating what you can to support the much-needed upgrade. Photo submissions always welcome. Enjoy and stay curious.
Other ways to support this site (beyond submitting pics, videos, exhibit info, etc.):
Also: https://www.instagram.com/mrbrainwash/
Thierry Guetta, under his moniker, Mr. Brainwash, has been pushing the envelope of contemporary art. The orchestrated collision of street art and pop art has been his balancing act. The tipping point for Mr. Brainwash was his groundbreaking footage from the widely- acclaimed documentary, Exit Through the Gift Shop.
Also: https://www.instagram.com/ilse_nieman_paperartist/
In 2013 Ilse developed an interest in paper art – at first in origami and kirigami. It inspired her to produce line drawings of her cats, adding background patterns (reminiscent of her favorite artists Klimt, Beardsley, and Morris) and developed it into single sheet stencil designs. Ilse joined an exclusive Instagram group titled The Paper Artist Collective in 2015 and has been a member since.
You all know him from Instagram. The hugely talented photographer guy, who trots around the globe with his paper cut-outs, creating amazing pictures along the way.
Also: https://www.instagram.com/swoonhq/
Caledonia Curry, known as Swoon, is a contemporary artist and filmmaker recognized around the world for her pioneering vision of public artwork. Through intimate portraits, immersive installations and multi-year community based projects, she has spent over 20 years exploring the depths of human complexity by mobilizing her artwork to fundamentally re-envision the communities we live in toward a more just and equitable world.
Tip of the hat to Prez with Highlife magazine for contacting the Stencil Archive with a simple note, "many artists links are dead". After years of not wanting to grind through updating the artists weblinks, Peter's hope to use the links for a project greased the gears.
Spending many hours this week reviewing and revising the Stencil Archive artists weblinks felt like a digital archeology dig. On the top layer of the work is the recent move to https for website links. There were also about half a dozen duplicate postings that got fixed. Dig a bit more, and some links need to be updated with personal info (RIP Michael Roman) or for typos. Under these layers things get more interesting.
Some artists have quit the art/stencil hustle and websites are gone. This entailed deleting the artist's weblink page completely (RIP Arofish). Some weblink pages date back to 2008, so myspace sites were gone, divientart.com pages appeared abandoned, and some sites had not been updated to modern design standards (RIP Flash).
The biggest transition, and one the Stencil Archive has tried to avoid until now, is the move to linking to social media. Many artists have broken personal site links on their own social accounts, and some do not have personal sites at all anymore. As the Stencil Archive artists weblinks were vetted this week, it was apparent that Instagram now dominates as the main site that covers stencil art.
Towards the late 2010s, Insta links started being posted on this site when deemed necessary to share art to the Stencil Archive community. Now, during this week's massive update, Insta links are also included if the artist has a self-hosted site that is still live.
It was a matter of time before Instagram got added to the Stencil Archive weblinks, so expect to start seeing new weblinks posted for stencil and cut paper artists who have not been included due their only having a social media presence. You will probably need your own account to log in to these sites if you want to click through. Welcome to the "new" era!
Stencil Archive still does not like the privacy/labor/etc issues that corporate-run social media sites have, but the war is lost. Too many artists use these mainstream platforms to share their lives and art; we cannot push back from the tide any longer.
Lines are still drawn however at the shopping cart links, the linktree links, and the art gallery links. We are trying our best to keep things as personal as possible without direct merchandising sites.
Who knows, this may change in the future as the Internet continues to evolve and develop.
Miss.Tic (born Radhia Novat; 20 February 1956 – 22 May 2022)[1] was a French artist. She was known for her stencils of dark-haired women seen in the streets of Paris and associated with poetry. She was active as a street artist from 1985 until her death in 2022.
Thanks to: @Emily_Lykos, Jaime Rojo for Brooklyn Street Art, @RadicalGraffiti, Tor Staale for Brooklyn Street Art
Spinning: Darker My Love; Linda Ronstadt; Oscar Peterson; Olivia Rodrigo
c215 (mostly in Ukraine)
Chile (just one)
Canada (just one)
Stinkfish (just one)
Jeremy Novy (just one)
Also: https://www.instagram.com/raddingtonfalls/
RAD creates paintings, collages, murals, printmaking, digital and mixed-media pieces which aims to stay true to the spirit and vitality of one’s youth. It’s an ethos that is exemplified in his character Forever Young, a walking LEGO minifigure wearing a blue suit and briefcase enjoying a dripping pink popsicle. He eventually developed the idea of fictitious town of Raddington Falls where his cast of LEGO minifigures would live and carry out an ever changing narrative. The town seems ideal on the outside, yet it has a darkness underneath the surface.
Lincoln Cushing is worth following on social media, because he is always releasing historically important media into the world. Just this week Cushing released a full run of Community Murals magazine, a periodical that I had never heard of (Josh MacPhee knew about it, but the Interference Archive didn't have the full run). Spanning ten years from 1977 to 1987, the pdfs that Cushing put up on his wide-ranging Docs Populi website were an instant pull for my never-ending stencil hunt.
While I looked page-to-page on each of the pdfs, I was not disappointed. The stencils that were covered were all political, and some of the artists themselves wrote about their campaigns. As Community Murals magazine progressed in their run, they published these photos between 1983 to 1987. Later in the magazine's run, the editors also gave space to cover the exploding graffiti culture as well as billboard liberation actions.
Keep an eye out for continued deep-cut historical postings from Cushing, and enjoy the stencils photos I pulled from Community Murals magazine here:
Chile (just one from 1985)
San Francisco Bay Area (1983-1987)
GudePounds in Chicago (1983)
Eva Crockroft in NYC (1983)
The Stencil Archive just uploaded a new batch of Miss.Tic works today. We also just dug into our paper archives to pull some interview excerpts from some now classic and quite obscure publications. Finally, we have cleaned up the Miss.Tic archive for an improved viewing experience. Once again, our deepest sympathies go out to this amazing artist's friends, family, and fans.
Miss.Tic stencil-text translations, from Overspray: Street Art Magazine (2005)
"Poetry is an extreme sport." ::: "Art - people = money, but for what price?" ::: "To create is to resist." ::: "Why meow when we can roar?"
Here are several excerpts, poorly translated into the English, from Pochoir a la Une (1986).
"Miss.Tic uses stencils to make her texts known in the street. After distinguishing herself with a self-portrait and a stencil... where drawing mingles with words, today she prefers that we only remember her poetry, which allows one to suggest images ad infinitum."
"It's the stencil that gave me the approach to make myself known as an author, as a writer." - Miss.Tic
"Even if the stencils that we see in the street do not always correspond to this emotional urgency that we find with Blek for example, even if there is a world between what I feel and what puffs the mouth of Gainsbourg, it's really good that there were people to hang on to this free act that is stenciling." - Miss.Tic
Here are some excerpts from Overspray: Street Art Magazine, issue 03, the "GRRRL STENCIL NATION" special (2005)
"Miss.Tic is one of France's most prolific street artists.... Her stencils are typically one layered, simple cut, often provocative, images of women usually in black, red and white. They are accompanied by short messages and her signature...."
"People can make some stories from [my stencils], they can say that my work is me, imagine it's my diary but the commentary and interpretations are their own. They don't know more about me as a person, I keep some distance. On the other hand, my paintings are always parts of myself. Even if I was painting an apple it would still be me." - Miss.Tic
"As artists, our role in this world is to pose questions. I don't have the answers but at least I'm questioning. It's about getting people out of their assigned roles, how we live our lives, what we do with it, and why." - Miss.Tic
Someone just beginning to make art "should work hard and [not] listen to what others say. If you listen to others, you'll never do anything (laughs)." - Miss.Tic
Image sources and thanks: @2Frais1976, @laetirature, @ornikkar, @KtrineLeHenan, @gudiule, @StreetArtUtopia
