Jef Aerosol: Pioneer Street Artist

One of the artist's signature works--a lovely example of "The Sitting Kid."  This one is on the back patio of  Wunderkammern  gallery, Torpignattara.  

Torpignattara

Jef Aerosol is the pen (one should say "aerosol") name of Jean-Francois Perry, one of our favorite urban street artists, now with a significant body of Rome work.  Sometimes referred to as the "French Banksy," Aerosol often paints celebrities--Presley, Ghandi, Dylan, and others--but we were attracted to another side of his work, the presentations of ordinary people--kids, beggars, older folks--and the way he invests these people with attitudes and emotions.

Torpignattara

Born in 1957 in Nantes, France, Aerosol came to street art in the early 1980s, and is self-taught.  He recalls having been influenced by the "scene" in 1960s London, where he spent a month each year vacationing: Twiggy, the British musical scene, the fashions of Carnaby Street.  Also influential were 1970s underground rock bands.  He has always been much taken with eyes; "a death," he has said, "is a body whose gaze has been turned off."

"The Sitting Kid," Hollywood Blvd.

Aerosol's cutting and spraying work can be found on walls in many major cities, including Los Angeles (Hollywood is the site of  what is apparently the earliest version of his signature work, "The Sitting Kid"), Tokyo, Dublin, Chicago, Palermo and, since 2014, Rome, where his work was first presented at Torpignattara's Wunderkammern gallery--a favorite art space of ours--in May of that year.


A red arrow appears on most of his creations. 

Bill

Another "The Sitting Kid," Torpignattara.  Red butterflies, but no red arrow, apparently.