Featured Artist: ROA

ROA is street artist renowned for his fascinatingly detailed spray paint art featuring black and white animals that can be found inhabiting cities all over the world, all in varying stages of decay. To some, using public spaces as canvases is vandalism, simple defacement of property. Others see ROA’s work as refreshing, unrestrained by financial gain or institutional demands.



He seems to find inspiration in adversity, choosing to depict animals that get overlooked, yet persevere despite man’s determination to destroy. Giant black and white ant eaters, enormous rats, decaying rabbits, skunks, ferrets, sloths, raccoons and birds constitute much of ROA’s repertoire, yet something feels slightly odd about his depictions, something that gives them an edge. “Even when they appear cuddly there is something beneath them that defies the cute tag – if not a danger then something urgent at the periphery of our vision which we can’t quite make out” (http://www.kuriositas.com/2010/11/roa-mysterious-belgian-street-artist.html).



At times, ROA sketches out his images before painting them, but generally, he draws inspiration from images he finds on the web. Sometimes he uses white latex paint to create a canvas for his works, most are created with spray paint alone.



I love how he incorporates setting so much into his work. The animals seem more like an extension of their environment than an intrusion upon it. Even the types of animals he uses reflects the setting in which they are placed. Fish fly from broken toilets, armadillos crawl from abandoned buildings in Mexico, rats and cockroaches crawl from rubble in NYC. I love it!











ROA's work is featured in many cities, including London, Berlin, NYC, and Barcelona as well as his home town of Ghent.