REVOK
About the Artist
Revok (Jason Williams) was born in 1977 in Riverside, California, and is currently based in Los Angeles. In 1990, he began writing graffiti. He is a member of The Seventh Letter, an acclaimed West Coast artist collective and Mad Society Kings (MSK), a world-renowned graffiti crew. In 2011, Revok’s work was included in Art in the Streets, an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) in Los Angeles, and Street Cred, an exhibition at the Pasadena Museum of Contemporary Art. In 2012, Revok set up a studio in Detroit in which he created a series of works that incorporated salvaged materials from abandoned buildings throughout the city. He also founded the Detroit Beautification Project in which he and his peers created murals to help revitalize the surrounding neighborhood. A completely self-taught artist, Revok finds freedom in his naiveté. After years of a decidedly anti-institutional practice, Revok began making studio work, finding inspiration in his ability to refine the techniques he mastered as a street artist. His ultimate goal is to be constantly maturing and evolving as an artist, never confined by any one way of making work.
Analysis
Since his teenage beginnings, Revok successfully develops a reputation not only as an influential graffiti painter, but also the prolific artist whose work has been exhibited worldwide in both gallery and museum spaces. Starting from the old school graffiti writing, his style is constantly improving, moving the boundaries of known expression. His first L.A. solo exhibition has been held in 2015. It was his big comeback that represented the Revok in the new light. He started to create the works that reflect the future, instead of his earlier recycling the past. Astonishing the audience with the variety of his works, Revok showed series of complex geometrical 2D and 3D pieces of oil enamel and synthetic polymer resembling computer generated images and stunning assemblages made of objects found on the streets. He started to make in a different realm where he has yet to be proved. These works represent the culmination of his ideas since returning to the city. Created of the materials from his immediate surroundings, his assemblages constitute the prime focus of his book Revok: Made in Detroit, published in 2014 and led to sold-out exhibitions in New York, Dubai, Detroit, and Hamburg. Changing his priorities, Revok developed a very complex aesthetic based on the idea of singularity.
Revok – Untitled, San Francisco, Image via fatcap.com
Celebrated as one of the pioneers of the sub-culture of graffiti and one of the most influential urban artist of his generation, Revok’s distinctive style enabled him to overcome the boundaries of street art, stepping into the world of fine art and gallery spaces, but with the retention of characteristic visual language even when it comes to assemblages. His move to Detroit was a fresh start that enabled him to focus on making a new body of work. Revok has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles as well as the Pasadena Museum of Contemporary Art. His work has been shown in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East and is in a number of important private collections worldwide.
My Experience
Even getting caught two times and some troubles with the law, Revok becomes a source of inspiration for all street artist and other people who loves graffiti as much as him. Personally, I really like graffiti; however, I may not like it when people use this type of art to attack or bully others. I used to see a lot of graffiti writings with swear words in my area in Vietnam which makes I dislike graffiti. However, after researching and making my name with spray paint, I immediately love this type of art.
