Deuce 7 - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Deuce 7 is the pseudonym of an American artist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

Background

Deuce 7 has been a railfan

Railfan

A railfan or rail buff , railway enthusiast or railway buff , or trainspotter , is a person interested in a recreational capacity in rail transport...

(trainspotter) since his early days, and eventually began freighthopping

Freighthopping

Freighthopping or train hopping is the act of surreptitiously hitching a ride on a railroad freight car. In the United States, this became a common means of transportation following the American Civil War as the railroads began pushing westward, especially among migrant workers who became known as...

as a means of transport as well as to spread his work beyond the Minneapolis area. His love of trains and freighthopping strongly influences his art. Locomotives, freight cars, and railyard denizens are recurrent motifs in his work. Public awareness of his art first developed through displays of his graffiti

Graffiti

Graffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....

on freight train boxcars.
He calls the west coast home, but his monikers

Monikers

Monikers, also known as Streaks or Hobo art is a form of graffiti. Monikers are the names or drawings on the sides of a freight car on freight trains. Monikers are produced with a solid paint stick, industrial crayon, or a lumber crayon. Monikers serve the purpose for a moniker artist to gain fame...

can be seen on train cars throughout the USA. He now lives in Oakland, California and often collaborates with fellow artist Von Shank.

Public Art

In 2006, Deuce 7 began putting up street art

Street art

Street art is any art developed in public spaces — that is, "in the streets" — though the term usually refers to unsanctioned art, as opposed to government sponsored initiatives...

in Minneapolis, soon followed by more work in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, Seattle, and other major cities. These spontaneous public displays quickly caught the attention of street art enthusiasts and art critics due to Deuce 7's unique, vivid, and colorful style. In 2007, the Village Voice writer Camille Dodero crowned him the "new king of New York street art". His graffiti art displays on the Williamsburg Bridge

Williamsburg Bridge

The Williamsburg Bridge is a suspension bridge in New York City across the East River connecting the Lower East Side of Manhattan at Delancey Street with the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn at Broadway near the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway...

plaque in New York City are considered definitive examples of his street art style.

Deuce 7 street art, Williamsburg Bridge, New York City (Photos: Luna Park)

Style

Deuce 7 uses aerosol paint, one-shot, and oilbars to create intensely colorful, spidery images of a variety of subjects which he refers to as "stories", which include characters he has met on his travels, romantic interests, trains, cityscapes, as well as purely expressive, surrealist images.

His fine art pieces carry the design hallmarks of his street style, and are also typically rendered with one-shot, ink, watercolor, and/or enamel spray paint. Some pieces creatively utilize mixed media including masks, found objects, and baroque moldings. His pen and ink drawings frequently evoke stark, decaying cityscapes of crumbling tenement buildings patrolled by strange vehicles and airborne creatures.

Notable exhibits

Deuce 7's work has been the subject of several solo shows at galleries in the U.S. and Great Britain. Many of his original works are now held in private collections. A number of Deuce 7 fine art originals have been reproduced as high quality limited edition art prints.

Gallery: Deuce 7 Fine Art Prints, 2007-2008

(Photos: Will Neff)

Image Links

Exhibits and Shows

Media

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