June 2010: Thiago Hattnher in São Paulo

While my South African World Cup dreams never materialized this year, I'm dreaming big and I've got good feelings about 2014. If on the off-chance I do make it to Brazil, I'll have a whole lot of street art hunting to do in between the matches. Perhaps Thiago Hattnher will be kind enough to show me around. He's currently studying fine art in the classroom, but he still makes time to paint in the street. He writes:

"I first started doing street art when I was very young. My first contact with graffiti was when I was about ten years old. I was with a friend of my family called Juny KP who was a graffiti writer at the time. He used to take me to some graffiti events to see him painting and he began my contact with that culture."
"Although my first contact was when I was very young, of course I didn't start painting in the streets at that age. I remember when, in my first experiences with spray cans, I didn't have enough strength to press the cap for a long time. After a few years, when I was about 13 years old, I began painting in the streets with a group of friends."
"Nowadays, I'm 19 years old and I'm living in São Paulo studying fine arts. I'm not in the streets anymore very much anymore. I'm more focused on drawings and painting canvases. When I'm painting in the streets of São Paulo, I'm rarely by myself; I'm always with a few friends. For me, the best place to paint is in São José do Rio Preto, my hometown. Unfortunately, I don't go there too often to paint, but it is always good for me and for my production to be there. So far, apart from the usual encounters with the police, nothing really crazy has happened to me while painting in the streets."

"I developed my style studying a lot of artists and different works. I was also practicing, painting and experimenting a lot. Although I'm happy with my style now, I think my work is always changing and in development, and that is the way I think it has to be. You can't let things get automatic in your production."

Thanks, Thiago! For more photos of his ladies, check out his Flickr.

February 2010: ( E ) about Brazil

If I had to pick one country to visit for photographing street art, it would be Brazil. In the past two decades, there's been an explosion of artists, ideas, and styles all over the country. ( E ) is a great example of how a single artist can dabble in so many mediums while managing to spread his work all over the place. He writes:

"I first started doing street art with some friends not so long ago.I live in a complex city called São Paulo in Brazil.

Most of my works are around here, but I like to reach any other place I can."

"I like to work by myself. but, sometimes, I meet up with friends to paint together. That process is more about each one doing his or her own work on the same wall or any other place."
"I don´t think I have one style. Of course, everything I do is about myself and they have things in common. I love to find out my own new ways to express my thoughts and see things from different angles. I think it's about knowing myself better each time.I keep doing the same stuff as long as I think there is something else to explore. After that, there's a period of artistic crisis and the cycle restarts.""I'm so fascinated with doing my paintings on stained walls or ruined places. It's like they are already telling city histories. It's crazy to find a very clean, white painted wall. It's like a lie, as if something is being hidden."
"I'm painting at my studio, searching some new ways to get these new ideas out of my head. It's killing me. Hugs!"

Thanks, ( E )! For more lovely shots of Brazil and ( E ) 's work, visit his Flickr.