This week's feature artist is local LA street artist, Shark Toof. Shark Toof has been covering the walls of LA for years now and has created a multifaceted visual language that uses his iconic, often wheat pasted, shark image to communicate ideas of culture and social dynamics. Most recently the artist worked on a large wall at Jose de Diego Middle School in Miami during Art Week. Shark Toof combines the conventional messages of street art culture with a broader message of social awareness.
From his artist bio:
"Shark Toof, best known for his iconic large scale works: wheat pasted, hand drawn shark head, which the artist describes as the "perfect culmination of all my angst, protest, strength and optimism".
Much like a graffiti tag, Shark Toof has established the image as a kind of badge, speaking to the specific connotation of his work. The emblematic shark imagery harkens back to fictionalized and stylized gore of classic horror films or underground comics. However reminiscent of historic imagery, the depictions used by the artist create a new kind of urban artistic semantic. Shark Toof's chaotic world is graced with a transcendent and dark beauty. Using acrylic, spray paint, and house paint on distressed or reclaimed wood, Shark Toof's bold lines convey a kind of feverish, graphic energy and his use of color is indicative of German Expressionism. He has created a dialogue heavy in conversation between genders, animals, and nature are marked by an overload of color, texture, line, tension of composition, and use of interesting spatial relationships. All of these qualities work together to form chaos to be considered and reflected upon amongst the typography of an urban space. "
He uses these complex ideas to create larger than life imagery that seem to swallow you whole.
