Hello, here we are back to our column dedicated to street art! Today’s artist could be considered one of the pillars of Italian rap music. In addition to having collaborated with musical groups that have certainly marked the history of rap such as OTR or Gente Guasta, he is still one of the historical artists of the Italian hip pop scene: we are talking about Esa.
El Presidente, Funkyprez, DJ Funkprez or Captain Futuro, there are many names with which Esa has made itself known in recent years. Certainly not many know him instead as “El Crespo” as he signs behind his works that he has shown on the occasion of the exhibition “Charachters”, organized in the Wunderkammern Rome headquarters.
Esa and street art
Surely the greats of street art have influenced the art of Esa. On this occasion he created a unique series composed of faces, or rather from “Facciacce” as he would later call them, using as inspiration the iconic face of Obama, represented not by chance by a street artist: Shepard Fairey OBEY.
The “Facciacce” are not only the representation of characters invented with specific characteristics (there are both the “Super Bad Guys” and “The Gods of the City”), but they are an artist’s study on the use of artistic writing techniques, applied instead of drawing.
Esa and the artistic technique
The artistic technique used by Esa in this series deconstructs the use of the letter, creating a completely unique language, mixing colors and shapes through different materials. In his works, in fact, the wax crayons, tempera, uniposca, markers and sometimes the Bic pen, are mixed, creating unique works with their own shape and specific characteristics. In fact, there is often a tendency in writing to discourage the use of color, focusing solely on the importance of lines. What Esa does in his drawings is precisely regain possession of the use of color.
Did you know the works of Esa? Keep following us on our blog for more insights about our artists!