BATES | California Dreaming

Dates: April 16, 2016 - May 12, 2016
Opening reception: April 16, 7:00PM - 10:00PM

Buckshot Gallery is pleased to announce a major solo exhibition of leading European graffiti artist BATES, showcasing a brand new body of work, created especially for “California Dreaming“.

The exhibition testifies to BATES’s impact on the world of graffiti and his contribution to contemporary art in general. His stylistic elegance is purposeful and uninhibited. With the internationalization of European graffiti in the early 1990s, he soon became one of the most sought after artists for big venues around the continent and overseas.  His iconic graffiti writing derives inspiration from comic books, sculptures and color palettes in their fleeting observations and compositional sophistication.

“California Dreaming” is a colorful and uplifting combination of stylistic experiments, burners, a series of paintings, with some mellow and at times aggressive elements. In his graffiti art, BATES combines a traditional New York feeling for style with an emphasis on a logic flow of letters, dynamic and swinging rhythms of bars and arrows with a European sense of technique, of sharp lines, with a graphic verve and a near flawless can control.

Born in Copenhagen, Denmark, Bates began writing graffiti in his early teens and despite his tender age, he soon became one of the most prolific artists within Copenhagen’s budding hip- hop scene of the mid 1980s. Already in 1989 he was considered among the leading elite of European graffiti artists, including names such as Loomit from Germany, Mode 2 and Bando from Paris as well as Delta and Shoe from Amsterdam. Bates has been invited to paint in over 30 countries, on all five continents. In 1998 he was the second artist to be featured in On the Run’s biographical series on international graffiti writers.

For further information please contact the gallery at 310.310.8471 or mira@buckshotgallery.com.