Stencil, spray paint and a great attention to art history are the ingredients of the French artist’s success.Īmong the artists who have expressed their admiration for Blek le Rat’s work is Banksy, who said: “ Every time I think I have painted something slightly original, I find out that Blek le Rat did it too, only twenty years earlier“. There are many street artists who value the work of Blek Le Rat. Stencil Art twenty years before Banksy: Banksy vs. The French artist worked in anonymity until 1991 when he was arrested by the French authorities and his identity was revealed. His innovation? The use of the stencil! A new technique that the artist used to adapt the style of American Street Art to the architecture and social context of the Parisian capital.īlek’s first stencils were black rats, a real invasion of the city since they appeared on all the walls! Rats, like the word Rat in his pseudonym according to the artist, they are the only animal capable of surviving the apocalypse, a symbol of freedom.īlek le Rat took his name from Blek le Roc (Il Grande Blek in Italian), modifying it with a play on words: Rat is an anagram of art. One of the first graffiti artists, Blek le Rat started painting in 1981 on the streets of Paris, drawing inspiration from graffiti he saw during a trip to New York ten years earlier. Blek le Rat brings street art from New York to Paris Since the 2000s, his artistic work has evolved to become more openly political.įor Blek le Rat, the history of art is another source of great inspiration, as many of his subjects are quotations from the works of great masters such as Michelangelo, Caravaggio and Leonardo da Vinci. His production is deeply linked to social themes, the protagonists of his works are mainly solitary individuals living in the city. Blek le Rat ( Xavier Prou, Paris 1951) is one of the pioneers of international Street Art and is considered the father of Stencil Art and a reference point for all subsequent street artists, including Banksy.

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