Week 3 - Artist OTW: REVOK

Artist Jason Williams, who is also known as Revok, was born in 1977 and first became interested in art through his father’s collection of 60s and 70s album covers and comic books, as well as the skateboarding and graffiti scenes. Later, he turned to be a trailblazer in the sub-culture of graffiti. In 2011, he was featured in the critically acclaimed "Art in the Streets" exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

However, shortly after, the artist was arrested at LAX as he prepared to board a plane for Ireland. His arrest came amid controversy surrounding the museum's "Art in the Streets" graffiti and street art exhibition. As a one-time member of the graffiti crew “Mad Society Kings” or MSK, the Los Angeles Police Department and Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department were notified that there was an outstanding warrant against Revok for failure to repay victims of previous vandalism incidents.Therefore, Williams is held on $320,000 bail for failing to pay restitution and past graffiti crimes. Nonetheless, this bail was outrageous when some people try to compare it to some of LA worst scumbags. The amount of Revok's bail was higher than other critical cases. Thus, after being sentenced to 180 days in prison, the response from the community included "Free Revok" signs and outrage considering the local museum with simultaneously celebrating the work of the artist.

As the result, Williams was eventually released after serving 44 days and paying close to $24,000 in fines together with a decision that he can no longer paint murals in Los Angeles regardless if they are commissioned or endorsed.

Frustrated by the results, he made a move to Detroit to represent a fresh start and the abundance of abandoned buildings and state of disrepair in the city of Detroit is a writer's dream, much like a blank canvas. Going days and weeks without seeing any friends, he reveled in the time away from distractions and focused on making a new body of work. During his inspiring and productive time in the city, Revok gained influence from found materials in the physical environment that led to a series of assemblages constructed from artifacts scavenged throughout the city: broken street signs, pieces of abandoned churches, charred skeletons of severed banks. Together with that, it was the birth of his first child that pulled him from this urban sanctuary and his wife's wishes to move back to Los Angeles to be closer to family for better take care of his daughter.

Coming back to Los Angeles after 2 years, he secured a studio outside the city and still maintains his recluse mentality. Respected for decades of influential and pioneering work as a graffiti writer and street artist, Revok's studio work explores deeply shared themes involving place and human experience using the very materials that make up the environment around him. Utilizing remnants of painted wood obtained in the city, the artist began to cut them into small geometric forms that could be pieced together in abstract compositions. The imperfections of peeling paint, bumps, and bubbles are nods to the past yet also preserved for their beauty as the new formations provide illusions of depth, space, and motion depending upon the arrangement. His work has been exhibited internationally in the United States, Europe and the Middle East and is in a number of important private collections worldwide.

His first solo exhibition after returning to L.A was held at Library Street Collective’s temporary gallery space located in downtown Los Angeles. This Revok's self-titled exhibition, which was on between the 10th and 19th April, 2015, unveiled an entirely new body of work featuring over a dozen hand-painted wood assemblages of enthralling geometric forms in vibrant oil enamel and synthetic polymer. The following are some of his artworks:

These works are the focal point of his published book, REVOK: Made in Detroit, and led to sold-out exhibitions in Detroit, Hamburg, New York and Dubai. The following is the handmade cover of the book.

Personally, I like this artworks including his graffiti, and I consider graffiti as a kind of art instead of an act of sabotage since a lot of the time we are appropriating dilapidated spaces or abandoned buildings. However, beige or grey walls to me are ugly. Therefore, Revok's graffiti makes these spaces more interesting and more attractive than billboards advertising. Even though I didn't try draw and I will try it soon as it is a part of my art class, I see it is complex with no basic frame. For instance, when you design a floor plan, you have the specific shapes for doors, balcony, wardrobes, and stairs. In contrast, graffiti needs creativity from the artist as well as his feelings that time, and no work will be the same. That makes graffiti special to me. Along with graffiti, his current "legal" artworks are also beautiful. I love the way he mix the colors, and some of them even have meanings behind. As mentioned in an article, Revok sees the civilization and the human race as being on the verge of a new era of evolution, in which our technology and biology will merge into a new digital consciousness. So, he plays with the notions of digital and handcrafted art by creating artworks that skillfully imitate computer generated images. What reveals them as man made are the flaws and imperfections made by the artist’s hand, so that after a closer look it becomes clear that they are not a creation of a machine.

In brief, Revok is among the best known and boldest taggers in Los Angeles. He is a talent artist who always indulge himself in art. His past and his current success are are both displayed side by side, in an admirable and stylistic strong manner to highlight the vibrancy of a life making flat surfaces come to life.