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10,320 Miles from Melbourne, Rarebreed
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10,320 Miles from Melbourne, Rarebreed
The soft-spoken members of Per Square Metre sit perched on the stoop outside their exhibit at Rarebreed graffiti shop and gallery. You would never guess from their unassuming appearances that they're the perpetrators of the confrontational work inside.
The artists, who go only by their tags — Myla, Dabsone, Dvate and Askem — traveled from Australia to represent themselves at four simultaneous exhibitions — in L.A., St. Louis, North Jersey and Philly. During their time here, they collaborated on a sprawling (legal) mural at 13th and Christian.
The Rarebreed work is, at a glance, a muddle of darks and splashed graffiti text, something that wouldn't look out of place on a brick wall in a back alley. But upon closer inspection, the pieces pop with vibrant color and the complex layering — the type of finesse best achieved in a well-lit studio, which PSM runs in their hometown of Melbourne.
A small on canvas depicts the traditional vase of flowers, akin to a still life you might find stashed in a box of garage sale detritus. But before you can get too comfortable, heavy, black lines splash from the corner in shards of indecipherable cursive, piercing through petals and curling around a disembodied, anatomical heart. This sort of winsome perversion is the norm for the group, whose other works feature doe-eyed, round-headed cartoon characters, devil horns sprouting from foreheads and dead birds.
There are ink-on-paper works composed like archetypal movie posters, including one that looks like it could be a graf writer's interpretation of Star Wars meets Romeo and Juliet . Up close, however, the heroine bleeds from her eyes while the dashing youth foams at the mouth and flips off the viewer.
Indeed, nothing is quite what it seems, and all the works have this type of "look closer" feel in common. If you like your graffiti thought-provoking and not quite mainstream, drop by Rarebreed to see PSM go off the wall.
10,320 Miles from Melbourne runs through July 14 at Rarebreed, 530 S. 15th St., 215-545-1807, rarebreed215.com.
More photos after the jump.
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