BLEK LE RAT - Street Art

Blek le Rat's stencils distill the essence of the human struggle into poetically concise images. Blek shows clarity in his work, he makes every stylized mark count, yielding art that is at once personal and universal, economical in gesture, and bountiful in statement.
—Shepard Fairey

http://bleklerat.free.fr/

BLEK LE RAT

Blek le Rat, born Xavier Prou in Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris in 1951, was one of the first graffiti artists in Paris, and the originator of stencil graffiti art.

He began his artwork in 1981, painting stencils of rats on the street walls of Paris, describing the rat as "the only free animal in the city", and one which "spreads the plague everywhere, just like street art". His name originates from a childhood cartoon "Blek le Roc", using "rat" as an anagram for "art".

Initially influenced by the early graffiti art of New York City after a visit in 1971, he chose a style which he felt better suited Paris, due to the differing architecture of the two cities. He also stated the influence of New York's Richard Hambilton, who painted large-scale human figures in the 1980s. Blek is credited with being the inventor of the life-sized stencil, as well as the first to transform stencil from basic lettering into pictoral art.

http://bleklerat.free.fr/