Running through Wednesday, Rome
haute couture week is showcasing New York-based street artist
DAIN, for the first time in Italy with a solo exhibit titled
Tribute to Rome.
Curated by Valentina Ciarallo, the show is set in the Santo
Spirito in Sassia museum complex where Italian couture deacons
including Raffaella Curiel are debuting fall 2014 collections
alongside up-and-coming designers from the Who Is On Next
talent-scouting competition organized by Vogue Italia with
Rome's couture show organizers AltaRoma.
One of the most influential artists on the New York street
art scene, Brooklyn-based DAIN is known for combining the
language of graffiti with collaged portraits of Hollywood icons.
Crossing genres and often crafting pieces between the
street and his studio, DAIN - who refuses to reveal his real
name and identity - combines wheat-pasting, silk-screening,
spray paint, collage and acrylic to merge the rebellious
gestures of graffiti with the femininity of his Hollywood
subjects.
The special project which has now led him to the Italian
capital saw him craft ten new works representing film muses
including Sophia Loren and Liz Taylor alongside fashion stars
like Twiggy within the museum complex, which was built in 727 AD
as a refuge for pilgrims and was turned into a hospital in the
12th century.
Ancient masterworks at the Santo Spirito in Sassia complex,
which still houses one of Rome's main hospitals, include the
Portale del Paradiso (Heaven's Door) attributed to Andrea Bregno
(1416-1501).
"I already tagged a few streets in Rome," DAIN said on the
sidelines of the show, referring to a graffiti artist's
signature.
"I like antiquities and would love to do something on an
old Roman door".
The artist, who said his grandparents migrated to the US
from Calabria, starts his creative process with black-and-white
photos, which he layers with old advertisements, printed
fragments, logos from old magazines and smaller images to create
powerful urban portraits.
His trademark signature is a "circle and drip" around the
eye of the women he portrays, ranging from Hollywood icons like
Audrey Hepburn and Lauren Bacall to contemporary A-listers
Angelina Jolie and Kate Moss.
His work captures the nostalgia for a timeless past
through images that draw life and pizzazz from layers of
fluorescent colour, with the unmistakable circle around the eye
as his tag.
His portraits decorate doors, walls and signs across New
York as well as in cities ranging from Chicago, Miami, Portland
and Montreal to Paris and London.
Recent solo exhibits include Folioleaf, this year in New
York, and Transformation at Miami's Avant Gallery last year.
DAIN described his Roman debut as a "mixture of images"
combining the features of American actresses with "Italian
eyes".
The women portrayed are "new iconographies to be
discovered," he explained.
The street artist started doing graffiti at the tender age
of seven.
"As an adolescent, I loved black-and-white movies," he
noted.
DAIN said his interest for "old movies from the 1940s and
1950s, actresses from that era, like Bette Davis, their faces,
old photos in black and white" stems from a passion for "simple
beauty" where everything is left to the imagination.
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