There was a time — somewhere in the late 1970s — when it was impossible to distinguish between different street art traditions. Vandalism was indistinguishable from graffiti, and in spite of the Latin-influenced murals in LA or the giant hip hop-inflected tags in the South Bronx, few people could identify a root connection between the art they saw and the cross-cultural environments that birthed them. Karlos Cárcamo, Kaves, and Burton Machen, three artists featured in the Hionas Gallery exhibition Crossing the Lines, don’t have this problem. Ranging from abstraction to Pop appropriationism, and works in greyscale to paintings of intense neon color, they represent the genre at its most idiosyncratic. Click through to see a few highlights from the show, which opens today and runs through June 30.
Kaves, Billboard on Sunset. Image courtesy Hionas Gallery.
Karlos Cárcamo. Mic sculpture. Image courtesy Hionas Gallery.
Karlos Cárcamo, Detail of Mic Sculpture. Image courtesy Hionas Gallery.
Burton Machen. Full triptych. Image courtesy Hionas Gallery.
Burton Machen. Ali. Image courtesy Hionas Gallery.
Karlos Cárcamo, Hard Edge. Image courtesy Hionas Gallery.
Kaves. MCA mural detail. Image courtesy Hionas Gallery.