BABS DARKBABEL PRINT

BABS
“DARK BABEL”
50x70cm
pigment print on Epson 190gr matte paper
It is limited to 20 copies only, signed and numbered by hand by the artist
Careful shipping in tube with insurance

Babs, born in Paris in 1975, is a French ex-vandal. He discovered graffiti at the age of 11, in 1986/87 he began by tagging the streets of his town Vitry-sur-Seine and neighboring towns in the southern suburbs. Self-taught, considered one of the best writers of his generation. The letter constitutes the inalienable basis of his work which makes him one of the major representatives of the French wildstyle.
He painted collectively from the end of the 1990s, initially with the 3HC crew. In 1992, he began to paint the trains, metro and RER of the capital with the DSP, spontaneously and instinctively, in free style. Babs creates several hundred graffiti under twenty nicknames. These works, which are systematically cleaned by the RATP services, are photographed and often filmed, but the illegal nature of the work prohibits any conservation of traces.
The sketches of this period are systematically destroyed. Vandalism is a claimed way of life and state of mind that he will write about again and again. Absolutist of the genre, constantly pushing the limits of his mode of expression through his passion for rolling media, he works in one of the most radical branches of Parisian graffiti, within the groups UV and TPK. He paints regularly with Frez, Keag, Sezam, Fuzi, Rap or Trane.
Through the vandal and the illegal, Babs explores the art of transgression and its multiple facets, those of overbidding and risk taking, also provocation which above all affirms the character of a rebellious man. In this perspective, he collaborates with actions paintings or hardcore Body painting performances regularly organized by Keag and Sore on female models in the Paris metro, which lead to the release of a book entitled Pimp my bitch in 2010. In 2009, he is invited to participate in the exhibition “Graffiti State of the Places” at the Galerie du Jour agnès b. where he creates a monumental work on the largest wall of the large glass roof with Keag and Sore, in a vandal spirit, “dirty” and deliberately not aestheticizing. They regroup, for the occasion, under the name Graffeur Delight.
In 2010, he left the underground passages and returned to the walls and to work in the open air. He has since legally painted collaborates with Suby, Keag, Dem 189 and Seth (Julien Malland) on walls, he pushes the art of the letter as the semi-wildstyle requires. His elaborate sense of color, the dazzling character of his line and the perfection of the outline of his lettering become a recognized visual signature. In 2012, he began to work on canvas and produced a series in tribute to Piet Mondrian, which he exhibited with his original 3HC crew. He is invited to paint at the Palais de Tokyo as part of the exhibition “Inside the Palais de Tokyo” initiated by Hugo Vitrani and orchestrated by Dem 189, Lek & Sowat. He pursues, alongside painting on canvas, the mural part of the work in France and abroad.