POW! WOW! Long Beach – Mural Photo Coverage, by Melinda Sanchez

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POW! WOW! Long Beach has returned for it’s second consecutive year. Artists from around the globe are participating in their week-long event bringing art and culture to the city.

POW! WOW! is a gathering of contemporary artists who engage with the broader community in the process and creation of art. Long Beach began playing host on Monday to an exciting week filled with live mural paintings, art exhibitions, talks and more. Included in the programming is that the Long Beach Museum of Art in collaboration with Thinkspace Gallery and POW! WOW! are hosting the opening of “Vitality and Verve: In the Third Dimension,” on Friday, July 15 from 7 PM to 10 PM.

More details on the overall week-long programming, occurring through Sunday July 17th, can be found here.

Cartwheel Art is a media partner. Contributor Melinda Sanchez began her photo coverage on Saturday that included checking out the progress of murals for POW! WOW! Long Beach by Pantone, Dave Van Patten and KASHINK. She also attended the talk with Martha Cooper and Ernest Zacharevic at Art Theatre of Long Beach. The talk was presented by Imprint and hosted by Eugene Kan of Maekan.

A few of Melinda’s photos from yesterday as well as a brief description of each of the artists, provided by POW! WOW! Long Beach, are below.

We will be updating Melinda’s coverage on this post, daily, so make sure to check back to see more. Also follow us on instagram.

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Mural by James Haunt in process (Thursday). Photo by Melinda Sanchez.

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Mural by James Haunt in process (Thursday). Photo by Melinda Sanchez.

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Mural by James Haunt in process (Thursday). Photo by Melinda Sanchez.

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Mural by James Haunt in process (Thursday). Photo by Melinda Sanchez.

James Haunt: James’ work stems from natural ability, a strong motivation to thrive and self taught techniques.

He embodies the collective elements of a free spirited individual mixed with these strong characteristics to develop his unique design style and large-scale mural work.

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Mural by Pantone in process. Photo by Melinda Sanchez.

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Mural by Pantone in process. Photo by Melinda Sanchez.

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Mural by Pantone in process. Photo by Melinda Sanchez.

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Mural by Pantone completed. Photo by Melinda Sanchez.

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Mural by Pantone completed. Photo by Melinda Sanchez.

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Mural by Pantone completed. Photo by Melinda Sanchez.

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Mural by Pantone completed. Photo by Melinda Sanchez.

Pantone: Felipe Pantone’s work is at the cutting edge of street art. Straddling conventional graffiti, typography and abstraction, his work fuses bold elements of graphic design with highly evolved geometric shapes to create an ultra-modern aesthetic which complements and reacts with the stark modernity of our cityscapes.

Drawing on our concerns of the digital age and the speed at which technology is developing, Pantone’s art is like looking several light years ahead into the future and discovering a new language in which to communicate.

More about Pantone here

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Mural in process by Dave Van Patten. Photo by Melinda Sanchez.

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Mural in process by Dave Van Patten. Photo by Melinda Sanchez.

Dave Van Patten: Dave Van Patten is a Long Beach/ Los Angeles based artist with a focus on illustration, using paper cut outs, acrylic, and good old pen and ink. His work demonstrates visuals ranging from dreamlike absurdism, psychedelic surrealism, childlike-storybook simplicity, ethical fables, to disturbingly dark humor. His work has been shown in Juxtapoz Magazine, Intentional Quarterly, Mt. Hope, L.A. Record Magazine, and various L.A. based art magazines. He has self published several graphic novel zines and twisted “children’s books for grown ups.” Currently, he is adapting a short story from Arthur Bradford into a full length graphic novel.

More about Dave Van Patten here

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Mural in process by KASHINK (Tuesday). Photo by Melinda Sanchez.

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Mural in process by KASHINK (Tuesday). Photo by Melinda Sanchez.

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Mural in process by KASHINK (Wednesday). Photo by Melinda Sanchez.

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Mural in process by KASHINK (Wednesday). Photo by Melinda Sanchez.

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Mural in process by KASHINK (Wednesday). Photo by Melinda Sanchez.

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KASHINK. Photo by Melinda Sanchez.

KASHINK: KASHINK is one of the few very active female artists in the French graffiti/street art scene. She lives in Paris, France, and has travelled a lot throughout the world, getting inspiration from many different cultures. She paints huge four eyed characters, with thick lines, vivid colors, in a very distinctive style.

KASHINK is a surprising person: as most female painters represent female figures, she only paints men, preferably fat and hairy, looking like badass yet sensitive gangsters, alien-looking ogers, or shamans from ancient tribes. Some of them are gay, some of them are killers, some others are both. She’s provocative, creative, constantly challenging. She wears a mustache.

More about KASHINK here

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Mural in process by Pantonio (Wednesday). Photo by Melinda Sanchez.

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Mural in process by Pantonio (Wednesday). Photo by Melinda Sanchez.

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Mural in process by Pantonio (Wednesday). Photo by Melinda Sanchez.

Pantonio: Major artist of the street art scene Lisboan Antonio Correia aka Pantonio (Lisbon, Portugal) has developed a very personal visual vocabulary and a strong graphic style with remarkable amplitude. Pantonio’s animated works of a motionless movement proceed from a peculiar dynamics at the whim of a wave flow.

Inhabited by a fantastic bestiary in almost human eyes, his figurative work are driven flexible lines with fluidity renders the momentum of a disheveled leak, a dash, a mad hunt. Its motive the best known in France, thanks to its intervention in the Tower 13 is the horde of black rabbits failed, symbol of fear, escaping in an uproar, and frenzy as an anthropomorphic metaphor for contemporary society.

After studying Fine Arts and school graphics, Pantonio occurs for the first time in the street when arrived in Lisbon in the 90s. Public art, pop art adapted to the environment, urban art aesthetic notes elementary accessible to all. Space to enter to pass a message. Pontonio often brings a social meaning to his work through which he wishes to echo the crises. The urban area is for him a source of activism. The city generates images, shapes, movements and extension ideas. Combining taste of intrusion, distrust in relation to established programs, interventions relate to both subversion and dissenting poetic.

Pantonio is from the islands of Azores, and his paintings are based on the strength of the black rocks and the sea. Pantonio is one of the most prolific and influential artists of the street art scene in Lisbon. Deeply influenced by the inhabitant of Lisbon culture, his works regularly refer to riches Tagus: sardines, cod, octopus, mermaids, ropes, boats.

Pantonio designs, which adorn the walls of the city, also deliver messages filled with social meaning, as evidenced by this fresco imaging a boat or bar seems maintained by the authorities at the stern while the people carry arms at the bow, ink hand in protest.

The graphic style of Pantonio, easily identifiable thanks to the dominant colors blue and black, further enhances the reputation of this unique artist, who gives generously to the street for our greatest pleasure.

More about Pantonio here

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Mural in process by Gail Werner. Photo by Melinda Sanchez.

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Mural in process by Gail Werner. Photo by Melinda Sanchez.

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Mural in process by Gail Werner. Photo by Melinda Sanchez.

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Mural in process by Gail Werner. Photo by Melinda Sanchez.

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Melinda Sanchez: It was in 2007, a trip to New York, that Melinda Sanchez knew she wanted to devote herself to art, specifically the culture of street art. Melinda felt it was important that she had a background in the business of art in order to grow as an artist herself. Working as a Gallery Assistant at Upper Playground in Downtown Los Angeles, she had the opportunity to learn from gallery staff, photographers, and prestigious street artists. As her knowledge of galleries and artists grew, her own talents as a photographer developed.

Melinda is driven by the idea that ease of access to social media and technology is a positive force in the democratization of street art. Melinda describes a common theme in her own work as finding “beauty in the breakdown.” She understands the universal hardship every individual faces, and feels that art is an integral mechanism in the process of healing.

Follow Melinda, on Instagram

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