Nasty

Renowned French street-artist Nasty is best known for the enamel signs of the RATP he has been using for more than a decade.

Born in Paris in 1975, Nasty belongs to the second generation of Parisian graffiti artists who defined the codes of French urban art. He is a true street-artist, a pure Parisian product. Son of teachers, he started graffiti in 1983, when he was 13 years old, and covered subway trains and Paris's walls with coloured frescoes until 1990, practicing “artistic vandalism”, what he prefers. When galleries convinced him to be exhibited, he wanted to keep the spirit of his beloved street art; he thus started using subway enamels signs as canvas – signs that will become his touch.

Nowadays, he still invigorates urban art while exploiting the street art symbol: spray bombs. For fifteen years, he has been keeping, accumulating and protecting from oblivion hundreds of relics and empty shells while diverting their use to create a medium – relentlessly refusing traditional media. For all those thinking graffiti belongs to the street and not in museums or galleries, his approach can be seen as an answer to the latent street-art debate.

The artist usually uses bright colors, like pink, purple or blue, to break the gray. Another breaking also happens in his art; his lettering aims to break the monotony of the vertical and horizontal wall. It mostly involves 3D, crazing or italic lettering.

His work aims to highlight the street art's (one more and more claims to come from) huge debt to graffiti which stayed in the shade, always judged, made without thinking about money or fame. Nasty offered his art to the city and to the small amount of enthusiasts who climbed up walls or slipped between hoardings to see him paint. His latest exhibitions renew his bound to graffiti more than to street art.

In Paris as in Seoul, the Brugier-Rigail Gallery represents Nasty.