[Un]Documented
curated by Sarah McSweeney
[Un]Documented was born from a desire to help those New Yorkers who are in need, overlooked, and ineligible for assistance. Undocumented New York workers have been among the hardest hit by the Covid-19 health crisis. Over 200,000 lost their employment, and due to there residence and citizenship status, had no access to financial relief legislation, healthcare benefits, unemployment insurance benefits, supplemental nutrition benefits, and housing protection. Donations of art by Swoon, Nadia Ayari, Todd James, Fafi, Suekwon, Baron Von Fancy, Timothy Curtis, Daniel Do Amaral, Sven Sinding, Erik Foss, Janette Beckman, Fuzz One, Steve Powers, Solange Mishika Tshibangu, Queen Andrea, Chris Johanson, Eric Haze, and Futura. Collaboration with the nonprofit Laundry Workers Center was established to distribute the proceeds from donated pieces to New York City’s undocumented workers in need.
About the Artists:
Swoon aka Caledonia Curry, is a Brooklyn-based artist and is widely known as the first woman to gain large-scale recognition in the male-dominated world of street art. Callie took to the streets of New York, pasting her paper portraits to the sides of buildings with the goal of making art and the public space of the city more accessible.
For more information on Swoon visit her website here.
Nadia Ayari was born in Tunis and lives and works in Brooklyn. Her distinctive paintings are characterized by a striking balance between abstraction and narration.
For more information on Nadia visit her website here.
Todd James is a contemporary American artist best known for his brilliantly colored cartoonish paintings. The artist’s work fuses his experience as a graffiti artist, with art history, pop culture, sexuality, and violence.
For more information on Todd, view his Instagram.
Fafi was born and raised in Toulouse France, her strong presence in the graffiti and fine arts scene was first witnessed on her hometown walls in 1994. By exploring feminity through stereotypes, and using it to her advantage, she drew enormous attention and thus started to travel the world.
For more information on Fafi visit her website here.
Sue Kwon began her career at The Village Voice, shooting subjects that ranged from runaways to underground Jamaican nightclubs in Queens. Her photographs have since been published in The Source, Vibe, and Paper, and she has become a well-known portrait photographer of hip hop stars.
For more information on Sue visit her website here.
Baron Von Fancy aka Gordon Stevenson, was born and raised in New York City. He is a contemporary artist that constantly strives to push the boundaries of his art and designs, employing boldly expressive lettering, incredibly vivid colors, and range of materials including fluorescents, glues, dyes, and reactive paint.
For more information on Baron Von Fancy visit their website here.
Timothy Curtis is a self-taught artist from Philadelphia, PA, who lives and works in New York City.
For more information on Timothy visit his website here.
Daniel Do Amaral was born in Belo Horizonte, Brazil and moved to Frankfurt, Germany for a photo design apprenticeship. After studying in Germany, do Amaral came to the United States, settling in Boston where he continued his work in photography and painting.
For more information on Daniel visit his website here.
Erik Foss mines pop culture to create his layered works. His paintings and collages incorporate images that spur the viewer’s nostalgia or their melancholia, but in ways that contort the memories, they evoke and thus the reception of his works.
For more information on Erik visit his website here.
Janette Beckman is a British-born photographer who now lives and works in New York. She began her career at the dawn of punk rock working for music magazines The Face and Melody Maker. She shot bands from The Clash to Boy George as well as three Police album covers.
For more information on Janette visit her website here.
Fuzz One aka Vincent Fedorcheck is an “old-school” 1970’s graffiti writer from NY. Starting at age 8, he hit every lay-up, tunnel, and line. Fuzz has 2 graffiti books published.
For more information on Fuzz visit his Instagram here.
Steve Powers was a key figure in the transition of graffiti writing into street art. He first attracted attention under the name ESPO for his tags on the streets of Philadelphia. Powers abandoned graffiti in 1999, taking enamel on metal art into the studio and creating a practice that includes sign painting.
For more information on Steve visit his website here.
Solange Mishika Tshibangu is a painter and sculptor.
For more information on Solange can be found on their Instagram.
Queen Andrea aka Andrea von Bujdoss is an NYC-based fine artist, muralist, graffiti artist, typographer, and graphic designer. A die-hard native New Yorker raised in downtown Manhattan, Andrea has been deeply inspired by the urban landscape from an early age.
For more information about Queen Andrea visit her website here.
Chris Johanson‘s wildly colorful artistic productions are musings on phenomena in contemporary life—including the psychological perils of consumerism, cult spirituality, and self-help. Johanson’s career stems from his early activities in the Northern California punk scene, in which he produced ephemera, posters, and zines.
For more information on Chris visit his website here.
Eric Haze is a graffiti artist and designer born in New York City. Haze started out as a graffiti writer in 1972 on the streets of Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Haze established his name in the New York scene and developed unique letterforms as well as an extremely distinguished hand style.
For more information on Eric visit his website here.
Futura, born Leonard McGurr, is a contemporary American graffiti artist. Over the course of his career, he transitioned from making New York-based subway graffiti in the early 1970s to exhibiting at Fun Gallery in the 1980s alongside major artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Kenny Scharf.
For more information on Futura visit their Instagram here.
