Sunday, 10 June 2012

Adventures Close to Home # 01: Drop Men and Stabby Women

After much procrastination I am back! Truth of the matter is I currently cant find the card reader for my computer so transferring images from my camera to my computer is a lengthy process of doom.

Aaaaaaanyway, I digress.

One of the things I want to cover in this blog is some of the stuff I spot out and about. Luckily I happen to work in Sheffield, which is pretty much one giant outdoor alternative gallery space. I am occasionally allowed to leave the city limits, but this is pretty much as a good place to start as any.

Are we all sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.



Two of Yorkshire's most famous exports since flat caps and Kes are the artists Kid Acne and EMA. The Stabby Women by Kid Acne are just about everywhere in Sheffield if you look long enough. They are metropolitan amazons who reclaim the areas falling into urban decay, and lets face it, what's good about the urban without a bit of decay? A lot of the time these paste ups of urban warriors are accompanied by something completely different and yet somehow strangely apt, the Drop Men by EMA.



The mythology of the Stabby Women was elaborated on last year with Kid Acne's solo show at the Millennium Gallery last year, and there is definitely a cross over between the two mythos of the artists. The most obvious reasoning behind this is the fact that they are a couple IRL, but they also have a working harmony that seems to create its own universe within the real world. I could go off on a tangent about the actual collaboration work, but lets stick to the paste ups for now.



One of the best things about these is that they actually do exactly what they set out to do, they reclaim spaces. There are many abandoned buildings that have Stabby Women and Drop Men peering out of them defiantly, proudly surveying their new conquests. These are clearly not new works but the element of dilapidation to them adds a new element to them. Rather than being beautifully clean graffiti, they are war torn and battle scarred, showing the struggle to keep control of their crumbling bastions.

I don't actually know much about the Drop Men individually, but that doesn't stop them seeming amazingly apt. There's a mural on a wall on my bus route that I assume is by ANA (but I could be totally wrong) that's eyes keep being repainted different colours. I will post about it eventually but I feel I need to get the pictures to prove I'm not crazy!

For more pictures check out my tumblr posts here and here.

Still getting into the swing of this blogging malarky, so any feedback would be greatly appreciated! I also have a tumblr and a facebook. Twitter still alludes me and my word count, but we shall see...

Thats all for now, I shall keep my eye out for more stuff and things, and try to get more regular with my postings!

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