Stew

For Stew, Japan is a major influence; it’s his inner kingdom of choice. Kabuki masks, dragons, Samurais and Jizo all populate his work: collages, frescoes and paintings that, often using Japanese newsprint as backdrop, bring alive this distant, imagined country. Stew hasn’t yet visited Japan, but, conscious that great encounters are all about timing, he awaits the right moment. And while he waits for this momentous trip to come about, clouds of birds with vivacious colors seep into his work. One of his most outstanding creations is a gigantic blue heron, 52 meters high, which perches on a wall of the 13th arrondissement in Paris. Stew, a second-generation Parisian graffiti artist, bursts with a creativity that is immediate, his strokes confident, and his colours joyous and hypnotic.