OUCH’s artistic efforts were first seen in St Petersburg, Russia, in the ’90s. When the USSR converted into individual countries and governments, the world’s largest state-controlled economy entered the free market. The impact was unregulated democratization of social, political, and financial culture. This metamorphosis gave OUCH an entirely new world perspective. The Western lifestyle, images, cultural icons, and images inundated the Post-Soviet visual space, most notably, within the advertising world.
Debilitated by years of state governance and ruthless censorship, messages of affluence and success were distant to the young street artist. Russian artists were struggling at reconciling the values that were brought about by the new Capitalist reality.
As one of the first trailblazers of the Street Art scene in St. Petersburg, OUCH’s initial output was mainly emotional slogans graffitied on walls of public buildings. OUCH began his search for a universal vocabulary that would serve as a way for him to portray human values. With his admiration of the global power of language, written statements began to exist as important elements of the artist’s work.
Relocating to New York in 2001, OUCH started working towards his degree in Economics, before he decided to pursue a full-time artistic career. He began as a self-taught, solitary urban trespasser, tagging the walls of New York. He soon gained attention for his large-scale murals. OUCH expanded his endeavor to clothing, paper, and canvas. Charmed by the democratic qualities of the pop scene, OUCH solidified his ability to deliver a powerful message through symbols of mass culture. The nature of human progress and its underlying value is the core of OUCH’s vocabulary and interpretation of iconic subjects.
TWO TWO. OUCH. Extreme Art™ . . . Art Without Boundaries
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