Wherefore ART Thou, Ellis?

Stacey: 15th Nov 2005 - 22:10 GMT

Ellis G is an old graffiti artist from the neighborhood and is have a showing of his work at a Gallery on Hoyt (bet. Atlantic & Smith) as per his post on another blog.

GGP: 15th Nov 2005 - 22:32 GMT

I see! www.abrooklynlife.com/2005/09/sidewalk_graffi.html

Jamie: 15th Nov 2005 - 22:51 GMT

Someone claiming to be Ellis has posted some comments here on citynoise in the last week or so citynoise.org/noise/ellis

Jamie: 15th Nov 2005 - 22:52 GMT

Someone claiming to be Ellis has posted some comments here on citynoise in the last week or so citynoise.org/noise/ellis

ELLIS G.: 16th Nov 2005 - 07:39 GMT

For Immediate Release:

KILI is pleased to announce an exhibition of paintings by

ELLIS G.

Continues through 12/1/05 @ KILI
81 Hoyt St. bet. State St. and Atlantic Ave. Bklyn NY
A,C,G Trains to Hoyt/Schermerhorn or 2,3,4,5,B,D,N,R,Q to Atlantic/Pacific
718-855-5574

Artist's Statement:
I have never experienced an art form more all consuming than graffiti. At one point, graffiti had a very firm grip on my life and lifestyle- it was the last thing on my mind before going to bed and the first thing that came into my head every morning. From acquiring supplies and photographing a finished work, to wandering the city trying to find the perfect spot to paint and marking the terrain along the way, graffiti motivated almost every move I made. Even perils with the law, fights with rival writers and injuries sustained while out on missions couldn't have ended my relationship with graffiti. I still love it to this day.
The death of a friend and fellow graffiti(HEC UFC REST IN PEACE) artist while we were bombing the F train tunnel between Bergen and Carroll Street in 2001 caused me to take a less active role in graffiti. Deeply affected by the tragic loss I chose to channel my energy into other artistic endeavors. Since then, I have participated in a number of group shows displaying the talents of graffiti artists as well as traditional artists. While I use canvas, wood, metal as well as found objects, I remain true to my roots and try to incorporate the essence of graffiti into everything I produce. I continue to use the tools of the trade (paint markers, spray paint, homemade writing implements) in my work; while I have transitioned to the less controversial use of chalk for my street art.
This show is dedicated to the graffiti life and the ongoing struggle graffiti artists continue to face today. I have massive respect for the forefathers of graffiti who paved the way and pioneered this art form (do the research). The graffiti writer's struggle is not limited to running from the police and fighting court cases, but it also lies in the ongoing battle we face to transition from being understood by mainstream society as a "vandal" to a legitimate and commercial artist. Even though graffiti has inestimably influenced our entire environment- from music and fashion to advertising, architecture and graphic arts, many graffiti artists remain anonymous and unrecognized by mainstream society.
Writing graffiti is putting out public art for people who normally wouldn't go to a museum or gallery. All of my chalk drawings are like graffiti in that respect, although they are temporary. They capture a moment in time. Ironically they have spawned from an un-pleasurable moment in time, one that Time Out NY has called an "only-in-New York back story." However, I'd like to thank my machete wielding assailant and his shadow for inspiring me to create my drawings on the streets and these pieces on display. I hope that they make a difference in people's lives- they sure have made and continue to make a difference in mine.

Ellis Gallagher 2005

Biography:
Ellis Gallagher is a native New Yorker. As the graffiti writer formally known as "NET," his work can be found in the five boroughs and environs, The Brooklyn Front Gallery, in Autograf: New York City's Graffiti Writers by Peter Sutherland (Powerhouse Books 2004), as well as in numerous newspapers, magazines, on television and in films. Currently a street artist known as Ellis G., Gallagher's work has appeared in Time Out NY, the NY Daily News, Trampoline House Gallery, as well as on NY 1 and The WB 11. Gallagher will publish his first book "Adhesives," the ultimate compendium of graffiti, graphic design and street art stickers in fall 2006 with Miss Rosen Editions for Powerhouse Books.

Contact Info:bklynresidents@yahoo.com

Editor: 16th Nov 2005 - 13:06 GMT

More of Ellis G's handywork can be found in the article Brooklyn Street Art Initiative from Peter

Also, in Fifth Avenue from GGP

ELLIS G.2009: 16th Nov 2005 - 19:47 GMT

i am currently working on my website, as for now just google this: ellis g. chalk shadows. peace, ellis g 2009i am currently working on my website, as for now just google this: ellis g. chalk shadows. peace, ellis g 2009

ELLIS G.2007: 16th Nov 2005 - 19:49 GMT

i am currently working on my website, as for now just google this: ellis g. chalk shadows. peace, ellis g 2009

Peter: 16th Nov 2005 - 19:50 GMT

hey ellis g, we get it man.... ok? between what youre posting here and all over the forums at dailyheights.com, its sort of, well, bordering on spam.

dailyheights.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=171

your street-art is fine and good, but youre gonna get some unwelcome public backlash in prospect heights unless you stop coming on so strong.

let people notice your stuff and talk about it amongst themselves, blog it, flick it, whatever. thats a more natural progression than showing up in every thread youre mentioned and repeatedly making cut-and-paste self-promoting announcements.

ELLIS G.2007: 16th Nov 2005 - 19:58 GMT

i am just trying to put people in the know, that is all. peace, Ellis G. 2010

Dennis: 16th Nov 2005 - 20:02 GMT

Ditto on the comment spam. Here's a tip, email the owner of the blog you're tempted to spam with a press release. Chances are, they will post if for you. Also, if you post a comment and it doesn't show-up immediately, wait 5 minutes before trying to repost. Some of the blogging platforms (like TypePad) have been under load lately and you comments might show up multiple times.

...: 16th Nov 2005 - 20:21 GMT

So you put people "in the know" by repeating the same comment? Lol. You are already making a bad name for yourself and your "exhibition" hasn't even happened yet! Double-lol! I don't think thats the way you want to go about publicizing yourself, is it?

ELLIS G.2007: 17th Nov 2005 - 00:36 GMT

actually, the opening was on oct. 15th. It runs through dec. 1st.

an observant individual: 17th Nov 2005 - 14:33 GMT

Ellis, as big a fan of your work as i am, you are making yourself seem very foolish.

tooker: 17th Nov 2005 - 19:52 GMT

"Ellis G" is just a toy graffiti writer who couldn't hack the streets so he came up with doing artfag chalk drawings. Wait, not even "drawings", but more like "tracings" and made up some lame story about how he does this for "therapy" after being mugged. Come on man! You trace shadows on the sidewalk and sign your name to it and even go so far as to put a copyright symbol on it. The kids from any Park Slope preschool could outdo your "art".

What the fuck ever, dude. You were wack as "NETONE" and are now even wack-er as "ELLIS G". "Ellis Deaz Nutz" is more like it.

Go snort some chalkdust, son. Way to start ruining your re-invented rep before it ever got off the ground.

Peter: 17th Nov 2005 - 19:59 GMT

i wont go so far as to actually insult ellis g, but i gotta admit, tossing in the © looks like straight-up biting basquiat's "SAMO" graffiti... which he was doing in 1979-82.

NET ONE 156 KRT: 4th Dec 2005 - 06:45 GMT

tooker dont hate you anonymous toy...and yo peter, for your information,the (C) symbol is a very common symbol the we graffiti writers use. just so you know.peace, ellis g 2009

Peter: 5th Dec 2005 - 15:22 GMT

thanks ellis... doesnt change the fact that the only "graf writers" ive seen that did that with any consistency are you and samo. i mean, walk down the street and look at all the graf... and try to find some © symbols. the graf/© ratio is pretty high, dont you think?

not that this matters, just saying.

NET ONE 156 KRT: 6th Dec 2005 - 06:10 GMT

the (C) symbol is used in graf alot in pieces, productions. tags too sometimes. throwies too. has for a long time.samo did not start doing that. writers in the 70s started that.

NET ONE 156 KRT: 6th Dec 2005 - 06:12 GMT

NET ONE 156 KRT: 6th Dec 2005 - 06:13 GMT

NET ONE 156 KRT: 6th Dec 2005 - 07:08 GMT

NET ONE 156 KRT: 6th Dec 2005 - 07:11 GMT

NET ONE 156 KRT: 6th Dec 2005 - 07:12 GMT

NET ONE 156 KRT: 6th Dec 2005 - 07:12 GMT

NET ONE 156 KRT: 6th Dec 2005 - 07:17 GMT

NET ONE 156 KRT: 6th Dec 2005 - 07:21 GMT

NET ONE 156 KRT: 6th Dec 2005 - 07:28 GMT

NET ONE 156 KRT: 6th Dec 2005 - 07:29 GMT

NET ONE 156 KRT: 6th Dec 2005 - 07:43 GMT

Words of the Prophets Take to the Rooftops
by Cathy Hong

SUBJECT — The Extreme Graffiti Hall of Murals
LOCATION — Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens
Les had no equipment but a backpack full of spray cans. (He admits he's tried on a harness. "But fuck no, I never used it.") He scoped out the Manhattan Bridge and found a flimsy drainpipe the width of a garden hose that ran up the massive pier. Les climbed a good 30 feet up and found the seven-inch catwalk that encircles the middle of the pier. He stepped onto the ledge and crept along carefully, leaning his body into the wall so he didn't fall—one slip meant a long ride down to the craggy rocks below. Still balancing as if on a tightrope, he sprayed his name in a wide, arcing motion so his silver tag was seven feet tall, huge enough to be seen by a driver stuck on the BQE.

Even Bloomberg's vandal squad wanted to know how Les pulled off his graffiti on the bridge, but he wouldn't fess up. When I asked, he shrugged his shoulders like it was a stroll in the park: "I just did it. It was easy."

Les is an "extreme graffiti writer," that is, one who prefers bombing hard-to-reach billboards, bridges, rooftops, and freeway signs. Ever since graff writers were barred from trains, they've gone underground by going way above. For them, it's not about flashy, spiraling letters but the reckless stunt, the adrenaline, and the property that you hit. "It's supposed to be ugly and grimy. It's city," says Hugo Martinez, a graffiti gallerist.

In the macho hierarchy of the New York graffiti world, Les is a top dog. But the guy who gets the most props is JA, a veteran adrenaline junkie who can shimmy up a 30-foot pole and bomb a freeway billboard in 10 minutes flat. Other respected extreme writers include Si, Set Up, Darks, and Kez 5. Much of their work is transient: Here today, gone tomorrow. But here are some routes (elevated trains are the best transports) to their neck-straining canvases.

J/Z: This skanky ghost line gives you the best views of rooftop graffiti. Since the trains head toward a no-man's-land of Hasids and hipsters, these tags are less likely to get buffed (painted over by city workers), although they might get ragged (written over by rival crews). If you're Brooklyn-bound, there are choice sites on the Williamsburg Bridge, like the giant REVS PEAK that's painted with a roller in the middle of a loft building. Just before the end of the bridge, to your right, you can also see Set Up's black swooping logos scrolling across the top of an abandoned brick building.

Past the bridge, the best J/Z sites are between Marcy Avenue and Broadway Junction. Les and his crew mercilessly bombed this route, hitting phone boxes, tracks, and the backs of billboards. The Myrtle Avenue station has a particularly melancholy air of urban devastation: rust-hemorrhaging billboards and back lots piled high with plastic bottles and dead refrigerators—an ideal setting for writers. A lot of graff that floats on the shredded edifices around the Myrtle stop are "pieces" (three colors or more). They've been ragged so many times that the names have faded and bled together into a palimpsest of translucent specters.

7 TRAIN: As that grand old No. 7 train rattles toward Queensboro Plaza, you'll see the flashiest of legal graffiti sites—5 Pointz. This block-wide loft building is plastered with wildly angled graffiti, impressing the untrained eye. But if you mention 5 Pointz to serious graff writers, you can't scrub the scorn off their voices with steel wool. Legal graffiti means kindergarten. The best illegal spots in Queens are between Queensboro Plaza and Junction Blvd: The No. 7 train offers a patchwork of sagging rooftops marked with spastic throw-ups, most prolifically by Nato.

MANHATTAN BRIDGE: Utah, who's like a character sprung from the head of a morose graphic novelist, is one of the few, maybe only, female extreme-graff artists. She's an antisocial and agile ex-goth girl who travels crewless, preferring to scale bridges, jump tracks, and crawl along slanted rooftops alone. Lately, her excellently bold, black, loping "straight letter" has ridden the ledge of the Manhattan Bridge.

BQE: Despite their testosterone, writers can be cattier than a den full of sorority girls. They're always slagging each other off as "toy." It doesn't matter if the graffiti is in a good spot. If a writer is a newcomer, an out-of-towner, a trustafarian who hangs out in fancy L.E.S. sneaker stores—his work is toy. But on the BQE, graff artist Si isn't toy. His huge straight-letter logo, floating way high up on Brooklyn's Watchtower, is a middle finger to that Jehovah's Witness head-quarters. Another remarkable piece is the tag DEK PHAME in eye-popping blue and orange, between the exits for 39th and the Prospect Expressway.

DOWNTOWN MANHATTAN: "Upside-down rollers" are when writers, using buckets of acrylic paint instead of spray paint, hang over the roof and apply their logos to the building in blocky Etch A Sketch lettering. The most monumental, against a 12-story apartment on Canal Street and Broadway, blares SKREW/SACE. No longer pristine, it's already been ragged by none other than Les (in broad daylight, he boasts).

HELL GATE: A few months ago, right above the arch, Si painted an impressive piece on this massive bridge connecting Queens to the Bronx. He wreathed the top of the bridge's pillar with his fat six-foot-high logos. But Hell Gate is JA's property, JA says. He was the first to mark it up, back in the mid '90s. Recently, JA came back and wrote over some of it, an artist named MQ ragged it, and JA claimed it again. So now, like so many embattled city turfs, it's a clashing tangle of names.

NET ONE 156 KRT: 6th Dec 2005 - 07:59 GMT

NET ONE 156 KRT: 6th Dec 2005 - 08:00 GMT

BEEFYONER: 21st Mar 2006 - 17:04 GMT

YO NET ONE 156 KRT (ELLIS G) PEEP DIS!

BEEFYONER: 27th Mar 2006 - 16:55 GMT

YO NET ONE 156 KRT (ELLIS G)..... ALSO PEEP DIS!

EvilGentleman: 19th Apr 2006 - 22:59 GMT

Gotta admit, graf tanx is a rare category...

Ace: 12th Oct 2007 - 15:34 GMT

I know Ellis G, and he's a real tool. His "art" sucks, too.

Studio M: 10th Dec 2007 - 19:07 GMT

I was interested and curious about Ellis G's chalk-art when I first saw this page, but after reading some of his comments, I'm also inclined to say that I quickly went from a fan to a hater. Lol.

za one: 18th Dec 2007 - 23:50 GMT

yo ellis whats the deal with your net tags in nyack? wild shit.

BILROCK 161: 21st Jul 2008 - 21:08 GMT

I am a writer from the seventies, and was a good freind of Jean-Michel Basquiat. He started the copyright thing in 1977. No one else was doing it period.