Mayday bank holiday saw the opening of Cans Festival. Behind the scenes this festival of Stencil Art had been in preparation since Feb 08. I was honoured to be given a curatorial role of behalf of POW to invite artists from around the world who I thought to be producing the best in Stencil Art.

With nearly 30,000 visitors over three days and over 50,000 photographs tagged “Cans Festival” now on Flickr – the public and artists thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Perhaps most gratifying was the level of interactivity, with 651 artists from the public registering to paint their own stencils during the event. The main attraction unquestionably was Banksy, with four new large-scale murals, sculptures and anarchic installations, his work brought in a diverse crowd that art galleries can only dream of attracting. Not to be overshadowed, around 50 artists invited from 15 countries also made their mark with a diverse range of styles and subjects. From the well-regarded stencil graffiti hubs of Buenos Aires and Melbourne to the lesser-known hotspots such as Lisbon and Bergen, the cream of the stencil art world was in attendance.

Modart is one of my favourite magazines - http://web.modarteurope.com/
I am biased though, as I regularly write articles for them. Issue 14 has Adam Neate as the cover star and inside an article I wrote about a talented Brazilian artist called Stephan Doitschinoff.

Issue 15 is due out soon - featuring a piece I wrote about last year’s Santa’s Ghetto.

http://www.smudgestuff.com/

Once a week I worked with the students, introducing them to design ideas and generally helped them realise their own ideas for the magazine. The broad theme of this issue was ‘Space’ so the students looked at issues ranging from local places to Outer Space. The team made their own puppet story, took photographs, designed type, wrote poems, interviewed artists and reviewed films and generally worked very hard!

The pictures here are from this weeks launch party - which featured these great fairy cakes using images from the magazine.

I finally have a printed copy of my new book “Street Sketchbook” published by Thames and Hudson, ISBN 978 0500 513620. The book will not reach the shelves for another few weeks yet.
http://thamesandhudson.texterity.com/catalogue/2007autumn/?pg=105

I have to say that its looking fantastic - hard bound, rounded corners, spot varnished cover and 272 pages!
After two years hard work I hope people will like it as much as I enjoyed creating it. I am now working on an accompanying website with more details about the artists and news about launch events.

Just finished designing a flyer and poster for Modern Art Oxford’s next Late series on Friday 21 September 2007. The night features paintings by Stella Vine with music by Katiejane Garside and Gina Birch.

Last weekend I was asked to give a tour at the Arnolfini, Bristol’s main contemporary arts centre. The current summer show is split across 5 galleries. Gallery one featured work by New York artists, Eileen Quilan and Cheyney Thompson - who are husband and wife team. All the other galleries were taken up by Glasgow born artist Lucy McKenzie.

Although I was not blown away by anything in either show, Eileens photographs taken with analogue cameras and only using smoke and mirrors as the subject are growing on me (pictured above). Even though they are not a “new” idea there are some nice images of her work here - http://www.suttonlane.com

I recently attended the Diffusor Festival in Barcelona - so much happened in just a few days so the best place to read about it is here - http://www.bcnstreetart.blogspot.com/ includes hot topics such as Pure Evil’s shorts and a short interview with yours truly.

I was also interviewed recently for a Portuguese magazine called Dif - you can download the whole magazine here - http://www.difmag.com/

For the accompanying story by Patrick Burgoyne read here - http://www.designverb.com/2007/06/19/sao-paulo-city-without-ads/ 

For more of Tony’s photographs see here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonydemarco/sets//
http://www.creativereview.co.uk/backissues.php

I was recently interviewed by Benke Carlsson who is the author of Street Art Stockholm.

You can read the interview here - www.streetartstockholm.se/blogg

Or see more from this great book here… http://www.streetartstockholm.se/

A couple of weeks back I gave two talks in Bucharest. It was my first time in Eastern Europe so it was a very new experience for me. The first took place at a creative agency - Cohn and Jansen, where I demonstrated my work practice in design.

The second was on the invitation of Vlad Nanca where we disussed the relationship between public art/street art and the gallery space.
Thanks to all those who participated in the presentations.

In case your wondering about all the artwork on skateboards, check this link for more info - http://skateboardart.blogspot.com/