Evan Hecox (Colorado, 1970) is considered one of the hundred most influential artists of the decade, That's right. His style is based on photographs that he takes on his travels to create illustrations of urban environments in which the use of blocks of color stands out and the texts that randomly adorn those moments in the form of posters.
Although he uses digital tools, Evan Hecox defends the use of artisanal media getting to prepare the originals on large canvases which must then be adapted for reproduction.
«I think of the computer as a finishing tool rather than a starting point, even for commercial jobs I always think about doing things by hand«.
For more than 20 years Evan Hecox has directed the art team for the Chocolate skate brand, but there are many companies and entities for which this artist has collaborated. Urban Abstract is the title of the book where you can find a compilation of his works and yes… it's on Amazon.
Mission School
Evan Hecox graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute in the 90s and was a member of the nucleus of artists who created the "Mission School" movement, from which arose established personalities of the North American underground scene like Barry McGee, Margaret Kilgallen or Thomas Campbell.
The Mission School is closely linked to "Street Art" and was an urban movement that stood out for using artistic methods that went beyond the traditional Like Markers, spray paint or stencils. The movement drew on popular influences such as graffiti, comics or animation and expressed itself in the form of murals, hand-made fonts, fanzines, video art or skateboards.
The format (cluster method) that they used in their exhibitions also broke with the established canons, arranging on a wall works with little space between them and that sometimes belonged to different artists.
If one day you take a walk and suddenly find yourself in San Francisco, don't miss the opportunity to visit one of the Mission District galleries to see works by Evan Hecox and other artists of a movement that laid the foundations of today's urban art.