Vittoria Benzine

Vittoria Benzine is a street art journalist and creative nonfiction essayist based in Brooklyn, New York. Since leaving her rural Pennsylvanian town, she has lived in disparate nooks of the city’s architecture, ranging from the Bronx to Bensonhurst. Her myriad career paths mirror this same pattern, and she has worked in entertainment, food service, fashion, and corporate consultancy. Through it all, Vittoria returns to writing with the intention to not only sort through her own experiences, but to share herself with the greater consciousness she feels so connected to.

Street Art

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Catching Up With Engy Al Garf, An Egyptian Artist based in NYC

I covered Engy Al Garf’s innovative heat map mural in Giza back in November, and impossibly drawn in by her thoughtful style, began following her career. When I learned through Instagram that she had recently moved to New York, I endeavored to meet the artist in person. She suggested the Upper East Side, an area I know intimately through my day job. Where would we meet? Sant Ambroeus is a favorite, I had seen Dustin Hoffman there just a few weeks before, but finding a table can be impossible. La
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Is Urban History Repeating Itself In Lynn, MA?

As a symbol of artistic authenticity, the popularity of street art has given rise to festivals around the world. Depending on who is putting the festival together, its purpose might range from “social-bonding [or] place-making, [to] place-marketing.” The power of street art extends beyond its provocative messages, as the addition of a large-scale, powerful mural solidifies a location’s identity. These festivals can also change as dominant forces in their environment shift. This transformation is
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Our Own Top 10 Murals Of 2018

Street art continued to take over the world in 2018, adorning cities around the globe with massive works of gigantic expression. As cultural revolutions change the way we consider economic, political and social systems, the most notable murals of the previous year found intuitive ways to express both dissent and hope. Beyond the art itself, the street art world stands apart from its cohorts with a focus on clout nearing cults of personalities. Though the themes were generally harmonious, the mos
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“Let It Fly” By Artez In Izmir, Turkey

“The wonders of the Grand Canyon cannot be adequately represented in symbols of speech, nor by speech itself,” said John Wesley Powell, an American soldier, geologist, explorer and professor. Still, artists throughout history have continually sought to capture nature’s astounding beauty, perhaps paying tribute to the stunning gift it has provided us without expecting reciprocity. The Grand Canyon and the stunning landscape of Turkey’s Cappadocia look like they may have been cousins in a past lif
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Our 2018 Top 20 Images on Facebook

2018 ushered in the continued growth of street art’s monumental importance to the wider cultural sphere. Banksy made international headlines when their work “Girl With Balloon” fetched a record-shattering $1.4 million at auction before self-destructing in a botched shredding prank. The work is now titled “Love Is In the Bin” and I personally posit that its notoriety will remain for ages to come. Street art asserted its rights this year with two key showdowns. In February, New York Times reporte
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The 2018 Basel House Mural Festival

Amongst all the posturing and partying that takes place at an infamous institution like Art Basel, events like the sixth annual Basel House stay focused on the genuine passion for art that lies at the heart of it all. This year’s free event featured a 40,000-square foot mural festival that hosted fifty muralists from around the world in Miami’s Wynwood Art’s District, “centered around the iconic RC Cola Plant [and] curated by Pedro Amos of Miami’s Best Graffiti Guide and Stephanie Kassoy of Nekt
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Murals By Dimitris Taxis & Sabotage Al Montaje Reflecting On The Sociological Aspect Of Lecce, Italy

In November 2018, urban arts laboratory 167B Street hosted their second edition of 167Art Project in Lecce, South Italy, where the organization is based. The painting event, which was staged “in the heart of the 167B district of Lecce and the football stadium area” reimagines the neighborhood’s various facades as blank canvasses, ripe for artists’ creative projections. This edition featured work by Dimitris Taxis from Athens, Greece and Sabotage Al Montaje of the Canary Islands, whose respective
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Artez Tackles Gender Inequality In His Mural in Almaty, Kazakhstan

Some people like airplanes. Others like encyclopedias. But, for Serbian muralist Artez, a bike is the best place to see the world from. The artist’s prolific portfolio has brought him around the globe, and his murals typically depict diverse citizens traversing the world for themselves, whether on a bipedal locomotive device or in the pages of a juicy text. Each work by Artez shows his love for humanity and his passion for curiosity. In the press release for his most recent mural, titled “Ridin
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5 Recent Murals steeped in Femininity By Hyuro

A woman can be so many things. She can be thoughtful and serene, like a placid lake. She can roar impetuous and ferocious like an ocean caught in turbulent gale winds. She can heal and provide nourishment in the vein of a babbling spring carrying water from mountain peaks down to the desert. A certain grace serves as the common thread throughout her shifting capacities. Argentinian-born street artist Hyuro carries this lesson throughout her work, which consistently features dreamlike women from
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“Poem For Nobody” By Rustam Qbic In Acapulco, Mexico

The mind boasts an infuriating propensity to race in every direction, leading towards nowhere with breakneck speed. In a cruel twist of fate, the only relief from this incessant, anxious push forward is “nothing”. Mindfulness, the practice of quieting thoughts to fully immerse oneself in solely the moment at hand, might be our only hope to maintain sanity in a society our brains were not equipped to live in. With his new mural “Poem for Nobody” Russian artist Rustam Qbic seems to capture this co
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“Organics” by Emmanuel Jarus in Mumbai, India

Matter in the universe is neither created nor destroyed. This means that the atoms comprising each of our bodies have existed since the perceivable beginning of time. Pushing further, one might also posit that the fleeting nature of our atoms’ momentary configuration diminishes the importance of the barrier created to house one’s “self”. Art boasts the profound power to remind us of this astounding possibility. It can place the viewer in another’s shoes, reminding the world that we are all one.
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“Esther 00: 00,02” by Dourone in Huesca, Spain

Spanish street art duo Dourone have always turned their gaze towards the future. Since Elodieloll joined in 2012 to form their team, the two have explored this tense not only in their subject matter, but also through their commitment to innovation. Their body of work highlights a transformative progression, the latest of which is marked by “Esther 00: 00,02”, a new mural they completed in Huesca, Spain for Festival Asalto. Dourone’s recent work “is the first mural of the ‘Space-time H’ series,”
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A Mural Celebrating Mandela by Jorit in Florence, Italy

Certain figures like Nelson Mandela become so iconic that the image of their face alone can evoke entire sets of ideals. The renowned South African leader and philanthropist gained his reputation for bravery and honor through his work as an anti-apartheid revolutionary. The journey of his life led him through prison to international fame, and his biography is taught to schoolchildren around the world. Mandela is best understood in his own words: “I knew that the oppressor was as enslaved as the
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NEVERCREW in Novara, Italy

Swiss street art duo NEVERCREW once again succeed in simultaneously evoking the “direct impact and a slow and deep reaction” they cite on their website with their newest work, simply titled “Cluster” in Novara, Italy. With this work, NEVERCREW continues to focus on society’s murky relationship with nature, harnessing the profound power of their trademark, abstract style to portray “the perception that mankind has of the environmental situation, of the actual connection with the overall balance,
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Hubweek Walls 2018 Bring Colors & Vibrancy To Boston’s City Hall Plaza

October 8th-14th marked the third annual HubWeek Festival in Boston, with a rich week centered around innovations in art, science and technology. Founded by The Boston Globe, Harvard University, Massachusetts General Hospital, and MIT, HubWeek is a self-described “giant petri dish welcoming impact-oriented artists, academics, entrepreneurs, researchers, executives, makers, and up-and-comers” that “brings together the curious, those who are building our future.” HubWeek gears itself towards a sa
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Borondo Marks His Return To The Streets With A Mural In Malegno, Italy

“Mites Terram Possident,” a new mural of religious proportions in Italy, marks artist Gonzalo Borondo’s “return to the streets,” through an intervention organized by the Wall In Art Project. Completed at the end of October 2018 in acrylic, the viewers will find the mural on an existing building’s facade “overlooking Piazza Casari” in the small community of Malegno, situated in Lombardy’s Valcamonica. The epic mural seeks to honor the Valcamonica’s UNESCO-designated status as a World Heritage Sit
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“Sand Stories” by Artez in Cairo, Egypt

Serbian street artist Artez made a brief sojourn to Cairo, Egypt to create another ethereal, large scale mural in only two days. The artist sought to incorporate Egypt’s storied culture into the new work, titled “Sand Stories.” A statement released by the artist explains, “During my stay and especially during the time I was painting this mural, I have learnt a lot about country’s rich history and tradition, and realized that Egypt is so much more than just Pharaonic times and camels.” The United
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Paracas: Comrades of the Wind [Guest Post]

This article was written by Vittoria Benzine. Though 2018 has ushered in an era of unforeseen understanding by those battling addictions, I believe society still lacks a profound understanding of the love/hate relationship a girl like me holds with the forces that imprison her. I know that sobriety felt like an endless wash of relief, even on my worst days, and life for the five years I’d abused alcohol before was a bleak pit of despair by comparison. Still, seven and a half months in, it’s com
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A Mural by Etnik In l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Spain

Seasoned street artist Etnik recently completed his mural for the urban art Project 12 + 1 in L’Hospitalet hosted by Contorno Urbano in Spain. The Stockholm-born artist presently lives and works in Turin, Italy, but ventured to Europe’s eastern region to participate in this unique event, which hosts one new artist each month and culminates with a group gallery showcasing each individual artist’s work. Well-steeped in the international street art scene and active in graffiti writing since the ea
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A Beautiful Mural By Sasha Korban On Resilience of Kids In Conflict Areas

News of violent struggles for power in foreign lands like Ukraine are easily reduced to impersonal figures: lives lost, land gained, resources allocated and depleted in either side’s efforts. Such simplifications make their horrifying human elements much easier to swallow. We lose sight of the fact that each casualty represents the end of a human life much like our own, laden with intricacy and idiosyncrasies, not to mention hopes and dreams that will forever remain unrealized. In the face of su
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