New York – Avant Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition by renown Greek street artist, STMTS. On view May 19 – June 26, STMTS: Power of Innocence will feature the artist’s first public exhibition in over two years, kicking off during the 2022 New York Art Week.

STMTS uses acrylic and spray paint to create powerful imagery comprised of playful scenes that portray children and city life in a post-apocalyptic yet optimistically juxtaposing landscape. The artist displays themes of childhood symbolically as a way to represent humanity at large while also calling to mind a global understanding of our current human condition.

The work interrogates eternal questions of where we’ve been and where we’re going, as seen through the eyes of a younger generation facing the challenges of a past they cannot change, a present out of control, and a complex future made all more palpable with the artist’s sense of irony and mise-en-scene in his imagery.

In works like Beyond the Debris (2021), STMTS presents an idyllic return-to-nature complicated by the waste of a previous generation. Other work goes directly into the specifics of the present, like his 2020 piece For YOU, encouraging the viewer to contemplate and reminisce on their childhood innocence.

The striking compositions are unified by their street art sensibility, arising from his eclectic influences — these include Japanese Shin-hanga woodblock prints, the woodcuts and engravings of Albrecht Dürer and Gustave Doré, Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder, and graffiti.

These visual elements interweave into a unique language that takes inspiration from art history and recontextualizes it in a fully contemporary approach, with subject matter that devotes itself to the future — two-dimensionality from woodblock prints mix with the texture of engravings; these facets are combined with a grandeur reminiscent of the Renaissance.

STMTS is a visual artist based in Greece. He studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts before launching his career in fine art. His work has appeared in commissions, exhibitions, and private collections across Europe, the Middle East, and the United States.

His work has been featured in campaigns by Adidas and Reebok, as well as in commissioned work for Doctors Without Borders, SOS Children’s Villages, and many others. His street art in Athens has been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, Vice, and more.

His 2020 piece I Love Life reached an enormous online audience, going viral during the pandemic as it reasserted an unflagging optimism in the face of hardship.

For more information about STMTS and view his artwork, you can visit his website—https://www.stmtsart.com