Mark Mauer

Along the Antelope Valley Freeway

Taken in July driving North on the 14. Had there been more time, we could have stopped and gotten a lot more shots - and clearer ones too. Alas, these were taken while zipping along at 70 or so. More after the jump. All photos by Mark Mauer.

Culver City Graffiti and Art

For several months now I've wondered around Culver City on lunch breaks looking for graffiti. There's not a lot, though the construction along the 405 and Sepulveda has sprouted an on-going paint/sandblast cycle. But here are a few I've seen. All photos by Mark Mauer

MSK/AWR Work on Gower

At the time I took these, some genius had decided to splash black gunk all over one section of this cool piece painted on a wooden fence in Hollywood. Much of it had been removed though and it still looks good. Also as many of Lurker's readers are no doubt aware, there is a large-scale crackd ... More >>

Practice work on Temple and Hoover

Near the corner of Temple and Hoover there was a fenced in lot that slowly got demolished over the course of several months earlier this year. Before it disappeared tags had gone up all over it. Everyone knew it was coming down, so most of this seems like "practice" for lack of another word (an ... More >>

Jose Roque Body & Paint, Echo Park

On Sunset near Parkman. This area has seen a lot of terrible stuff going on, not only with street art but beyond that. See Christine Pelisek's story about Raven for one tragic story that took place across the street from here. One mural along the underpass of Silver Lake and Sunset was dedica ... More >>

CBS Dragon

Some beautiful Asian-inspired green and orange work in an alley south of Melrose that's filled with CBS crew work. These pieces are tucked into a narrow area, so I couldn't find a way to get a large full-size shot of the three pieces together. The dragon is on the outside part of the alley. ... More >>

Variations on a Theme Building: Revealing LAX's Exoskeleton

Photo essay and observations on L.A. Airport's iconic dome under repair

Birds of Hollywood, ELKPEN, Fountain Ave Market

Here's an excellent piece on Fountain: Beautiful, unusual, educational and local. From Elk Pen's website: "A lot of my work is about birds. Living in the city, birds are the wildlife I see most often. When I watch a bird hopping around on the sidewalk, or cocking it’s head from the phone ... More >>

Beautiful Silver Lake Mural Defaced

For some reason I thought that the beautiful Retna / Dame / Werc mural in Silver Lake "Por El Suelo" would be there for years. I thought it would still be there long after I left the neighborhood, and that kids would grow up walking past it from the time they were little to the time they were marrie ... More >>

Sharktoof, Ryan Graeff, 2 Cents in the Street

A few days ago I remarked how strange it is that the same artists that are showing some beautiful work in local galleries like Ghettogloss are also throwing their stuff up around town on buildings, construction sites and walls. Gallery = thousands of dollars. Streets = anger of property owners an ... More >>

MBW All Over LA

Mr Brainwash is on fire. His solo art show opens in just two weeks, and he's been pasting and painting his icons all over LA. So which gallery is he showing at? None. Try the recently abandoned CBS TV studio in Hollywood on Sunset Blvd. MBW has been holed up there for weeks preparing for the ... More >>

Seventh Letter Wall, Long Gone

These pictures are from late '07, and never got posted. The plan was to go back at another time, and get over the fences to get more pictures. Unfortunately, not long after I took these, the whole area got blasted. Auger and some others have since put up some stuff in this yard, but the ... More >>

Sugar Highs and Lows at Hollywood's Cupcake Challenge

If you give a guy a cupcake ...

Retna, Revok and Frida Kahlo

On the south side of Pico near Harvard is this nice two artist piece on the side of a Korean food store. Revok. I'm not sure of the age of the wall. It looks recent but there are already some ugly tags marring it along the bottom. Retna. Not sure who did the Frida art. Any guesses? Al ... More >>

OBEY SABER collaboration in Echo Park

Down a little driveway alley next to Brooklyn Projects in Echo Park is an excellent collaborative piece between OBEY and SABER. Enjoy: All photos by Mark Mauer. More after the jump.

Construction Site on Santa Monica and Wilton

That windowless brick of a Sears store may be closed, and a lot of the old auto repair spots are being torn down for who knows what, but there's some cool graffiti going up within the fences. All photos by Mark Mauer. More after the jump.

Alvarado in Echo Park - REVOK, AUGOR

The sun was already going down fast by the time I noticed this gem on retaining walls going up a hill in Echo Park. I took some shots anyway and decided to post them since I didn't know when I'd be coming back this way again soon. So, I'm sorry about the darkness and quality. The new ... More >>

This Is Not a Shrimp: Extreme Snacking, Japan Style

Green tea pie and lots of jelly

Rail Yards Downtown

Lots of great stuff can be found walking around the railroad tracks downtown along the LA River. It is, however, off limits, and can lead to some twisted explanations to cops and other uniform wearers about how you got turned around on that one street, and just wanted to get a better view of the b ... More >>

MANDOE On Gower Near Fountain

MANDOE has a stunner on a wall north of an east-west street crossing Gower around Fountain (but not on Fountain). MADNOE, PROSE and FUKM are listed on the piece. All photos by Mark Mauer. More after the jump.

Japanese Art Behind Zen Sushi

The parking lot behind Zen Sushi has some gorgeous work by Asylm, Ruets, Ryoe, Clown and more. All photos by Mark Mauer. Close-ups, more shots and artist/writer details after the jump.

L.A. River Along the Golden State - Six

All photos by Mark Mauer. More after the jump.

Another Tastes Like Gold

Here's a stunning new wall up on Santa Monica near the recently closed Sears store. There were at least four spots along there that had some new writing on them, but this one had to go up right away. The Tastes Like Gold! phrase and those freaky bats also showed up along a couple of walls on ... More >>

LAPD Motor Pool, Under the 101

Recently I found myself wandering outside the back of Union Station and beyond the Denny's that sits under the Hollywood freeway. There'ss some prime, free downtown parking there by the way, but you'll want to lock up your car extra tight. Under the highway there are literally dozens of LAPD s ... More >>

Last Chickens in Echo Park

One last group of Cache's chickens, along with Eyeone and Mear, on Sunset Blvd in Echo Park. All photos by Mark Mauer. More after the jump.

Tastes Like Gold!

Is this Auger making this insane mess? It's one of the most unsettling new pieces I've seen, which makes me think it's life-span will be short - and that it's probably Auger, who seems to be the horror-movie maestro of graffiti art at the moment. Update, April 16: I noticed this morning that a b ... More >>

Echo Park Chickens - 2 & 3

Once again, it's Cache/K4P's impossible to miss chickens along Sunset and on the occasional side street. All photos by Mark Mauer. More after the jump.

Echo Park Murals & the Chickens

Love them or hate them, Cache's chicken murals along Sunset Blvd in Echo Park have become quite the landmarks. And considering a lot of the street art in LA can be pretty harsh, it's nice to have the chickens around, even if on this mural they're alongside Eyeone's little masked revolutionaries. The ... More >>

L.A. River Along the Golden State - Five

The farther north you go, the more you see these massive letters 20 feet high or more... While others stay out of the river and instead work topside. All photos by Mark Mauer.

L.A. River Along the Golden State - Four

A rough patch of the river here, but there will be some better looking stuff coming up tomorrow, though we get a couple glimpses of the massive pieces, like the PDB one below, that line the second half of this stretch of the river. All photos by Mark Mauer. More after the jump.

L.A. River

This post starts a look at a few miles of the L.A. River going north from Atwater Village to the 134 that will continue for the next week or so. Because the river bottom is mostly unpaved along this stretch, there's a lot of trees, birds, fish, and wildlife, all just a few feet away from the Gol ... More >>

Studebaker near Staples

Here's a little relic that won't be around long. It's been 42 years since a Studebaker rolled off the line. Yet, almost right across the street from the convention center - and just a block or two from the Staples Center -is this old ghost ad on the side of a building which still seems to function s ... More >>

M.B.W. on Melrose

Some older ones,some new ones. There's a huge Britney/Madonna piece up that's getting a lot of talk, but I haven't been able to drive down there yet this week. Send a snap if you have one. All photos by Mark Mauer. More after the jump.

Along the 101 - Naut and Auger

Too many gallery posts, not enough grimy street art. Sorry. I've been trying to figure out how to get photos of pieces I see along our freeways, particularly the 10 heading East from downtown, the 110 North and the 5 near downtown. Here's some work, partially by Auger I think, along the 101 just ... More >>

Before the Hyenas

The wall full of Hyenas wearing oil company bling was previously a Seventh Letter wall covered in a lot of complex, almost dizzying, writing. These pictures are from September 2007 on Santa Monica near Heliotrope. I checked back several times to see if maybe there might be a time with no cars ... More >>

Disneyfied Big Oil Hyenas in E. Hollywood

This has to be the most directly political wall mural I've seen. Near the intersection of Heliotrope and Melrose on the wall of a laundry, is this excellent send-up of the major oil companies and Disney to boot. Up until recently this wall had a kind of outer space feel to it and, and was m ... More >>

Por El Suelo on Virgil: Retna, AWR, Dame, Werc

The wall that went up a couple of weeks ago on Virgil a few blocks south of Santa Monica is looking beautiful. Here are some sections that weren't finished during our last visit. All photos by Mark Mauer. More after the jump. The words Retna painted going across the piece are lyrics from a Man ... More >>

New Retna & Dame Wall - in Action.

I got lucky Saturday when just a few blocks from my apartment I came across Retna and Dame working on a new wall on Virgil. Above, Dame working on his part of the wall. Lots of skating near the painting. Here's what the wall had looked like before it's rehabilitation. More after the j ... More >>

Blah & Pemex on Sunset & Highland

On the spot where the old French Cottage used to stand - which you can see here - there was a nice clean brick wall just crying out for some tagging. Pemex, Arek and Blah filled the bill with color coordinated pink and yellow. These pieces will be gone before you know it. Another gre ... More >>

CBS Yard Behind Melrose

I was still posting some shots taken in the alleys south of Melrose where CBS crew puts up a lot of new work when I made a return trip and found a few new pieces, like the punks above and below. There's also some work that I didn't get pictures of last time around. Enjoy! More pictu ... More >>

Graffiti and Monsters and Bears - Oh My

Heading a couple of blocks south of HK Super on Western near 3rd Street, you can make a left and see a beautiful piece in reds and blues along the side of the wall. However, right next door is a Korean store which sells herbs and "natural" remedies I think. It's very animal-based, that's for ... More >>

Gorilla in East Hollywood

This is visible on the south side of Melrose (I lost my notes. I don't know what E/W street this on. Beverly?) if you're heading west through East Hollywood, a bit past the 101. It's been there for a long time, and shows some wear on it - or rather stupid, spray-painted words over the art. But ... More >>

Truxtapoz at Meltdown Gallery

I wish I could tell you to head down to Meltdown's Sunset Blvd. location to check out the Truxtapoz show that debuted Saturday night, but it's over: One night show, which is too bad. There were a lot of cool boards and trucks, like the one below: Mildred's "Sad Bear." Above, Josh Taylor's truc ... More >>

HK Super on Western and 1st

All photos by Mark Mauer The side of the Korean supermarket "HK Super" hasn't changed much in a the past couple of years, which is pretty wild considering all of the MS13 tags all over the area. I found a cool shot of the building from 2005 by Piancita which shows nearly the same art, except on ... More >>

Old and new Sever and Dame on Santa Monica and Hobart

When buildings come down in Hollywood it does a couple of things. It exposes older pieces that may have been well hidden before hand, and it usually frees up a couple of blank walls that make up a nice big canvas some enterprising painters. On Hobart and Santa Monica there's currently not only two ... More >>

Meeting of Styles, 5th Batch

Meeting of Styles, 2nd Batch

Here's the second day's worth of photos from the incredible Meeting of Styles graffiti event that took place at Arroyo Seco in Highland Park next to the L.A. River. There were so many incredible works done that I'm going to spread out the photos over a few days. Basically these are posted in the ord ... More >>

Meeting of Styles, L.A. River

A week after getting rained out, the Meeting of Styles took place in Highland Park where the Arroyo Seco meets the L.A. River. Sponsored by Friends of L.A. River, Crewest Gallery and Man One Design, MoS LA handed over 10,000 square feet of space to more than 100 graffiti artists and crews from SoCal ... More >>

More on Sunset in Silver Lake

Opposite the huge exposed wall in the old Silver Lake community garden is a more hidden, smaller wall with some very nice work on it. You may have to jump a fence to see it, or cross the small wall behind el Pollo Loco, but it's worth it. All photos by Mark Mauer. More after the jump. See ... More >>

Community Farm on Sunset in Silver Lake

For the past several years the empty lot near el Pollo Loco on Sunset and Sanborn has been a little community farm growing flowers, tomatoes and vegetables. Now it's empty and there's a for sale sign on it. But in the past few weeks one entire wall got an amazing re-design. All photos by ... More >>