There is nothing like the amazing cuts of stencil art ninja’s Orticanoodles! The Italian duo consisting out of Wally and Alita are definitely amongst the top stencil artists in the world. With their original style and continues re-inventing of themselves and the stencil art technique, I have been amazed by them for quite a while. Actually, since I first laid eyes on their work during the Paint & Beer festival in 2008.
The latest series of Orticanoodles consist out of dedications to great leaders, celebrities and heads of states. However, all of them are shelled and brutalized. This effectively makes them lose their superficial site – their public image – and turns them into empty skulls. Sometimes this is done as a form of social criticism and sometimes simply to mythicize the death.
Their most recent prints out of this series are called ‘People from another planet’ , and the print of Bill Gates is out of this earth! Please have a read through the artist statement on this work because it is just spot on!:
Orticanoodles: “In this time when public attention is turned to the death of Steve Jobs, Orticanoodles chooses to represent Bill Gates, the first antagonist par excellence. Considered the second richest man in the world and the richest man in the United States, Bill Gates has dedicated his life to research and development computer, so designing the first personal computer in an era where the technology did not exist. Orticanoodles sees Bill Gates as an alien who has brought knowledge to the world. Like the best science fiction film, in which the alien appears initially in the service of humanity, then reveals his interest in the conquest of the world. As in all recent series of works dedicated to the great leader and media personality known, even Bill Gates becomes a monster, he is deprived of the filtered image proposed by the media, blotting out the side surface of its image. The message is distorted and becomes social criticism.”
There is nothing like the precise cuts of the Orticanoodles team to bring such concepts to life (or death). If I did not know better, I would say they are people from another planet themselves! Be sure to check out more of their prints and their street art work on Flickr!
About Orticanoodles
Orticanoodles is the pseudonym for two Italian artists: Wally and Alita, a very active and tight-knit duo. Both in love with the techniques of stencils, they began to create drawings and handmade posters and quickly made themselves known in the world of street art.
Their first actions in the street were stencils, stickers and paste-ups. In their laboratory, situated in the Ortica district in Milan, the Orticanoodles logo started to take shape. With the subversive power of fellow artist Zibe, Orticanoodles began a blazing street campaign with the TSO crew. This soon involved into a real Urban guerrilla art campaign.
The streets are the largest open air museum in the world and everyone has free access to it. Because artworks in the streets are judged by their aesthetic impact and communicative power, the creations of Orticanoodles are based on a code: “Pop”. This basically focusses on the use of stencil techniques as a new form of Graffiti Art.