Roa Codex - Hardcover

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

ROA is the pseudonym of an anonymous, contemporary street art artist from Ghent. His works have been applied to buildings in various cities in Europe, the United States, South America, Africa, Asia and Australia. He regularly participates in street art festivals and from time to time collaborates with galleries worldwide. ROA can also be viewed on 'Magic City: The Art of The Street', an itinerant exhibition with forty renowned street art artists, including Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Blek le Rat, Faith47 and Ron English. With essays from art critic Lucy Lippard and Johan Braeckman, a professor of philosophy at the University of Ghent.

ROA began pulling animals out of the depths of the industrial world in his home country Belgium. His work snarls at you from wherever it prowls, awaking a visceral reaction that comes from seeing something familiar yet unknown, an uncanny portrayal of the animals within and around ourselves that our contemporary lifestyles have made null.

In 2011 ROA was part of the iconic exhibition ‘Art in The Streets’ at MOCA in Los Angeles. His art practice is not bound to any set location; as with his murals, his studio is mobile, and his artworks originate on location, in galleries, in museums. ROA works site-specific: detached from daily routine, continuously spinning a web of new encounters, scavenging local materials from his new surroundings, the temporary residences where he expands his art practice.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

Going from continent to continent, this book looks at the colossal, monochrome animal murals that have earned ROA worldwide fame. Like a contemporary animalier, ROA depicts his characteristic animals sometimes using dynamic compositions, sometimes still lifes of several motionless animals stacked on top of each other, with humans seemingly looking on alienated.

ROA paints a haunting picture of the fate befalling many animals, but his 'pieces' are also an ode to the animal kingdom. His many travels gave him the opportunity to study the local animal species, and the expertise he thus gained shines through his work.

With its more than 300 images and text contributions by, among others, American art critic Lucy Lippard and artist Robert Williams, ROA - CODEX offers a unique reflection on the last ten years of this nomad artist's work.