Xenz is The Man

This is Xenz' picture, "Dump", the centrepiece of his exhibition at the Forster Gallery that I went up to London to see.

Xenz set out as a street graffiti artist, and is evolving rapidly with influences from classic oriental art, without losing touch with the gritty reality of his roots. There is a painful tension between his love of the undeniable beauty that he finds in birds and flowers, and what he sees in front of him in our decaying cities. Even in our dumps he can find a kind of beauty. Other artists make a choice between an empty idea of beauty or an agonised scream of ugliness. Xenz is holding them together in one frame; the result is an unstated call for a radical change in the way we live our lives.

Better stop before I end up in Pseud's Corner.

I've been meaning to put this up ever since going to London. Better late than never.