When Graffiti Comes Alive By Alexandre Orion

Alexandre Orion grew up in busy and bustling streets in Brazil. Living as a child in Sau Paulo he soon became accustomed to the crowded footpaths and roads around the city. Orion was quick to respond to the appeal of the streets and his first graffiti was done at the age of 14.
While adolescent instinct drove him, the hard reality of the streets called for new ideals. Now he draws inspiration from multitudes; silence and thought; experiences and memories; happiness and suffering. An artist amid the crowd, the many found within him. Humanity lives in Orion: his time unique, his universe collective space.
He gained attention for his exhibition Metabiotics in 2006, a graffiti/photography project in which he painted graffiti pieces with white and black latex paint and photographed people interacting with them. The exhibit's style, which the San Francisco Chronicle called a "distinctive blend of painting and photography" that looked "nothing like the American conception of graffiti art", interested French and American galleries, gaining him exhibits in Paris, New York, and San Francisco.
In a 2007 reverse graffiti project, he drew a mural of skulls in São Paulo's Max Feffer Tunnel by scouring away parts of the thick layer of soot on the walls; the city later removed the mural by cleaning off the rest of the soot.