Having designed awards for Rock Steady Crew’s Spy Award, Red Bull, and BET, world-famous graffiti artist Mare139 is now focusing his attention exclusively on the b-boy.

I’m really feeling the stripped-down, minimalistic style employed in the pictures I’ve seen. It takes a defiant step away from the cartoon-like b-boy caricatures that are so common in the culture without losing any of the movement or finesse.

More pictures and information after the jump.

From the press release:

“The B-Boy is the physical Graffiti artist, he is the lyrical and kinetic scratch, he is the break beat manifest, the most modern of all dancers.”

Fifty8 Gallery presents B-Line B-Boy Drawings and Sculpture the anticipated solo exhibition of renown sculptor, painter, Carlos Mare139 Rodriguez. Inspired by his childhood era connection to the B-Boy culture this unique series of works are a study in capturing the dynamic movement of the ‘break’ dancer in what he calls ‘linear still frames’. Mare139 provokes us to consider through his simplification of shapes and gestures what gravity defying kinetics are involved in the dance form.

Fascinated as a youth with close association to well known B-Boy crews, he learned the art from the insiders perspective and well understood the text and physical nature of B-Boying by being present at countless ‘jams’ or ‘battles’. Correlating the dance to the abstracted letter forms of graffiti was shared among his circle of influence, several whom were also graffiti artists, among them Doze Green.

A quick Internet search revealed the following pictures from one of Mare139′s previous b-boy exhibits.

The exhibit will run through May at the 58 Gallery.

SOURCES: SLAMXHYPE and MISS