B SIDE, a solo show of São Paulo artist Billy Argel, opened yesterday in the art gallery FITA TAPE, in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The two exhibition rooms  display a series of new works from the artist, which is the main Brazilian name in skateboard art.

Billy Argel is back to Porto Alegre, a city which has hosted a major retrospective of his work, integrating the exhibition TRANSFER (at Santander Cultural, in 2008). In this city he was finally acclaimed as the father of brazillian skateboard graphic art of the 80's and as key figure to understand the aesthetics of national punk and surf, decisively influencing a whole generation of artists and designers. 
 


This year Billy was featured on the art exhibition and documentary RE: BOARD (by Sesper), launched in Sao Paulo, participated in group shows in galleries such as Choque Cultural (SP) and was featured in magazines +SOMA (cover), Vista Skateboard Art and Juxtapoz. He also did many illustration projects, customizations, printings and partnerships with international brands such as Element Skateboards. 
 


In his solo show at FITA TAPE gallery, Billy Argel returns to the root of his commercial designs, but subverting the language with which he ruled the T-shirts, stickers and decks in the 80's. Now, without promoting brand names, Billy mixed psychedelic-aggressive draws with letterings to express his apocalyptic vision of the world and in some cases, just for graphic pleasure. 
 


This is a show about the B side of brazillian art. To be more precise, the Billy side. Impressive drawings of skulls crossed by pens and brushes, zombie animals, dead sperms and doped humans mixed with texsts like "the end is near" and "clean mind doped!" give room to many interpretations. It's conceptually dark and visually awesome.

B Side, Billy Argel at FITA TAPE gallery
 October 8 to November 22 

 
 sponsorship: Element Skateboards 
 support: Vista Skateboard Art, Void, BD Divulgação 

www.fitatape.art.br 
 www.complexomaster.com

More opening pictures bellow (all photos by Void magazine). Band: Velho de Cancer