GALLERY ART AND MISS

Born in Paris in 1973. Lives and works in Clermont-Ferrand.

Keymi (Mickey en verlan) began to paint in 1990. He grew up with the hip hop wave and produced his first spray paint frescoes and graffiti in 1992. After studying art history in Clermont Ferrand, he devoted himself more in addition to painting and experimenting with other working techniques between 1995 and 1998: airbrush, watercolor and acrylic. These new processes allow him to bring a certain richness to his creations, an iconographic direction accompanied by a more singular technique, different from other graffiti.

He thus finds his style and draws his inspiration from famous illustrators such as Giger, the creator of Alien, Franck Frazetta, Boris Valejo, Brom, Gil Elvgren, Alberto Vargas, Sorayama Luis Royo, and calligraphers: Claude Médiavilla, Hassan Massoudi, Fabienne Verdier. He is also interested in the world of comics and manga while remaining sensitive to the aesthetics of classical landscape paintings, baroque and rococo church frescoes, 20th century painting and the iconography of the world of custom and tattoo.

His graffiti gathers two categories: characters and lettering. For several years, it has covered the gray walls of Clermont Ferrand. First made without authorization, his graffiti won the goodwill of the administrations, the municipal services being instructed not to erase them. Keymi has also received several orders from official bodies. Tirelessly in search of a place with experience, an atmosphere,  he paints on buildings which remain according to him the only proof of our passage on earth, as if he wanted to fight against time and make what he paints timeless. Recently, he created  a series entitled Pin-Up puzzles in resinated polystyrene, exhibited at the Artima gallery, a tribute to these American women of the 1950s, popularized by Alberto Vargas and Gil Elvgren.