For Love of the Letter

©POP and Y-Arts will partner up with 323East Gallery to celebrate the second anniversary of the Royal Oak fine art gallery through a unique live street art event from Friday, June 11 through Sunday, June 13. This incredible exhibition will feature several local graffiti artists as they execute live street art murals over the span of 72 hours.

The anniversary of 323East Gallery accompanies the release of My First Graffiti Coloring Book by local artist Kobie Solomon. Solomon’s 26 page-coloring book satirizes contemporary children’s literature while outlining and illuminating the subculture of the urban street art phenomenon. Each page of the book depicts a different treatment of letterforms with a unique style of graffiti, poetry and character. MFGCB was first published in 2005 and has since endured a massive cover-to-cover overhaul. Since then Solomon’s work has been creating quite the buzz, which was evident at Miami’s Primary Flight where Solomon caught the eye of the infamous street art documentary photographer Martha Cooper. To see pages from My First Graffiti Coloring Book please visit http://www.graffitibook.us

“I am extremely excited about this opportunity to work with ©POP, 323 East and the YMCA in bringing this collaboration of unique talent together for this special event,” says Solomon. “Having this many gifted artists contribute their time and abilities alone is incredible, but being able to benefit younger artists at the same time is nothing less than a dream come true.”

Included in this three-day event will be visual interpretations of each page of the book by 26 different artists, both local and national, each bringing a unique representation of their individual styles. Proceeds from this event will go towards the Metro Detroit’s YMCA’s Y-arts program. Y-Arts is the arts and humanities branch of the YMCA of Metro Detroit, for their Art In Schools Outreach Program, an after-school art program in seven different schools around the city that provides after school instruction in traditional and media arts, spoken word, performance, music and dance.

For over 15 years the ©POP brand has prided itself on being one of the first organizations to recognize and dedicate itself to the promotion of today’s leading local, national and international artists working in a global aesthetic movement based in the visual language of contemporary popular culture. The artists of this once “underground” anti-establishment genre, which ©POP so often premiered to the public, now lead the art world through their innovation and vitality and have vindicated their long, difficult journey to legitimacy with sold-out exhibitions the world over.

323East Gallery is a collection of creative energy materialized in a mash-up of art, culture, lifestyle and fashion. 323East is home to over 100 artists with rotating works in a variety of mediums. Recent solo exhibitions include local and international artists Glenn Barr, Ron Zakrin and David Foox. In addition to the gallery, 323East’s new boutique offers 400 square feet of extra space dedicated to handmade goods by local and international artists including jewelry, handbags, clothing and more. 323East Gallery is located at 323 East Fourth Street in Royal Oak, Michigan 48067. For more information regarding 323East please call (866) 756-6538 or email them at 323east@gmail.com or you can visit them online at 323east.com.