Artist Statement:
James Alicea was born and raised in the Lower East Side of NYC in 1970. It was local graffiti scrawls, primal lettering and colorful murals that sparked his interest in art. His ability to manipulate letter forms and execute simple line drawings in his compositions comes directly from his watching Sesame Street, Electric Company and ZOOM; three dynamic educational children shows whose objective was to teach the alphabets, numbers and grammar through music and art, and how together they can be used to build language. In 1982 he took on the pen name “BlusterOne”, and joined the vibrant graffiti art movement. As an original member of The Barnstormers, a painting collective founded by David Ellis, Bluster’s work has been shown in New York, North Carolina, Japan and Puerto Rico, and continues to be sought after and collected. He is also most notable as co-founder of PNB Nation, one of the earliest fashion streetwear brands of the 90s. Upon first look, the common denominator in all of Bluster’s recent work is the limited color palette of black and orange. It was this color palette that Keith Haring implemented in his famous “Crack Is Wack” murals, a palette that calls for and demands attention from near and far. Combined with his detailed images of melting letters, cross-hatched distorted human figures, obscure portraits of unknown characters, and other pus induced iconography Bluster pulls your eyes across the picture plane to bear witness to the world of his imagination he has termed: GoodStrange.
