FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

{CTS} creative thriftshop is pleased to announce the opening of Graphic Poetry, the first New York solo exhibition of Los Angeles-based artist Upendo Tha Black Krayon. In his works, Upendo explores a nonsensical language of visual delights. He combines ink, crayons, spray paint, and acrylics, with every day objects; cardboard boxes, window panes, and discarded wood to produce a raw, not quite human account of emotion that puts to question the very essences of our current social climate.

Upendo’s work is reflected upon himself, a soul searching journey of finding one’s skin. How to be seen and communicate in a time overwrought with peril and disdain. He invents a place, or better said, coexists in a place where the beautiful meets the hideous, where the natural is overwhelmed by the industrial and bare. The very duality of his existence needs a new language to define it, he calls it Graphic Poetry, where it all comes together.

Filling the gallery with sculpture, an interactive work station, paintings and drawings, Tha Black Krayon, an assumed name, will transform the space into a skeleton of a diary entry, a letter never addressed. Towering sculptures of totem like boxes will peer from the outside windows, glazed over painted clothing suspend themselves from the air, while an installation collage will fill in an over seven foot long wall. An outside area will house a wall of scrawling scribble that invites others to leave behind a piece of their personal selves.

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about the artist: Upendo Taylor has been blessed with the gift of creation, through the facets of art and design. Taking root in the graffiti art culture, Upendo transitioned his drawing skills and love of the household aisles at the supermarket into graphic design. Building a design foundation in the skateboarding industry, alongside his fine art exhibitions he has sustained himself by working in the commercial fashion industries. Designing graphics and creating imagery for some of the top players in the game Upendo is now working to build his own empire of art, design and music.

about the curator: Born and raised in New York, Lynn del Sol currently lives and works in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In late 2003 she left the commercial art world and set to create a vehicle for expletory artists to exhibit their works to the public by founding {CTS} creative thriftshop, a young art company that represents international emerging and under-represented artists.

about the gallery: Tia Cafe Art Gallery was founded in 2003 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn as a multi-media cafe that presented videos, art shows, and performances. It was opened by a husband and wife team with the vision of of bringing arts into everyday life so that they become a part of the daily agenda.