The Graffreaky Show-Samee Sam and Voxfire Gallery
11-7-14
By: Meaghan McGurgan
The minute I walked into Voxfire Gallery last night I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of people that street artist, Samee Sam, had drawn to the gallery on his opening night. I’ve been to Voxfire several times and never before have I seen a crowd so large, so eclectic and so hip. The Graffreaky Show was an evening of street art culture with live DJs, graffiti inspired paintings on the walls, video projections and great debate amongst its attendees about what is art. (Although most of the debates were happening in French… And my Francais est tres terrible, so I only caught onto about one fourth of what they were saying.) I was looking forward to seeing some B-Boys, as break dancing and street art go hand in hand, but it would have been absolutely impossible to bust a move in the gallery last night without busting a bystander in the nose.
Samee Sam is a pop and locker/street artist that started his craft on the streets of Paris. His day job as a graphic designer is quite evident in some of his works as many of his pieces were incredibly bold and included nods to Hong Kong’s love of branding. His inspiration for the project was a personal one; he wanted to challenge himself to make a show that was very eclectic and that showed the street art culture in new and challenging ways.
I found that his strongest pieces were the ones with a lot of detail and layers to them. I enjoyed his pair of Hong Kong and Paris because I think it helped me see who he was as an artist. It let me into his world and allowed me to see both cities through his eyes. I enjoyed his use of color in the pieces, especially the Hong Kong one. I also thought his other duo, Love and Hate, were quite strong pieces. They had odes to Jackson Pollack in them and enjoyed seeing the splatter style mixed in with traditional tagging.
Because his pieces were so different and the room was so full of people, it was difficult to gage the flow of the exhibit; how the pieces worked with one another and with the overall theme of the evening. Some of the pieces like the serial killer piece and the wanted poster stood out for all the wrong reasons, they hampered the connection between the works. Perhaps if the curator had rearranged the works to put these two next to one another at the end by the video, the other pieces would have flowed more harmoniously. The video was actually one of the strongest parts of the exhibit, I found. I really enjoyed watching the street art process and seeing Samee Sam wonder around HK with his bag of paint looking for a canvas to bring to life.
Overall, Samee Sam’s work is energetic, full of life and color, much like the artist himself, who is a pleasure to speak to. He is extremely passionate about his work and about the street art culture in Hong Kong and Paris. We need more projects like this in HK and you can tell from the huge crowd at Samee’s opening that the people of Hong Kong are wanting to see art exhibits with a full audience interaction experience thrown in. Admission to the exhibit for the rest of the weekend is free, I highly recommend you check it out if you're in the Hollywood Rd. area over the weekend. Samee Sam is a unique Hong Kong artist that has a lot to say and an interesting way to say it.
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