This week in the international-street-art-sphere portraiture was the method of choice. Just for you, we’ve compiled the portraits that we found to be most striking. View them below.

Aryz (above) worked on a collaboration with David Choe in L.A. You can clearly distinguish the American’s artist surrealistic style colliding with the Aryz‘s creepy world.

Invader

Last time we heard from Invader he was pasting a mosaic of Spider-man onto the Parisian landscape. The French artist now dropped a new work in London depicting another hero, Luke Skywalker, chilling out with his father, Darth Vader.

Ben Slow & Mear One

Ben Slow and Mear One worked on a politically charged collaboration for the streets of San Francisco. The two street artists portrayed Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in a light that acknowledges their shadier dealings.

Jack TML

The incredible Israeli artist Jack TML was recently in Germany to paint an indoor piece somewhere in Munich. His figurative work is charged with feelings of distance and proximity.

Aryz, prior to his collaboration with David Choe, worked on a gigantic mural in San Francisco. The Barcelona-based artist worked on merging the insides and outsides of his female character using his signature color pallet.

Stik is currently honoring the Chichester Street Art Festival  alongside Run & Phlegm. Working with his minimalistic stick figures, the British artist produces a piece that creates movement through subtlety.

The post STREET ART: BEST OF THE WEEK – The Art Of Portraiture appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

Stik has been painting the streets with his notorious stick figures for the past ten years. His androngenous characters are composed from simple shapes, but Stik works with them to convey complex body language and emotions.

“Beauty is in movement. That’s what it’s about. Beauty is about the way that someone moves their body. You can tell by someone’s walk if they’re angry, whether they’re happy or if they’ve just eaten. You can tell a lot about someone just by the way they’re moving their back or their eyes. There doesn’t need to be a great deal of detail there. You can see it from across the road. You can see someone silhouetted against a white wall in the night and check whether they’re walking in an aggressive way or if they’re someone you know. That’s what I’m trying to capture in my work – that direct recognition”

– Stik, in Little London Observationalist, 6 December 2009

Stik depicts the beauty of movement throughout the globe. He’s currently working on his largest mural to date with two signature mirrored charachters which can be seen on Nelson Street, UK for  See No Evil 2012. See No Evil is an art project of international standard based on Nelson Street in Bristol City centre. It brings together a selection of the world’s best street artists to create a huge outdoor gallery.

Here are more posts on See No Evil 2012.

The post Street Art: Stik, Beauty is in Movement appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.