One of the pioneering heavyweights of urban art, Futura was one of the most iconic practitioners of the early graffiti movement of New York City in the 1970s and continues to be progressive as an abstract artist. His mixing of colours builds a unique spectrum and creates transitions where the pictorial gesture is dynamic and evident, displaying one of his inspirations, the sci-fi genre. Fittingly, the artist’s nom de plume, Futura, refers to the passage of time and evolution.

If Futura makes constant use of the nuclear energy symbol, a fountain about to explode and transform, Jason Revok often creates similar circular forms. Based in Detroit, the city of industry and machines, Revok incorporates ideas of automation and the repetition of the production line into his work. As part of his practice, he has developed almost rudimentary tools (early in his career they were made from discarded materials collected from the streets) that act as extensions of his body to paint with. His creative process is a kind of performance that highlights the relationship between man and machine, but also comments on the flaws and imperfections that transcend the predetermined systems he has created. In his works, drops of paint and splashes of spray are records of the movement itself, reflecting the spontaneity and unpredictability of the action, of the human being and of life.