Background Noise, Volume 55: BEAU

I first noticed BEAU’s work on a discarded mattress in New York’s East Village. Fear of bedbugs aside, it’s a great canvas to really get people’s attention with due to its size, and due to the fact that most people will do a double take like I did and say “Did that guy just paint a mattress!!??” Like his contemporary JIM JOE, BEAU chooses to do a lot of his art on trash these days, primarily resulting from one too many run-ins with New York City’s Vandal Squad. What’s great about this is that not only is this something that (I believe) you can’t get arrested for, but it also becomes disposable art. Something that just appears there and exists in the world for a quick moment before being picked up by sanitation workers and discarded forever. Obviously, items as large as mattresses aren’t usually going to be picked up and taken home, but a lot of the art that BEAU leaves on the street can be. It is often taken and collected, especially as familiarity with BEAU’s work grows.

In addition to having a handful of regular collectors of his work, he’s gotten the attention of Jay Z’s former Roc-A-Fella business partner Damon Dash, whose Poppington Gallery on the Lower East Side opened a couple of years ago, with a show curated by and featuring BEAU’s work.

He covers all different types of mediums with his work. He does straight-up graffiti, stickers, sculpture, and fine art. His fine art work is extremely impressive, especially when you factor in that he has absolutely no formal artistic training. Oh, and he raps too (you can hear a bunch of his songs on his mix). He’s obviously not the type of person who is content just sitting still.