West End Exhibitions: Tinho | Walter Nomura | Graffiti | Art

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The Review - FEATURE
Published: 24 July 2008

You Can’t Destruct Me (2008)

See talent of Tinho, even if ‘graffiti’ isn’t up your street

TINHO: LOOKING FOR MYSELF
Gallery 27

FROM the hillside favelas of Sao Paulo, Brazil, where the law of the gun reigns, to the venerable streets of prim and proper Mayfair, Tinho’s is a real-life rags to riches story.
With his brightly coloured street murals, the city has proved a beguiling canvas, propelling 34-year-old Tinho – real name Walter Nomura – to the forefront of what is fast-becoming the global art movement.
To all those who think it is heresy to utter the words graffiti and art in the same breath, this is the man to convert you.
First, he’s not just a watered-down immitation Banksy, he has forged his own identity. Second, I can sympathise with those staunch defenders of the Ancien régime who won’t be frogmarched into rating it just because the Guardian told them to. Fair enough.
But Tinho’s work is not just counter-cultural agit-prop, it offers an emotional window into an alien world – simultaneously repellent and
life-affirming.
He articulates the struggle of the street-dwellers that society forgot without the usual recourse to slogans or patronising juxtaposition that so much graff falls prey to.
With inequality the cause célèbre of politicians, news execs and social conscience warriors alike, Looking For Myself is an invitation to step out of the bubble.

* Looking For Myself is at Gallery 27,
27 Cork Street, W1, until August 3.
020 7287 8408

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