Breathtaking work of the secretive Chinese graffiti artist who travels the world tagging walls with his lifelike art
- DALeast, who doesn't reveal his real name, lives in Cape Town but travels world tagging walls in different continents
- His unusual works look 3D, as if they're made of metal shards, but are spray-painted, often in a hurry to avoid arrest
- The Chinese-born artist has created works of art on walls and buildings in Miami, New York, London and S Africa
Daily Mail (UK) | 14 Aug. 2013
These huge paintings are the work of a
secretive graffiti artist who travels the world tagging walls, often
painting his quirky pieces in a hurry to avoid arrest.
Chinese-born
DALeast lives in South Africa but spends six months of the year
travelling and has tagged walls on nearly every continent.
His
unusual paintings, which are sometimes hundreds of feet across, can
look 3D and as if they are created out of thousands of tiny metal
shards, but in fact they have been spray-painted onto a flat surface.
Original style: This mural of two big cats
fighting was painted by secretive Chinese-born graffiti artist DALeast
in Hanbury Street, near London's Brick Lane
Astonishingly lifelike: This beautiful mural on a
wall in the artist's home city Cape Town, South Africa, looks like
slowed-down footage of the animal leaping
DALeast's works can be seen in Cape Town, Miami, New York and London's Brick Lane, as well as his native China.
The 29-year-old, who keeps his real name a secret, has been making art since he was three.
He
said: 'I worked on everything when I was in China - painting,
sculpture, installations, synchronising performance, and digital art,
but I only started painting in public spaces in 2004.'
DALeast, who now lives
with his wife, also an artist, in Cape Town, said he creates his pieces
'Spiritually, in the mind' before embarking on his painting trips.
Much of his work portrays wild animals hunting prey, often showing them in motion.
The
nature of the artist's work has landed him in trouble before, most
notably just before the 2008 Beijing Olympics when police raided a house
he was staying in and arrested him and his graffiti crew.
Ambitious art: This enormous mural of a flying
bird in Honolulu, Hawaii, is one of the dramatic works by DALeast on
walls across the world
This breathtaking image of a dolphin leaping out
of the water is painted on a building in Melun, in the south-eastern
suburbs of Paris
'But I hope I am creating illusions through my paintings that can be a switch for people's minds.'
He added: 'I like to express life-emotions and the environment, and use different artistic forms to speak. I prefer people staring at my work without saying any words - it means they are taking it in.'
This detailed mural showing a string of camels
in the desert was painted on a wall of a parking lot in Miami, Florida,
by Chinese-born graffiti artist DALEast
Astonishingly lifelike: This huge painting of a
horse painted on some chipboard walls in Tin Town, South Africa, looks
like a model from a fairground carousel
Imperious: This magnificent picture of a stag
takes up most of a wall in Vienna, Austria - the graffiti artist has
tagged walls on most continents
This mural of a lion looking at another beast is
painted on the wall of a boutique in New York City, another destination
for the globe-trotting DALeast
Change of subject: This mural in Miami, Florida,
depicts a car splintering into tiny pieces as it crashes into a pipe on
the outside of the building
Using buildings and walls as his canvases, the
graffiti artist can paint pictures of astonishing breadth, as with this
eagle mural in Cape Town, South Africa
Violent image: This work of art, entitled
Eclipse Of The Halo, has been spray-painted on a wall in Miami, Florida,
and shows the artist's DALeast tag
This enormous image of a whale by the graffiti
artist takes up nearly the entire wall of a storage warehouse in
Rochester, New York City
An undated image painted onto the end of a
building in the artist's home town of Cape Town, South Africa, depicts a
magnificent bird of prey
This image of a slithering serpent in Rochester,
New York City, is one of the artist's longest works, painted underneath
a bridge - below is the work in its entirety
This invigorating portrait of a big cat pouncing
is painted on the wall of a house in Brick Lane in London's East End -
another work showing animals splintering in two
In a departure from his normal style, the artist
painted an astronaut planting a flat on the moon on the wall of this
abandoned and overgrown building in Paris
Fast as a cheetah: A wild cat speeding away on
what look like bicycle tyres has been painted onto the side of a
building in Johannesburg, South Africa
Inspirational: This mural on a wall in Los
Angeles depicts a man apparently diving through water followed by a
trail of bubbles or fish
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