Around Bushwick: AIB’s coverage of community events, supporting its mission to promote creative expression in one of Brooklyn’s most dynamic neighborhoods.
On the same day that a Prince married his commoner, a commotion of a very different kind rode into Bushwick town. Sweet Toof, the London-based graffiti artist best known for his oral fixation, launched his first solo exhibit in New York at Factory Fresh last night.
The exhibit, Dark Horse, covered the walls of one of Brooklyn’s best homes for street art with dozens of oil paintings, many of them of substantial size. With these Sweet Toof shows that he’s not a one-trick spray-can pony, but also a technically accomplished realist painter.
Works such as Hold Your Horses and Giddy Up showed his continued fascination with such ghoulish influences as the Mexican Day of the Dead and the Vanitas paintings of 16th-century Europe. But his skeletons refuse to die quietly. Adorned with his trademark toothy pink gums and flashes of gold-teeth, they joust and gallop and fence across colorful urban and pastoral landscapes. Perhaps less “memento mori” than “never say die”.
The vibe at the opening reception was just as energetic. Manilla People provided the tunes as street artists, out-of-towners and neighborhood faces, young and old, came out to show their love. Brisk business was done as some visitors seemed happy to spend their tax refunds on tees 
and prints designed with the memorable “I Toof NY”. The weather also cooperated as a decidedly pre-summer vibe was enjoyed in Factory Fresh’s large back patio, while a few feral kittens kept an eye on things.
Sweet Toof @ Factory Fresh is definitely worth sinking your teeth into. Go and see for yourself.
Dark Horse will be on display until May 22nd. Also be sure to check out Sweet Toof’s massive painting of 67 consecutive teeth on Vandervoort Place.
