Congratulations to Jana & Js (Austria) for their winning artwork “I wish everybody knew”. Jana & Js take home a $5000 cash prize for the 2017 Stencil Art Prize. The artwork was judged by Australian street artist Rone.
Jana & Js:
“This image is very representative of our work as it shows two of our main inspirations: a human figure and the city.
Over the years we have been focusing our work on the place of human beings in our modern cities. We want to translate the feelings of particular moments, journeys, personal experiences in which we have and that are inspiring us.
The building pattern used on the background is based on a picture we took in New York a couple of years ago – a city where we found lots of inspiration.
The central subject of the painting is a women, in a poetic and romantic position, illustrating an introspective moment.
We prefer not to describe precisely all our intentions, because not everything is completely conscious. For us the feelings are more important than explanations, but mostly because we believe that everyone can interpret the image as they like, and maybe find an echo to their own personal experiences.”
ABOUT JANA & JS
Austrian and French street artists Jana & Js are painting together since 2006. The pair create polychromed stencil murals widely ranging in size. Based primarily on their personal photographic work, the stencils seem to respond and interact with their surroundings. Mostly inspired by the city and people living in, their paintings merge urban landscape or architecture details with portrait, questioning the place of human being in the modern cities. Inspired by the place where they put their work they now focus on nostalgie, melancholy. After spending some time in Madrid, Spain where they met and living a couple of years in Paris, Jana & Js are now settled in Salzburg – Austria.
To display their works, they choose old materials that are showcasing the passing of physical time and history. They have made their art in unexpected spaces by printing stencils on public infrastructure or on the semi-finished/dismantled products/spaces such as the train tracks, old buildings, poles, pieces of concrete, old trucks, wood piles…
They are deeply inspired by every place they travel to, deciphering the social meaning in unforeseen aspects of urban landscapes. But what is the most striking part in their works are not panoramas themselves, but people with their existential uneasiness. They have the unique way of relating people, their emotions, desires and concerns with their environment.
Their urban interventions merge their subjects with the environment, provoking thoughts and engaging the viewers in an artistic dialogue.
