You’ve seen Gaia’s work on vacant Baltimore building walls and curbside electrical boxes – the big beautiful rooster-in-a-hoodie on Howard Street, for instance. Maybe you’ve seen it New York, Chicago or Seoul.

Tonight from 5 p.m to 7 p.m. you can see his work in a gallery setting, at In/Flux 307 West  Baltimore St.

The show, called Succession, features new works by Gaia, along with another local street artist we have featured in Baltimore Brew, Nanook, along with sculptor Sebastian Moratana.

Here’s info from their Facebook page:

Succession is an exhibition of new works by Gaia, Nanook and Sebastian Moratana using the streets and history of Baltimore as material.

Stemming from a practice of producing art in the public sphere, the show explores the social dynamic of the local urban environment. Situated in the heart of downtown, the work investigates the development and surface of the city in its simultaneous state of aspiration and decay.

Gaia’s work for Succession exhibits the narrative of Baltimore’s formerly glorious retail corridor – from the evacuation of white flight, to the divestment and subsequent redevelopment of the area.

Nanook’s street practice is geographically re-presented in the gallery through a series of objects amd images. The application of illegal street work becomes a vehicle for the exploration of forming a new urban environment derived solely of abandoned spaces. White Coffee Pot on Franklin and Howard streets, which overlapped with a row home at Ashland and Castle is an example of these new formations.

“Stoops” by Sebastian Moratana is an installation work that seeks to represent the ebb and flow of urban communities. By integrating a physical part of the street in a gallery setting, the objects encourage the viewer to participate in Baltimore’s unique stoop culture by sitting, standing and touching the historically iconic “white marble steps.” The stoops are at once past, present and future. They have been salvaged from homes, neighborhoods and communities that have ceased to exist. Like those communities, the steps can be rebuilt, but once removed the original spirit is gone. These will never be made again from the local stone; the area quarry now only produces rubble and dust. Only by honoring the past can we attempt to rebuild the community that was lost.

About the Artists:

Sebastian Martorana is an active stone carver and illustrator living and working in Baltimore. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Syracuse University and a Masters of Fine Arts degree from Maryland Institute College of Art’s (MICA) Rinehart School of Sculpture. Sebastian is represented by the Irvine Contemporary Gallery in Washington, D.C., and his work was recently selected for the 40th anniversary exhibition, “40 Under 40,” for the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Gaia’s work reflects on the ancient themes of animal and human sympathies, interjected into the context of the city and the human built environment. Working with myth and symbolic animal figures, Gaia’s street murals are like the works of an urban shaman drawing on a positive  force from animal protectors. Gaia employs recognizable animal figures to remind us of lost human connections to nature and the environment. He constructs an image of a reversal of the “natural order” where animals intervene as protectors and avatars for a new awareness of the human condition in the natural world. He is known world-wide for street murals placed in areas to elicit surprise and reflection by passers-by who encounter the symbolism and fragile narratives of his work. Gaia is represented by the Irvine Contemporary Gallery in Washington, D.C., and has received his BFA from MICA.