ROA

The artist’s organic animal forms remind viewers of the forgotten natural world beneath city streets. With his large-scale wall installations depicting wildlife on the industrial canvas of the city, ROA creates a contrast between the obviously natural and the mechanical, between the wild and the nostalgic, evoking memories of a world before the use of cement and concrete.

ROA began extracting animals from the depths of the industrial world of his native Belgium, where he explored the surroundings of his home and found inspiration in the life lurking in its lonely chimneys. The resulting artwork evokes a surprising growl, awakening a visceral reaction from encountering something familiar yet unfamiliar, a strange representation of the animals within and around us that contemporary lifestyles have rendered insignificant.

In 2010, ROA held his first solo exhibition in Paris at the Galerie Itinerrance. In 2011, he participated in the iconic Art in The Streets exhibition at MOCA in Los Angeles. In 2014, he contributed to the Djerbahood project, the first open-air street art museum in a Tunisian village on the island of Djerba, which has become a global reference for urban art. His artistic practice is not tied to a fixed location; like his murals, his studio is mobile, and his artworks are created on-site, in galleries, and museums. ROA’s work is created in situ: detached from the daily routine, he continually forges new connections through encounters, reclaiming local materials in his temporary residences where he develops his artistic practice.

Since his beginnings in Belgium, ROA’s work has taken flight like some of the animals he paints, scattering across major cities, appearing worldwide as landmarks in metropolises, on walls, and in abandoned factories alike.