Gaia

Gaia (born 1988 in New York City) is an American street artist who has received significant museum showings and critical recognition.

Based in Baltimore, he has created large-scale murals worldwide to engage the community where he works in a dialogue by using historical and sociological references to these neighborhoods.

Besides continuing to do commissions for private and corporate clients, Gaia is teaching two classes a semester- Drawing and Professional Developmant at his alma mater MICA.

Born as Andrew Pisacane in 1988 in New York City and raised in the Upper East Side neighborhood.

His artist name is derived from the Greek designation for "earth goddess," and early in his career he used animal imagery to underscore his interest in bringing nature to urban landscapes.

In 2007, while still in high school in New York, Gaia started wheat-pasting prints of his linoleum blocks in Bushwick, Williamsburg and Chelsea.

His images included children, whose features gave them an other-worldly quality.

His animals included a horse and boar, both endowed with human hands and torsos.

He participated in several successful shows in Bushwick at Ad Hoc Art.

After graduating from high school in June 2007, Gaia moved to Baltimore and studied for four years at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), where he broadened his iconography.

For example, he included images of his grandfather, or a rooster holding the head of St. John the Baptist.

He graduated in 2011 from MICA.

Gaia also developed an interest in the evolution of urban neighborhoods.

He began incorporating portraits of influential, and sometimes controversial urban developers: people such as Nelson Rockefeller, Robert Moses, Henry Flagler, James Rouse, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe.

These men built highways, skyscrapers and housing projects and collectively and irrevocably, they altered our perception of public space.

For this reason, Gaia layered them into his urban murals.

According to the artist himself, much of his early work was inspired by a sense of looming environmental calamity.

In 2011, he stated that, "I wanted to express this strange unlocatable feeling of fear about the end of the world - my generation’s zeitgeist of global warming."

In March 2011 Gaia had two solo exhibitions in Chicago co-organized by Maxwell-Colette Gallery and Pawnworks, which included a large-scale installation in the Art Loop at Adams and State.

In May 2011, the Jonathan Levine Gallery in New York City presented Succession, a solo exhibition of Gaia's work.

In the summer, Gaia created an edition of a raven titled Forevermore and donated it to the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum in Baltimore, which had lost its funding.

The Poe House is located in an area which includes subsidized housing.

When a 50 foot-poster of Gaia’s image was wheat-pasted in the neighborhood, it became a photo-op location for local residents.

The image was also hung at Case[werks Showroom & Gallery], for its own fundraising event.

In September 2011, Gaia was commissioned to create a mural for Wynwood Doors for Art Basel/Miami.

He chose to do a portrait

of Henry Flagler, a railroad magnate who established the historically black neighborhood Overtown in central Miami.

Gaia was one of the artists that took part in The Underbelly Project which exhibited at Art Basel/Miami.

Gaia curated Open Walls Baltimore (OWB) which was generously backed by the PNC Community Foundation and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The mayor of Baltimore, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, attended the March 6 launch party for the OWB project at The Windup Space.

Gaia created the first two murals for Open Walls Baltimore at the corner of Charles and North Avenue.

Maya Hayuk created the third mural, and other artists who participated were Swoon, Chris Stain, MOMO, Freddy Sam, Jaz, Jetsonoarma, Overunder, Vhils, Nanook, Mata Ruda, Specter, Interesni Kaski, Ever, Doodles, John Ahearn and Sten & Lex.

In addition, discussion events included Monica Campana of Living Walls and Jane Golden of Philadelphia Mural Arts.

These internationally renowned artists created public murals in the Station North Arts and Entertainment District as a quick pick-me-up for a transitional neighborhood that houses both young artists who attend the nearby Maryland Institute College of Art, and economically challenged long term residents.

The mural project will be akin to one in Miami’s Wynwood district, going beyond the typical haphazard spray paint or wheatpaste to create an art destination.

In September Gaia was invited to create a large installation at the Baltimore Museum of Art Contemporary Wing which reopened on November 17 after having been closed for several years for a major renovation.

The project explored a recurring Gaia theme focusing on the residents of a neighborhood located near the BMA known as Remington.

Eleven portraits of Remington residents float on a huge linoleum block print of rowhouses on one wall.

On the opposite wall is another linoleum block print of rowhouses on which Gaia created a Gauguin-inspired portrait of a woman holding a mango.

Kristen Hileman, the museum's curator of contemporary art, said the museum sought to commission an installation by Gaia not only because of his artistic skills, but because of the social and political messages in his work and his mission to connect people in urban landscapes.