Hangin’ with the Broken Crow

John Grider (a.k.a. Broken Crow) is a stencil-and-spray-paint artist out of the Twin Cities whose huge murals have been garnering a fair bit of attention.

If the name Broken Crow sounds familiar, it might be because you heard it dropped by P.O.S. in his Optimist video (see my April 8th post on P.O.S.).

Like P.O.S., Broken Crow is a hip-hop artist. And like P.O.S., he takes hip-hop (in this case, graffiti) in an all-new direction without straining to conform to any preconceived notions about the culture in which he exists.

Using bright colours and sharp edges, Grider makes paintings, posters and murals that are universally accessible yet distinctly American, and his composition fuses urban imagery with naturalistic tones.