PRESENT TENSE

MAY 14 - June 24, 2022

Operating with intense skill and profound intuition, graffiti writer TenseOne (“Tense One”) electrifies VERY with an exclusive display of his large-scale work within a gallery space. For over twenty years, TenseOne has produced an impressive body of work spanning the Northeast and beyond. His pieces range from monumental public murals and highway head-turners to writing sequestered in abandoned structures. Tenseone’s legacy within the graffiti community has come through a deep connection and commitment to his craft. He describes each session as an opportunity to channel a specific moment—the particularity of a time and place—into a unique iteration of his tag.

In a recent Bombing Science interview, Tense elaborates, “For me personally, Graffiti is a ritual. 90% of my pieces are freestyle because it’s not about what I sketched the night before, it’s about the energy I’m feeling on the spot within the confines of proportion, mechanics, weight, and a balanced color scheme.”

Present Tense centers on a fundamental appreciation for the graffiti medium. Though the influence of street art has been tangentially accepted by the art world since the 1980s, much of the community and culture has remained underground. Street artists and graffiti writers, many of whom are artists of color, find themselves in a contentious arena, challenging ideas of public ownership, trespassing, legibility, and acceptable forms expression. According to TenseOne, the threat of police violence and governmental retaliation looms over much of his work.

For this exhibition, TenseOne has created a site-specific mural that offers viewers the opportunity to absorb the essential elements of the graffiti genre: the subtlety of color and shadow; complexity of intersecting forms; and fluidity of individual letters designed to unify the whole.