An Art Week stroll through Wynwood—the Bushwick of Miami

Meet the Brooklyn artists who show up for art week with spray cans and a dream (and no shortage of stret cred)

Miami Art Week’s festivities didn’t stop where the white-walled fairs end. Over the past decade, the city’s Wynwood neighborhood has exploded into a spectacle of sound and color with paint covered streets fueled by the passion of international artists and funds from the Goldman family (yes, that one).

Perhaps the only place that’s more Bushwick than Bushwick itself, Wynwood plays host during Art Week to established street artists and hopefuls from all over the globe–world, of course, a healthy dose of that proprietary Brooklyn flair.

Art behemoth Mana Contemporary boasts three massive studio spaces and central hubs across the U.S.–in Jersey City, Chicago, and Wynwood, Miami. This year, Mana Public Arts curated an array of gigantic murals in their corner of Wynwood, near NW Fifth Ave., between NW 24th Street and NW 23rd Street.

South Williamsburg-based Jason Naylor arrived on the scene to paint a candy-colored composition centered around kindness and jubilee. While the artist’s central messages of kindness, love, and joy remain the same, he’s undergoing a recent period of creative exploration–shifting from striking, flat imagery and straightforward phrases into abstract arrangements loaded with symbolism.

Mural by Jason Naylor (photo by Vittoria Benzine)

“Miami has its arms wide open and welcomes me always with warmth and love, and while Brooklyn may be sweet, you have to crack it’s hard shell,” Naylor says. “So I’ll be bringing a bit of that glowing warmth back to Brooklyn, where I will continue to spread love.”

Greenpoint-based L’Amour Supreme also painted with Mana in Wynwood this year. His mural (seen at the top of the page) is an incredible superhero epic that spans the whole expanse of a building, filling it with bold outlines and exclamations in the artist’s signature vintage comic book style. Magenta lasers beaming from superhero palms as they beckon minions to join their ranks.

“I have painted before in Miami but nothing to this scale before,” Supreme says of the mural, which (like most of these works) will remain on view for the foreseeable future. “It was really nice to see my black line work on this scale. I had a weird past life experience painting this mural where I saw bits of a life where the sword was my medium and blood was the paint.”

Seminal Brooklyn street art organization The Bushwick Collective even hopped on Mana’s lineup, adding a touch of their own curation, including one particularly arresting wall by Osiris Rain. His vividly beautiful, high contrast portrait of a goddess jumps off the wall and reaches up a gorgeous stairway built into the facade.

During Miami Art Week, countless artists come to Wynwood armed only with spray cans and a dream. It’s not too hard for an artist to get involved in the mayhem and start painting—or at least set something up last minute with an open-minded business owner.

Brooklyn-based Calicho makes his debut appearance at Miami Art Week, peppering a few vibrant pieces around Wynwood with collaboration from close friends like Jeff Rose. Calicho explained the thought behind his octopus and birds of paradise piece: octopi are renowned for their ability to adapt and camouflage, much like the upstart artist is determined to be part of this bustling global street art ecosystem.

Street art collab by Calicho and Jeff Rose at 261 NW 23rd Street (photo by Vittoria Benzine)

“Sometimes I see that every artist wants to put their souls on every wall, no matter the size,” Calicho says, inspired by the peers he sees at work in these streets. “This pushes me to elevate my skills and paint more.”

Steeped in authentic street culture since NYC’s grunge days in the 1990s, Skewville’s Ad DeVille also brings his wares down to Wynwood, throwing up stamps and tags, but also tossing wooden sneakers over power lines throughout the tropical neighborhood.

Skewville’s wooden sneakers on a wire (photo by Vittoria Benzine)

“The sneakers mission always gets respect,” DeVille says. “People quickly take out their phones as if they saw a UFO. One time I heard a few claps as I walked away.”

BKFoxx has made her name all over her home in Brooklyn, painting that blend experimental styles with shocking photorealism around the borough. This year she’s painting with a smaller curatorial outfit called Big Walls Big Dreams that’s arranged some of Art Week’s hottest new murals in Wynwood. Paying tribute to the local community, BKFoxx opted for a portrait of 305ange, daughter of Miami-based street art celeb and organizer Golden305.

It’s this cross-communication playing out creatively on the streets, for the public, that makes street art so special. Nowhere in Miami has a warmer vibe than Wynwood during Art Week.