Pixnit

From the window to the wall

By Colin Asher

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Pixnit is a rare artist. Rather than hound fame she goes to great lengths to conceal her identity. When she talks about her work, she evokes ideas like egalitarianism and accessibility. And though she has a solo show opening at a Newbury Street gallery next week, she can also brag that she has seen some of "Boston's gnarliest, biggest flying rats" in pursuance of her art.

Pixnit, whose name is a derivation of the Latin word pinxit (which means he or she painted it), grew up in the Southwest, around "low-riders and the gestalt of Mexican mural art," she says. From there she followed a circuitous path that took her from graffiti art and tagging to graduate school for her Masters of Fine Art degree—and back to street art.

After finishing her MFA, she found herself on a plane to Paris, drawing figures in a sketch pad. She tore them out and when she landed, armed with a roll of electrical tape, she posted them about the city. They were "love notes to Paris," she says. When she returned to Boston she assumed the identity Pixnit and began the project that ultimately brought her notoriety and snagged her shows in galleries and museums as far flung as Paris, Basel, Los Angeles and Boston. Since beginning the body of work she is now known for, she has succeeded in making her stencils of stylized flowers, repeating floral patterns, Rococo-era furniture and fixtures, intricate lattice work and the name Pixnit ubiquitous on Boston's bare walls, street corners, alleyways, trash cans and lampposts.

For Pixnit, the desire to create public art has to do with its inherent egalitarianism: Anyone can enjoy a work of art on a sidewalk or the wall of a building in a public space. The stencils are pure utility. They are the easiest, quickest way to replicate a complex image and leave the area before being caught. But the nom de guerre is a combination of the two. The ambiguity of her identity lends her work another layer of equality and it gives Pixnit the anonymity she needs to elude legal charges for defacing private property.

Pixnit calls her designs "spores," and since she began replicating them throughout the city there has been controversy over her work. She has raised hackles by painting on private buildings and property. Though the debate over her work—or the legitimacy and legality of any public art—is not new, Pixnit will incorporate some of the critique into her upcoming gallery exhibit.

Her upcoming show at the Judi Rotenberg Gallery is entitled Hello my name is Pixnit. It will include two canvases where attendees can collaborate on works of art that will be sealed and preserved. "I look at the blogs," Pixnit says. "People ask 'How would you feel if we painted on your walls?' ... I'm reacting to what Boston's thinking."

HELLO MY NAME IS PIXNIT

RUNS 5.3-6.1

OPENING RECEPTION SAT. 5.3., 5PM

JUDI ROTENBERG GALLERY

130 NEWBURY ST.

BOSTON

617.437.1518

JUDIROTENBERG.COM