I CAN'T BREATHE

« Frichez nous la paix !!! »

(1960-2020)

At the beginning of the 90s, PEDRÔ! evolves in punk and underground circles when his artistic career begins in Paris. PEDRÔ! joins the “Zen Copyright” collective (Yarps, SP 38, Momo Basta, Mick, Eduardo ...) which opens numerous ephemeral squats where painting, music, mosaic, poetry, theater and performances are entangled. At that time, PEDRÔ! draws and paints in acrylics on posters that he sticks in the streets. During a trip to Australia, he is marked by the art of the Aborigines that he will adapt and adopt as a recurring motif in his artworks.

In 2002, PEDRÔ! participates in the creation of the association “Friches et nous, la paix” which is set up in three gallery-workshops in Low Belleville area, places proposed by the City Council of Paris after the expulsion of the squat from Rue Blanche. PEDRÔ! invests the walls of the district and more particularly the wall of the Rue Dénoyez which is today an essential place of the Parisian street art scene. His social and political concerns target the retina of passers-by, against a background of black and hard-hitting humor.

Having met “Le Bateleur” and “Yarps”, a few years earlier, led him to choose the stencil technique as his preferred medium, whether for portraits or for the backgrounds on which they are made. PEDRÔ! also pays special attention to the recovery media he uses. He thus recycles harmless objects, deemed useless, into unique works that destabilize us by their originality: a portrait of Sigmund Freud on the French yellow pages phone book, Andy Warhol on the back of a television set, Jimi Hendrix on a vinyl record, Obama on a bag of coffee from Kenya, Louise Michel on a crate of cherries, Rosa Parks on a bus map ... Each stencil thus bears the story of an object doomed to destruction until its transformation as an artwork.

In July 2015, PEDRÔ! is exhibited solo at the Graffik Gallery in London (Upcycling exhibition).
His works have been seen by thousands of people and exhibited alongside works by other leading street artists, such as Banksy, Blek le Rat, Terry Noir, Invader, Yarps, Le Bateleur, Mick (Michael JARRY), Spliff Trigger, Happy Finger???

PEDRÔ! suddenly left us in October 2020 (†).