KAVES

The "mayor of Bay Ridge", the lord of Brooklyn. Michael "KAVES" McLeer is the son of the borough that birthed him. He began as a skinny, green eyed runt on the corner of Church and Troy Avenue, absorbing cultural and social intersections of black, white, and multicultural America all within the bustling hallways of his apartment building. When his mother moved them to the other side of south Brooklyn, his innate artistic capabilities flourished, and he was handed down the name KAVES by an older graffiti writer. The rest is a history in which a young kid- who dangled with spray cans on elevated train tracks- grew up to bring hip hop acts to segregated Bay Ridge, pick up a microphone and start a rap group that would play the world over, become a fine artist, exhibit in galleries and museums, and open a tattoo shop and pizza restaurant in his neighborhood home.

Graffiti and New York City street culture are embodied in all of Kaves' artistic work, including his tattoos. He also pulls influence from the illustrations of Will Eisner, American photography, neighborhood folklore, hip hop culture, and visual elements of street surfaces.

Kaves is owner and tattooist of Brooklyn Made Tattoo & Art Studio. He has been tattooing for 17 years and counting. He is also a fine painter working in a variety of mediums on canvas.

Kaves' Instagram

Screen Shot 2017-07-31 at 4.59.00 PM.png

Screen Shot 2017-07-31 at 5.02.48 PM.png

Screen Shot 2017-07-31 at 5.02.33 PM.png

Screen Shot 2017-07-31 at 5.03.02 PM.png

Screen Shot 2017-07-31 at 5.03.21 PM.png

Screen Shot 2017-07-31 at 5.03.42 PM.png

Screen Shot 2017-07-31 at 5.04.13 PM.png

Screen Shot 2017-07-31 at 5.05.58 PM.png

Screen Shot 2017-07-31 at 5.09.18 PM.png

Screen Shot 2017-07-31 at 5.09.40 PM.png

Screen Shot 2017-07-31 at 5.12.04 PM.png

Screen Shot 2017-07-31 at 5.14.34 PM.png

Screen Shot 2017-07-31 at 5.15.45 PM.png

Screen Shot 2017-07-31 at 5.17.24 PM.png

Screen Shot 2017-07-31 at 5.18.22 PM.png

Screen Shot 2017-07-31 at 5.19.21 PM.png

Screen Shot 2017-07-31 at 5.21.11 PM.png

Screen Shot 2017-07-31 at 5.21.43 PM.png

Screen Shot 2017-07-31 at 5.24.14 PM.png

Screen Shot 2017-07-31 at 5.25.18 PM.png

Screen Shot 2017-07-31 at 5.26.51 PM.png

Screen Shot 2017-07-31 at 5.30.33 PM.png

Screen Shot 2017-07-31 at 5.31.34 PM.png

Screen Shot 2017-07-31 at 5.35.23 PM.png

Bella

Hailing from the USSR, where she was born in the Caucasus Mountains but spent a childhood running with wolves in Siberia, Bella was adopted by corrupt Russian prison wardens who introduced her to the ins and out of covert prisoner-warden trade and barter. After learning how to fashion prison tattoo machines, Bella began her career in tattooing. She eventually made a long migration southward and across the Atlantic to develop her artistic identity, taking influence from 1980s underground Russian punk rock, the work of the Dutch and German Renaissance, the classical realist academic school, primitive graffiti, vulgarity and defacement, photorealism, and hyperrealism.

Her tattooing style, mostly black and grey, is a spectrum including realistic imagery, cartoons, etching style, and traditional and Neo-traditional.

Bella is also a hyperrealist painter focusing on portraiture in oil medium.

Bella's Instagram