Joseph Ford x Levalet - Impossible Street Art

Limited edition archival pigment photographs printed on Canson Baryta Prestige 340gsm paper. Joseph signs and numbers each piece on the front.

60 x 45cm, Limited Edition of 15
120 x 90cm, Limited Edition of 5 

Levalet is a French street artist known for his intricate, life-sized black-and-white paste-ups that interact playfully with urban environments. His work, often featuring humorous and surreal scenes, integrates seamlessly with architectural elements like walls, pipes, and doorways, creating a dynamic dialogue between art and city life. With a background in fine arts, Levalet brings a refined, theatrical quality to his pieces, making his work both thought-provoking and visually striking. I met Levalet through a museum I was exhibiting in and loved his playful approach to the watery scene I'd photographed at Brighton's marina. The first time I tried to rephotograph his painted print, the light on the water didn't quite match the day I'd taken the original photograph, so I had to return a second time to get it exactly right.

Information about Impossible Street Art

In this project my starting point was to imagine if street artists could work on any surface, not restricted by scale, accessibility, safety or rules. By challenging these conventions I explore the tensions between artistic expression and the restrictions imposed by social norms and governments. I have photographed landscapes that would be amazing for a street artist to paint, but are impossible to paint for real, because they're too big or inaccessible. 

I have chosen some of my favourite street artists and given them large photographic prints, which they have painted to create original, hand-made artworks with no digital manipulation.

I then re-shoot each artwork on an easel in its original location, creating captivating windows into a parallel universe where street artists have been given free rein.