Artwork Description
Leppard Shirt Original Mixed Media Drawing by RAE BK on Cardstock Paper Modern Street Pop Artwork.
2022 Signed Original Markers & Permanent Markers, Graphite & Colored Pencils, Ink, Mixed Media Drawing Size 5x8
Leppard Shirt by RAE BK – Fragmented Form and Emotional Texture in Street Pop Art & Graffiti Artwork
Leppard Shirt is a 2022 original mixed media drawing by Brooklyn-based artist RAE BK, executed on 5 x 8 inch cardstock using markers, permanent markers, graphite, colored pencils, and ink, along with additional collage-like material accents. This one-of-a-kind piece showcases RAE BK’s spontaneous, layered, and emotionally coded visual language. Dominated by a bold abstract figure drawn in thick black linework with uneven features, the composition plays with portraiture in an intentionally fractured and expressive way. Facial elements are repeated, distorted, or echoed, while the shirt’s spotted pattern—a nod to the title—is rendered in blotched marks that drift between representation and symbolic texture. This work exists as both a drawing and an artifact, operating in the aesthetic chaos that defines Street Pop Art & Graffiti Artwork.
Expressionist Energy in Character and Surface
RAE BK’s figures are never clean or symmetrical—they are built from scratch, corrected in real-time, and imbued with raw, unfiltered emotion. In Leppard Shirt, the central face feels unstable, yet confident in its presence. The oversized nose, simplified eyes, and curved mouth are layered over washes of smudged material, creating a portrait that feels emotional rather than literal. The repetition of the face motif in miniature—like echoes or iterations—suggests memory or commentary. The artwork does not offer a resolved figure but rather a psychological imprint, drawn with urgency and spontaneity. This sense of emotional immediacy is what places RAE BK’s character work firmly within the tradition of Street Pop Art & Graffiti Artwork, where lines are as much about rhythm and response as they are about control.
Collage Elements and Material Disruption
The presence of mixed materials—including glitter, adhered objects, and what appears to be a barcode label—transforms the surface into a textural conversation between image and object. The artist uses the tools of the street—found fragments, improvised layers, raw media—and compresses them into a work on paper that feels sculptural and alive. These tactile additions don’t just decorate the page—they rupture it. They serve as interruption, symbol, and critique all at once. Glitter becomes a distortion. Tape becomes a gesture. The result is a drawing that functions like a wall paste-up or found tag—a message delivered in parts, open to interpretation but packed with presence. The layering and mark-making fuse into a visual field of controlled chaos, echoing the layered reality of urban experience and artistic survival.
RAE BK and the Language of Urban Artifact
RAE BK’s Leppard Shirt is a miniature yet complete embodiment of his larger practice—an intuitive blend of emotional abstraction, coded symbols, and reclaimed visual language. The piece doesn’t ask to be understood in a linear way. It exists as a document of feeling, a collision of internal narrative and found reality. His approach embraces imperfection, trusting the materials and their placement to speak louder than polished composition. As part of Street Pop Art & Graffiti Artwork, this drawing is a reminder that small-scale work can carry the same intensity and commentary as a mural or installation. RAE BK continues to create not from a need for explanation but from a place of urgency, rhythm, and resistance—giving paper, like city walls, the power to carry voices that refuse to be ignored.
