Biodata

Name[s]: Patrick Mcneil, Patrick Miller & Aiko Nakagawa

Origin[s]: Canada, USA & Japan

Age[s]: unknown [yet]

Genre: Sub-pop culture, fine art, sculpture, design, fashion

Forms of Art: stencils, collages, wheat-pasting, screen-printing, printmaking, paintings

Mediums: walls, bridges, canvas, t-shirts, shoes & anywhere they can paste stuff

Known art: Faile Bunny Boy, Faile Bunny Girl, Faile Dog, Bret The Hitman, Faile Mary, Faile Jesus|Tiger…

Website: http://www.faile.net

Early Years:

Faile began their colaboration as A-Life, consisting of long time friends Patrick Mcneil & Patrick Miller. Mcneil would later meet Aiko at one of his early exhibitions in a NY club, and soon the three got together to join the emerging underground movement called street art. They soon needed a name change as their popularity grew, more so because there was already an apparel brand called A-life. So, while sitting in their temporary jail cell after being arrested for fly posting [what else!] they came up with Faile, which is actually their former name rearranged. Pretty ingenious, really. They started wheatpasting their designs, catching wind from Obey, who had generally started wheatpasting as pretty much a form of generating interesting, awareness and to make their mark. Faile started doing this initially in different cities in the U.S. and soon expanded far and beyond, to Europe and Asia. They funded these trips by taking on design jobs. They then began to realise that stencil art was more permanent, and gradually moved on to painting and stencilling all over the world.

“Fear Made Him A Monster|Faile Made Him A Man” by Faile

Look And Feel

Indistinctly original and yet somehow familiar is how I would describe Faile’s collaborative efforts. If you merely look at it as a picture, you’d notice that the art is somehow taken from comic strips, book covers, fiction novels and yes, even the yellow pages. But scratch the surface and eat deeper into the art and you would most likely sense a tinge of dualism and collaboration. They seem to dwell on things like love|hate, violence|peace, ugly|beautiful, war|peace and so forth. You get the picture. To summarize that, it seems that they have a strong believe in Ying and Yang theories. If you look at their work closely, you would realize that a lot of membrains have died and pots of coffee have been consumed during the production stages of it. Their artwork often involves gelling the art itself into the urban decays of its surroundings.

“Sinful Pleasures” by Faile

Screen printing and stencils are still their primary form of work, but they have evolved and expanded far and beyond, and some of their recent works include the art of ‘layering’, or basically posting up layers and layers of random paper cuttings and making it form a bigger picture. They now produce their art on wood and glass and have even toyed around with laser etchings on screen prints. And yes, they sell posters, t-shirts and canvases of their work which you can get at their website: one of the most original and brilliant sites you’ll ever witness. Faile have also been busy at publishing books, four so far, called Orange, Death, Boredom and Lavender.

“Butterfly Girl” by Faile

Blood And Sweat

If you think about it, putting a Canadian, an American and a Japanese together in one room could be catastrophic based on history, but with these guys, it’s a match made in heaven. It’s even a lucrative business, and boy are these guys making moooolah. Their original prints and sculptures are going for tens of thousands of dollars, and their collaborative work with UARM[t-shirts] are really selling like hot cakes.

They also recently had their first ever exhibition, and I’ll let the pictures do the talking for this one. All I know is this: if you want to evolve from street art, then Faile best be your role models.

“Bunny Boy” by Faile

For a full set of pics, check out my flickr profile.