Street art has been around as long as, well, streets. It constitutes a broad output reaching way beyond garden-variety gang-graffiti – from lamppost design and sidewalk chalking to murals, poster design or even curb-side performance art and the varying architectural indulgences lining urban boulevards. Volumes have been published on just public pissoir-designs.
But as you thought all aspects of the street-art framework throughout its elaborate history have been covered, along comes a particularly insightful artist who has managed to encapsulate a corner of this broad-ranging heritage in unique form to create a fresh new sub-genre.

Inspired by the frayed, multi-layered fragments left behind on city walls and lampposts by the endless peeling and replacing of new graphic public announcements, Berlin-based Petrus Maree has literally rejuvenated the multi-faceted history of urban poster-culture.

His fascination with the visual chronologies hidden beneath these civic centres of information, has resulted in a medley of abstract impasto-like depictions representing the layered currents of Berlin’s cultural-political mechanics.

Starkly rendered in flat Gauguin-esque planes “The Pennywhistle Studies” reflects the raw undertone of Berlin (or any other cityscape) in all it’s arrhythmic and harmonious interchanges – the often discordant splash of colours highlighting the sometimes disturbing ebb and flow of urban renewal and decay. A near-tangible tension is caused by Maree’s raised paintwork depicting yet another layer of human enterprise being pried from its perch and discarded for a hovering new endeavour.

This is a must-see display of talent if you yearn for a new way to be drawn into the harsh but heartening heart of the city.

Chris du Plessis
Cape Town
January 2026